As one of the central, free services we offer authors, book reviews are an important part of our magazine. Our editors love to find themselves lost within the pages of someone’s imagination, and even books that may need more polishing have something unique and memorable to offer. Whether it be an emotional ride, or a visual one, a good book can imprint the reader permanently, forming a part of their memories for years to come.
It is a state of vulnerability, to some extent, to take the time to allow an author to project stories into our minds. Accordingly, when you approach potential readers to taste your work, try to understand and acknowledge this vulnerability. If you send out bulk, impersonal requests to as many reviewers as possible, you may very well get some responses, but you are not tapping into the real relationship that is created when a reader reads your work. Reaching out is the first stage of contact, and so it pays to make this as genuine and personal as possible.
You won’t get all the results you want, and many people will reject your requests – but this is just a part of the process, as all these readers have, just like you, taken that gamble on being vulnerable to an author’s work, and their opinions may not have been so welcome. You cannot expect positive or negative reviews – but learn to appreciate that if a reader agrees to genuinely read your work, bad or good, you’ve impacted them, and that’s all a true storyteller should hope for.
Bad or good, you’ve impacted them, and that’s all a true storyteller should hope for.
