Hello friends! Sagan here. Welcome back to Indie Author Weekly, where I share my behind-the-scenes journey of writing and self-publishing books.
If you’re new to this podcast, I am a productivity strategist for multi-passionate creatives at SaganMorrow.com: I help people manage their time and energy effectively, through customized, actionable strategies that work for your unique life and business. When I’m not teaching about productivity to solopreneurs, I spend my time writing romance novels, and occasionally, business books. And that is what this podcast is all about: the adventures of the author life.
Now let’s get into this episode of the Indie Author Weekly podcast. Today, I want to share about something I’m doing for the month of August: it’s the Book Review A Day Challenge!
The idea behind this little challenge is to spread the word about awesome authors and books I love, especially other indie authors and romance novelists.
Let’s be clear: Book reviews are for readers. The more that we review books, the more that other readers can decide whether a particular book will be a great fit for them. Frankly, it’s a time commitment to read a book! We’re helping each other out by reviewing books honestly, so that people know right away whether they should read one book or another. Thoughtful book reviews are so important.
Plus, reviews are also incredibly helpful for authors: the more reviews a book has, the more that bookstore algorithms will boost a book, and the more that we are in essence supporting those authors in their livelihood.
Tagging authors in positive reviews can also mean the WORLD to them. Authors put their heart and soul in their work, and sometimes we can face a lot of insecurities and anxieties about our writing and storytelling. If you like a book, and you tell an author that—either by reaching out directly, or by writing a review and tagging them in it—then you’re giving them a boost of confidence and encouraging them to continue with their big writing dreams. That’s pretty cool, don’t you think?
Now, I think we sometimes assume that writing a review is a lot of work or a daunting process, but even a couple sentences can make a big difference. It doesn’t need to be a big production if you don’t want it to be. In a past episode of Indie Author Weekly, I shared tips for writing effective book reviews—you can get those tips and ideas by tuning into Episode 12.
For this particular Book Review A Day Challenge, because I’m currently preparing for my upcoming romantic comedy book launch on August 25, I want to promote other indie authors and romance writers. It’ll be like a fun, ongoing celebration of indie romance novels! I’ll be posting my reviews on Instagram Stories, BookBub, and GoodReads—you can follow me, Sagan Morrow, on any of those platforms. I’ll link to them in the show notes, too.
By the way, if you are listening to this podcast as an author and you have a book you’d love for me to review, please don’t hesitate to reach out! You can connect with me on Twitter and Instagram, @Saganlives, or email me hello@saganmorrow.com to let me know about your book. Full disclosure, I’m a Kobo reader, so if your book is only available on Amazon, then I can certainly share about it, but I won’t be able to read or review it
So, I’m curious: are you going to join me in the Book Review A Day Challenge? How many books have you read and loved, but then not gotten around to reviewing? Now’s your chance to do it!
If you’re looking for additional books to read and review, then I would absolutely love it if you want to review one of my books! Search “Polyamorous Passions” on your favourite e-bookstore to read my romantic comedies right now, or visit SaganMorrow.com/books for all the direct links.
You are also invited to join my book launch team for my upcoming slow burn, forced proximity enemies-to-lovers romance novel, Her Bad Idea—visit SaganMorrow.com/booklaunch to do that now. You’ll get immediate access to an advance reader copy when you do that.
I can’t wait to hear about all of the books you’re reading and reviewing this month! Are you going to accept the challenge
Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram, @Saganlives, to chat about this further or if you have requests for future episode topics. The more you tell me what you’d like to see more of on this podcast, the better that I can accommodate that. You can also submit your questions or topic ideas anonymously at SaganMorrow.com/question.
If you enjoyed this episode, please take 2 minutes to share this podcast on social media and subscribe and rate it on Apple Podcasts—any time you share it or leave a rating or review, it helps more listeners find the Indie Author Weekly podcast, so every bit counts! I really appreciate your support.
By the way, you can access complete word-for-word transcripts of this episode and all past episodes, plus sample chapters of my books and a few other bonuses and goodies, on the “secret” version of this podcast. Get access to all of that at SaganMorrow.com/secretpodcast.
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Indie Author Weekly podcast, and I will see you in the next episode.