Book review bloggers are doing for authors what YouTube has done for musicians: Making it possible for aspiring unknowns to make it big and become well-known, often well-loved artists.
Gone are the days when record house and publishing house executives wielded all the power. Today, the people have much of that power, as the Internet and social media make grassroots promotion of an author or other artist an everyday occurrence. Individuals now have more sway in determining who makes it big than ever before. These individuals are spread across the globe, and they reach people across the globe.
In the book publishing world, we have book review bloggers to thank for injecting this populist, grassroots fever into the industry. More people than you can imaging are turning their love of books into blog platforms where they bring authors and readers together.
Since TouchPoint Press launched my Contemporary novel Horseshoes and Hand Grenades in late September 2019, I have been gobsmacked, to use one of my favorite British terms, by the outpouring of support I’ve received from book review bloggers. These blogs are much more than book reviews. Many also post content including author interviews, book excerpts, guests posts by authors, and “cover reveals”. And many are authors in their own right.
A dozen or so of these gracious bloggers will be participating in my first “blog tour” from January 27 – February 2, 2020. I’ll write more about that later.
So if you go to my Author Interviews page, you’ll certainly find a good number of traditional media interviews: newspapers, TV and radio. But more and more, you’ll find information about me and my books living on book review blogs.
In the past, I’ve shared some specific blogger posts on this, my own blog, and I share virtually all blogger posts on my social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn). Here are links to some recent blog posts about Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. Countless others have helped spread the word that “almost counts” through re-tweeting information and posting other promotional type content.
- Don Jimmy Reviews (Ireland) posted an excerpt
- Meet The Authors posted an interview
- Chat About Books (U.K.) posted an interview and excerpt
- B is for Bookreview (Belgium) posted an interview and excerpt
- ChickLit Central (U.S.) featured Horseshoes and Hand Grenades on its Bookshelf
- Jeri’s Book Attic posted an excerpt.
Please visit these sites and consider subscribing to those that catch your fancy. Or follow them on your social media platform of choice. Because what goes around comes around.
I also want to acknowledge Anne at Random Things Through My Letterbox; even though Horseshoes and Hand Grenades isn’t a great fit for the blog (many book review blogs focus on select genres), Anne was very generous with her advice out of the goodness of her heart on a recent occasion. It’s a perfect example of the support that makes the new global community of bloggers, book promoters, authors and readers so incredibly fantastic and, at the end of the day, powerful.
