Friday, April 4, 2014

How bloggers like to be approached

by Babs Hightower & Barb Drozdowich

Please welcome these two very busy ladies who stopped by to discuss the merits of approaching bloggers, when an author, public relations person, or publisher wants to 'get the word out' about a new release. I have used Babs' time as a PR guru, and I have had my books reviewed on Barb's and Bab's blogs. This is good stuff!--Nancy Lee

Babs Hightower
 Book review bloggers do a lot of reviews and get a ton of request each day from various authors, publicists, assistants and publishers.   Each of who want their emails looked at in hopes of a new review.  What about the blogger and what they want?

A blogger wants respect.  They started their blog for a reason and not all want a free book.  Most are to help the author promote their work.  There are several ways to get your email deleted; one of the quickest is a form letter in the email.  They are very easy to spot as there no personalization.  You are taking the time to email the blogger for a review, why not take the time to look at their blog.  You had to get their name / email from somewhere.  A blogger wants to feel as if you too the time to go to their blog, look around, read their review policy if they have one and get their name. 

Another way to get an email deleted is getting our name wrong or better yet not using a name and just calling us “Dear Blogger”.  Most of us will not read the email. We know then you never came to our blog or even looked at our review policy.  This is like a slap in the face and why would we want to read anything you are offering?
Barb Drozdowich
When you request a review, make sure it is what we read.  There is a reason we all have a

review policy on our blog.  We each read different things and you want the right reviewer for you book.  Nothing makes us more irritated then receiving a request for a book in a genre we do not read.  You would like the right people to review and we would like the right books to read.  
 
Bloggers want to help authors get their name out and help promote their latest work.  To do this we need the right authors and the authors need the right bloggers.  You want to get your book out to the right audience to sale more.  It’s a win-win for us all to have the right people in place. 
Blurb:
Do you feel out of your comfort zone when dealing with book bloggers? They are the New Gatekeepers to book publishing success – but how can you tap into that source of free promotions by putting your best foot forward?
The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers combines the advice of 215 blogging professionals collected in a survey covering all aspects of communication between authors and Review Blogs. Whether you are a new author, or have many titles under your belt, let us demystify the promotion of your book on a book blog.
You’ll learn about whom and where book bloggers are, and the following:  The Query, The Review,
The Giveaway, The Author Interview, The Guest Post, The Book Blurb Excerpt and Cover Reveals and more!
“I’ve found Barb’s advice on forging a professional relationship with the blogging community indispensable. Her step-by-step approach will help you garner the reviews needed to increase book sales.”–Christine Nolfi, bestseller author of Treasure Me
The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers is available on:
About the authors:
Barb Drozdowich
Bio: Social Media and Wordpress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.
Barb can be found: 
BakerviewConsulting (Business Site) 
BarbDrozdowich (Author Site) 
Sugarbeat’sBooks (Book Blog) 
Babs Hightower
Bio: Babs has been helping authors since 2000. She owns a book review blog Babs Book Bistro which got her started in PR and helping authors promote themselves. In 2012 she started working for Entangled Publishing and worked her way up to Publicity Director over the Scandalous Imprint. She is a publicist for World Castle Publishing. She is also known as Morgan Kincaid writer of Historical Romance.

Babs can be found:

Facebook     FacebookAuthor     Goodreads
Google + Pinterest

Their other helpful Books:





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