Professional Publishing: How to Master Editorial Reviews

Editorial-Reviews.
Browsing through print books in libraries, bookstores, or in your own book shelves at home, one thing stands out – compared to digital books in your eReader or on your computer screen: almost all of them have editorial reviews on the inside flap or the back matter.  These are often just excerpts from reviews, but most of the “reviewers” or “endorsers” are household names: bestselling authors or experts in the book’s genre.  You might ask: How can a book already have endorsements and reviews before it is even printed?

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Trade publishers are setting up ARC’s (Advance Review Copies)  – often not even edited – and send them out to newspaper and magazine editors, librarians, bestselling authors in the same genre and influencers in the books category. They start 6-8 months before book launch to send out advance copies of the book in order to get reviews before printing and formatting it. Those early reviews are used for the book’s cover, for marketing purposes and certainly for sales pages at all online retailers. This is exactly what self-publishers can do too.
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Editorial Reviews on Your Amazon Sales Page.
Let’s assume you have finished your manuscript and edited it. In order to obtain early reviews and endorsements,  just go to a digital printer (or copy studio) and get a couple of book print outs.  Send them out to the most influential writers, bloggers, reviewers, librarians, bestselling authors in your genre, and media people.  Use excerpts from the best reviews and add them to your book’s cover and marketing text – and your online retailer’s sales page under the section EDITORIAL REVIEWS.  In case you don’t have a print version of your book yet, only the e-book or audio-book version: placement of these reviews and endorsements at all sales pages is even more crucial!

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Checking out the Amazon sales pages of one of our book marketing clients – a successful independent multi-book author – I discovered that on each of his book’s pages instead of the “Editorial Review” only a short description “About the author” was placed.  As there is already a section for an author bio on the page, he could have placed either or all of these:

  • Editorial Reviews (or parts of) from authors in the genre
  • Updated Book Description
  • An Author Message
  • Product Detail Page
  • From the Inside Flap
  • From the Back Cover
  • Magazine / Newspaper Reviews
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How to Update Editorial Reviews.
The place for editorial reviews at Amazon for example is also a great opportunity to post reviews that are usually not accepted by Amazon “as you are related to the reviewer”, or if the review was an “exchange between colleagues”.  How to add a new editorial review is explained on Amazon’s Author Central help site:

  • Log in to Author Central.
  • Click the Books tab at the top of the page.
  • Click on the book you are updating editorial reviews for and select the applicable edition as each can be updated separately. Under Editorial Reviews, there are three possible links:
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    If there is no review yet:
    Click Add and follow the instructions at the top of the Add review window to enter the text of the review.
    If you are entering a Review, you must also enter the review source. This is the name of the person who wrote the review and the name of the publication, website, or forum in which the review appeared.
    If you are entering From the Author, From the Inside Flap, From the Back Cover, you do not need to enter a source.
    Click Preview and review your entry.
    When you’re satisfied, click Save changes.
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    If there is a review you can edit:
    Click Edit and make the desired changes to the text.
    Click Preview and review the entry.
    When you’re satisfied, click Save changes.
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    If your review has been manually edited by Amazon in the past:
    we may ask you to send us your updates. In these cases, we will make the updates for you, and they will appear on the website within 5 days.
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    Got a message that Your Content is Too Long?
    The character counts (including spaces) for Editorial Review fields are:
    Review—600 characters
    Product Description—2400 characters
    Words From the Author, From the Inside Flap, and From the Back Cover—8000 characters

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What about Customer Reviews?
Customer Reviews are written by customers about your book. They can be found near the bottom of a product detail page and are NOT editorial reviews.
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Pete Nikolai Provides the Following Advice:
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“To make edits, you must first claim your Author Page and make sure your book is listed there so that it is clear that Amazon recognizes that you are the author.

_ click the link for the book on which you want to add editorial reviews
_ in the Review section, click the Add button
_ go to the site that has the review to select and copy it into memory
_ go to the Amazon page for editorial reviews of your book and paste as plain text in the text entry box (in Windows: right-click to select “Paste as plain text”)

On a paperback or hardcover: add one review at a time to avoid exceeding the 600 character limit for each review. On an ebook: you must add all reviews at one time and the character limit for all those reviews combined is 1,750 characters
_ edit the review to put the source after the review as per the Amazon Guidelines
_ click the Preview button
_ if review is acceptable then click the Save Changes button
_ if you have another review to add then click the Add button and continue through the steps again

If you have made any edits on the Amazon pages for both the print and ebook editions of your book then you will probably need to add the reviews on both editions too–just repeat the steps above to add each review on both editions. On the rare occasion that Amazon has made changes to a section, a “Request a Correction” button will be shown and you must click it and follow the instructions to have Amazon make the corrections you request.

You can add several “Editorial Reviews” and each one is important in confirming the quality of your book and removing a potential impediment to sales.

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How to Set Up Your Amazon Author Central Account:
Amazon explains: once published, expect to receive an email from Kindle Direct Publishing announcing the news and inviting you to create your Amazon Author Central Account.  Note your book’s ASIN enclosed in the email.  You will need this to locate your book later and associate it to you as the author.  Just sign up for free accounts on both sites, and follow the instructions to set up your page:
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Use all the Space Amazon Gives You:

  • Add a professional author photo & biography
  • Add all your books
  • Add videos (e.g. trailers for your books)
  • Add up to seven additional photos, e.g. you writing your books or scenes from your book
  • Add images or graphics from your books content
  • Add a biography – make sure to update it frequently
  • List events, such as book readings or book launches
  • Add your Twitter address so people can see your latest Tweet and easily follow you
  • Set up the “Search Inside/Look Inside” feature
  • Add an RSS feed, linking to your blog – a great way to get your blog in front of new people and encourage them to follow you.

View and edit the list of books you have written – the Amazon system doesn’t always get it right.  If you have written more than one book, it will link your titles together, and allow your readers to find all of your work.  Edit your product description and “about the author” section, add any professional reviews you have had.”
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You need a separate account, (and also author pages) for each Amazon “country” where you sell your book: USA, Canada, UK, Australia, India, Germany, France, Japan etc. to reach your readers worldwide – and you have to do it separately for each country.
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Be aware that the versions vary slightly.  You can also use an English version and one in the language of the country if you speak it or have a professional translation (not Google!).  Beside for Japan I was able to place it in each language on the pages for these countries.

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Fazit: Before creating an author page, check out the ones from famous writers / publishers to see how it is professionally done.  There is a lot you can copy.  I am not saying that these sites are always perfect, but it will help you tremendously to avoid rookie errors.

Read more about creating a professional Amazon author page.

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