Episode 39: Reviewers
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Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moth’s or any kind of moth you’d like to be. Welcome to this week’s episode of the writers triangle, where we talk about is a podcast about all things writing and books. And today, I’m going to talk about something that kind of came up for me this week, that kind of put it on my radar to talk about and that is the press’s relationship with reviewers, independent bookstores and big chain bookstores. Because that’s been one of the the funner and more exciting, but also more perplexing aspect of of owning a press and aspect of publishing books. And I think this impacts indie book writers and writers and authors who who sign with the press and get their book out there. What I’ve discovered is that reviewers do not tag us when they review the book. And that’s been something that was something that when it first happened, was quite shocking to me that reviewers wouldn’t tag the press, or the author would just do their review. In silence, I’m talking about like five star, you know, really positive reviews, I could see like, if you gave a book a bad review, not, you know, not talking the author, I think if you’re giving a book a bad review, don’t tag the author, don’t tag the press leave, you know, give the bad review, you have a right to give the bad review, I think bad reviews are valid, just like good reviews are valid. But when you’re giving a good review of a book, I would say go ahead on and and tag the press and and tag the author, because they’re going to celebrate and promote your blog, promote your YouTube channel, promote your book doc, your you know, your Facebook, your Instagram, anywhere, whatever social media, you’re putting it on, including Reddit, for me, and for at the press, something that that we do is we take turns googling the books every day. One of the reasons that we google the books is to make sure no one’s bootlegging the book and selling it. And we do catch a lot of bootleggers that way. But also to see if there are any new reviews. And so that means researching every single book that we have out across all social media platforms that we are aware of. And it’s really time consuming, but I think it pays off. Because it’s resulted in us having a lot of really great relationships with a lot of different reviewers who, you know, they most reviewers have a specific genre or type of book that they enjoy reviewing. There are some reviewers that just read just about anything. And in having those relationships if you’re if you are a reviewer, and even if you’re just starting out and you don’t have a big following. If you reach out to the press and say Hey, I heard about this book you have and I want to review it, I’ll send you a copy of the book. And because I want to review it, and then when you review it if you let me know that the review is out. I will share your review on social media and signal boost it and develop that relationship by back and forth your signal boosting awesome going to signal boost signal boost you and I’ve developed a lot of really friendly relationships with a lot of reviewers that I enjoy, I enjoy talking to them. I enjoy celebrating the books I’m reviewing that aren’t ours. Some of the reviews I find to be really insightful. I do read for fun, I read books that we don’t publish. And sometimes I read books we don’t publish based on a reviewer whose opinion I trust that I met because they reviewed one of our books. Being a book reviewer and choosing that job is so expensive, it gets expensive fast. And especially if you’re doing it on you know tick tock or Instagram or or Facebook or Twitter. I think all of the platforms, I think YouTube allows you to have more of a slow burn. But when you look at having to do 52 books a year if you’re only doing one video a week, that’s a lot of content to come up with if you figure okay I’m doing 52 books a year and if you’re not doing just purely Kindle Unlimited books, then you know for book four bucks a book write it if you’re only doing Kindle Unlimited crack on we’re not on Kindle Unlimited. Something I think about my go I go back and forth on but the rules of Kindle Unlimited is why we’re not we’re not doing because it has to be an exclusively Kindle Unlimited thing and you’re not allowed to do it through through other avenues.
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So if you’re a book reviewer, I know it’s kind of scary to approach a press and it’s kind of scary on social media to know when you’re worth it. And for Me, if you’re reviewing books, you’re worth it, I don’t need you to have hundreds of followers, I don’t need you to have 10s of 1000s of followers, you can have just t followers, it can be your very first ever, and you can have zero followers, because I valued the relationship. And I that’s going to sit on the internet forever. So it may be that there was one reviewer in particular not going to say their name, when they first reached out to us, they were gung ho really passionate going to do reviews, they’ve since stopped doing reviews, but that review of our book is still there. And it’s gaining momentum and gaining interest, you can still find it, you can still read it. And something that we’re doing with the process kind of got to get back on it was kind of fallen by the wayside because we’ve been a little bit busy. But having a review section on the cinnabar moth policy website where we showcase reviewers and highlight positive reviews that the books are getting. And we’re a little bit behind on that we are a lot better at it and 2021 than we have been in 2022. But that’s another, you know, the search engine optimization, that’s another out thing, and anything in terms of a URL that you have in another connection, looking at those links, and looking at what’s going to boost your your profile, and get your name out there and help you foster and grow and thrive, right as a reviewer. So don’t don’t be afraid the worst thing that can happen if someone tells you no, I haven’t said no to a single reviewer. I haven’t given every reviewer everything they’ve wanted. In terms of a signed copy from an author, those are a little bit trickier because we are in Japan, and I don’t like to tax our authors with doing things. So if you’re one of our authors, and you’re listening, and you’re we’re willing to send out signed copies, it’s a lot of work because we’re in Japan, we can order a book sent anywhere in the world. But to get an author to sign a copy, we have to send the copy to the author. And then the author has to either send it back to us or send it to his destination. And that’s why we’re not doing sign copies. But again, if you’re one of our authors, and you hear this and you’re like I’m down, that sounds awesome. Well, more than happy to do it kind of thing. So the long and short of it is if you’re a reviewer, look at our catalog, there’s any of the books that sound interesting to you, and you want to review them, let us know you’re not obligated to do good review, you’re obligated, we just want an honest review. And we’re more than happy to support you and have you support us. It’s a symbiotic relationship, we need reviewers, we need readers, we need those types of feedback, right. And this goes for if you’re a good reviewer, this goes if you’re an Amazon reviewer, you don’t have to have your own blog, you don’t have to be a YouTuber. If you’re posting your reviews, we have one off the bat post that posted on not one author rather, one reviewer that posts it on a review site that is specific for middle grade that post reviews that we Signal Boost and share copies with and such, send them copies of the books for review. To me, I think that that is time well spent, I think that that develops a type of relationship that’s going to help reviewers thrive. And that’s going to help the press thrive. And that’s in turn going to help our authors thrive. So hit us up long and short of that hit us up and and let me know if you’re interested. And I will send you books. We other moving on to the next relationship that I find interesting. And the other thing that we’re searching for so right we search for reviews, we search for bad cop bootleg copies, but we also search libraries. And searching libraries is an intensive.
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And it takes a really long time. So searching a library, we have several libraries, that local libraries that I know carry our books, and have our books. And we keep a list of libraries that we know once a library hits our radar, and we find that one of our books is in the library. We then start that library about once a month for all of our books. But to find out if a book one of our books is in a library, we have to know the name of the library. And we have to search that library’s catalog individually because the American Library Association does not have a list of what books are in an American Library. And the same for every country’s library system. So anytime we tweet out Talk about a book being in a library or available at a library. That’s because one of our team members has found that book through searching on Google through searching library systems, and found that that book is there. I wish that all of the libraries were centralised, I wish that there was a central database, all of our books go into the US Library of Congress. But that being in the US, right, the you bury the United States Library of Congress, that just lists out their libraries know about the book, it doesn’t obligate them to carry it, and it doesn’t let us know. And when we have a library sell, we know that we’ve sold a book to a library because it’s added at a different price three, and they have a different rate. It doesn’t tell us what library it is. And the only reason we’ll know what country the library is, and is because every country that we sell a book, and there’s a different accounting system for that. And so we do know by country, and we do know whether or not it’s in a library, but we don’t know where in that country. So we don’t have a city, a county, a state, we have nothing other than then country. And we wait until we amass a certain amount. And then I’m like, okay, short straw, who’s doing libraries is doing the library stores, and it is really a short straw situation. Everybody grounds and they’re like, those are so hard. I’m like, Yes, I know that they are time consuming, and taxing. But I want to celebrate libraries. And I want to celebrate our authors getting into libraries, because I’m really passionate about having authors feel positive about how their books performing, and feel positive about where their book is being distributed to. And who is is wanting to distribute their book. And for me knowing if I was an author, I’d want to know that my book was in libraries. So the thing of it with libraries is a little bit tricky is that your book might be in a library. And we might not know if you’re one of our authors. So if you come across your book in a library, hey, definitely let us know. And we’ll celebrate that library and, and celebrate that book being in a library, because that’s an important part of exposure and marketing. And it’s also, in my mind, it really does feel like a feather in the cap. I remember when the very first book we published the very first time I found it in a library, I was so excited. On inside, yes, we finally arrived. We’re in libraries, libraries value us and care about us. And if you’re a regular listener out the cast, then you know, or if you follow us on social media, you know, I just have a true love and passion of libraries. So the next thing in terms of marketing and research that we do is independent bookstores, independent bookstores, I absolutely love them. I’m absolutely passionate about our books being in them. We’re an indie press. Of course, we’re going to celebrate indie authors, and we’re going to celebrate indie bookstores, indie bookstores, do not tell us about any of the promotions that they do, whatsoever. So if I find, for example, if I find a book has made it into the top five of a list at an indie bookstore, or if that indie bookstore is putting the book on sale, or has put the book in a prominent place, or is doing any advertising and marketing of that book,
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and I tweet about it, or I share, or I shut it on on social media, that’s because it came up in a Google search. And I try and keep track of all of the indie bookstores that that carry our books, especially those that are carrying physical copies. A lot of any bookstores will purchase e copies and not physical copies, some indie bookstores purchased physical copies, and once those are sold, we’ll switch to you can order a physical copy from them. And that whole dynamic is really interesting to me. But having a book in a store in an indie bookstore, and being able to share that with an author is so exciting, saying This book has a physical copy. So I do I try to stay on top of showing when indie bookstores are carrying different titles, but I’m not always on top of it as I should be. Because it is labor intensive. And we do have other aspects of you know being a press that we have to intend attend to. So when we’re doing the the Google shirts not everything shows up but a simple search. We We have to do sometimes more complex searches. And we are, we’re changing the way that we communicate with Andy bookstores and indie retailers to have a more symbiotic relationship with them as well, the same approach that we’re taking with that we’ve been taking with reviewers, because we do want them to know that we are going to champion them. And for me, in this case, it’s not just a matter of when they’re selling our books, it’s if they’re holding an event at their bookstore, I want to talk about that event, I want to get people going to their physical store site. If they’re doing a bookmobile, I want to celebrate the fact that they’re I love bookmobiles, hugely passionate about bookmobiles, I want to celebrate the events that they’re doing, if they have an author coming in to give a reading, I want to celebrate those things. It’s not just about our books. And I think some bookstores have had a negative experience with developing relationships with indie presses. And I, I kind of, I’m hoping, and doing the work to recast the relationship and say, look, it’s not, I’m not gonna beg you to carry our books, you’re aware of us, you’re aware of our catalogue, I appreciate you carrying our books. And this is me just saying I appreciate you. It’s not developing a relationship to leverage you in any way. And I feel like indie presses and indie bookstores are in the same boat. It’s really tough. When you’re the point of contact for any sort of thing that that’s ending, and you’re the only person handling all of the contact, it gets really tough when people are bombarding you with their needs and bombarding you with wants, that you’ve already said, Hey, politely and kindly Hey, this is not appropriate, let’s not do this. Or when you’re just getting tons and tons of of messages from someone, even if they’re positive, even if they’re within the the, you know, appropriate, dynamic, there has to be an understanding of okay, this is too much. Let me, let me take it down a notch. So the things that when I talk with, with the indie bookstore owners, this is the type of feedback and gain like, you know, we’d love to have a relationship and all of that. But what happens when we don’t want to want to carry a book that you’re releasing, and nothing, you know, you
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carry a book, so that I’m happy with that. And, you know, I know that you’re aware of us, I know that you’re looking at a catalogue, I know that you’re looking at the books, and you’re considering us and that’s all I would ever ask is just to be considered. And they have, in my experience, for the most part, not all of them, I do have some that I’m making inroads and but a lot of them are still really weary and wanting to see how are other relationships work out. So I can get just about one a state, right? That will be like, Okay, we’re gonna be the one in this state that kind of develops this relationship with you and sees where it goes from there. And I find that that dynamic to be really interesting, because almost every state in the United States, and every province around the world has different book events. And at those events, these indie bookstore owners, they get together and they talk about their experience with authors and presses that we’re just now building enough momentum where enough people are talking about us, where they’re starting to reach out and embrace us and have those relationships. I’m humbled, honored, and grateful. And I’m, I’m just putting it out there to the universe. I want to have close relations with with any bookstore chains I do with mom and pop any bookstore with mom and pad, you know, book cart, whatever level and at any level that someone is selling books, I want to have a relationship with them, I want to uplift them, I want to support them. I think that what indie bookstores can do and what indie publishers can do and what indie authors can do is rationalize, you know, revolutionize revolutionize the whole culture of what it means to have books out there, what books are getting out there and raise the profile without it’s not just what the means what the mainstream dictates, right? Going outside of the mainstream and looking at those undervalued voices and underrepresented voices and elevating them. So that’s my experience with reviewers and librarians and indie books. Next is the big chain bookstores, something I’m super, super proud of our team about and super excited about is that we do have physical books in big chains. So when I’m thinking of big chains, I’m thinking like Walmart, Barnes and Noble, those physical, big chain stores. So those are the two off the top of my head that came in, there are other ones, forgive me for not mentioning you. If I’m missing a big chain bookstore, it was really exciting to have physical copies, every single title that we have, has at least one physical copy at one, Barnes and Noble. And that may not seem like a lot as an indie pressed lead, that’s a toe in the door. Barnes and Noble knows who we are, they’re excited about our books, they’re picking up our books. And for me, you know, in a perfect world, you’re on that table when you first walk in, right, the number one spot in the bookstore. But this is showing me that we’re gaming, and terms of the industry, we’re gaining and respect, we’re gaining a notoriety or gaining and focus. And it was just a lot of work and a lot of conversations and a lot of strategy. And it starts with being okay with just having any book having that be the only thing that Barnes and Noble will sell of yours. And the same with Walmart being okay with them just carrying the ebook and saying Do your book sells and we’re being we’re fortunate enough that ebooks were selling at a rate that was enough that they started purchasing, you know, some physical copies. Here’s the thing. I don’t know what city those physical copies are in. And I don’t have the store number for where those physical copies are. But you can order a physical copy from any store in any city, in any state or province, globally. And that was huge. For me, it is a little bit challenging that you can’t get a store number, right, because that’s like the thing like I would love to have a store number, I would love to be able to, you know, contact an author and say your book is in this store at this address, and have them go and see it.
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We just don’t have the information. And I was getting to know them and talking about them. I was surprised that neither do the big four that were once the big five. And that was quite shocking to me. There are some books that they know what their distribution is going to be. But they don’t know that distribution for every single one of their books. And I was surprised because the assumption was that you know, these big publishers, they know everything. Everyone’s telling them everything. They’re sharing all the information. And when they weren’t, I was like, Huh, okay. And, wow, I didn’t know that. So it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take relationships, and it’s going to take consistency, to get that from them. And that made me feel really good. One of the ways I do that as I pay attention, you know, we is by searching out when they’re doing sales of our books, promoting that because they are looking at us. They are, believe it or not, there is a person who works for Barnes and Noble that does if you are an author that does look at your social media and what you’re doing. That was shocking to me, I thought they’re not noticing me, you know, we’re a really intimate boutique press. We don’t have a lot of books out. We’re not we haven’t been around for years and years, you know, we’re not old, we’re not fully established yet. But what we’re accomplishing is is something I’m super proud of and super shocked by and it was really cool to know that there are people at Barnes and Noble they’re looking at us there are people at Walmart, they’re looking at us and I want to share that with the indie author who has published their own books that you can get noticed and that they will recognize you and they will see you and that the watcher trajectory in the in the watch your career and I’m sorry that it is a silent viewing. I wish that they would reach out and say, Hey, we’re watching what you’re doing. This is what you could do to improve it. That’s not their job, right? They don’t work for us. And they’re the ones that have something that that we want. The same thing with with online distributors that I found we have like a really great relationship with Smashwords. And we have a really great relationship with booktopia booktopia and we and several other where they’re just purely online sales. And they do cross cross promotion. So we are in our books are promoted in a lot of digital ad campaigns. And that was a lot of, of labor and a lot of love, and having something to offer an exchange. And that promoting us online with a couple of the electronic book distributors is because we are then in turn promoting them on our cinnabar moth literary collections website. And we’ve been very, very fortunate fortunate that that website is, you know, having over 20,000 people come and visit it a month. And so when you have that number, you know, I think now sort of like anything 10,000 or more, you start to have a voice and you start to have, okay, I have something to offer you, and you have something to offer me, and we have those conversations, and we put ourselves out there, and we take that risk, and we take those big swings. And in addition to all of that, again, it goes back to Googling and being vigilant and, and catching sales. And if you’re an author and your weapon nd pressing, you notice that your book is on sale somewhere, and you go to the time to promote it, let your press know, Hey, I found the sale, or hey, I found my book in this place. Or hey, this is the information that I’m able to gather when I’m searching my book and when I’m checking on things with with my book and when I’m checking on, on good reason, Amazon and an all of the different distribution or just mi straight, people share that information, because I guarantee you that your process is going to want that information and want to shot that information out as well. Right? And support your success because we succeed when you succeed. And if you’re an indie author, and you’re doing it all on your own, get promotion just going with with other indie authors and, and reach out to them and talk to them and say, Hey,
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I’m not gonna, you know, go full on promote, all I do is promote. But can we do a pin for pinned? Or can we do you know, once a month, I shout you out once a month you shout me out and build those relationships and build those connections and get that support. I know that I feel really excited every time I catch a new level of support, or interrelation or relationship that the press has developed a nice shirt. And I always include indie authors in the conversation. And, you know, indie booksellers and indie presses. Because I think together, we can accomplish so much more than if we’re fractured and viewing each other as rivals. Because I don’t think anyone is, is our arrival. I say that all the time. And y’all know, I love authors. And I love libraries. And I love booksellers. I love everything to do with, with books, and I’m developing a great passion for everything to do with with publishing and every time I get a new bit of, of knowledge or something, you know, kind of tickles me, I’m going to get on the mic and share it with you guys and share it on the cast. And I hope that y’all will feel comfortable hitting us up and sharing some insights that you have, you know, you can leave your insights down in the comment or you can hit us up on social media cinnabar moth pub, and let’s share info, you know, drop me an email at Media at cinnabar moth.com. You know, let’s make this a collective thing. Let’s collaborate because I’m down for collaboration. I’m down for for cross promotion. I’m excited about it. And I hope that you are too. So that’s it for today. Thank you to all of our beautiful cinnabar moss for listening or any kind of month you want to be. And if you’re not a monkey, you can be a butterfly, but I’m not Mariah Carey and I’m not trying to steal her rhyme by