Want More Book Reviews and Subscribers to Your Newsletter? New Free Website (www.StoryCartel.com) Delivers Both

Writing the book is one thing; getting it attention is another. We’ve been told as writers that the more reviews are books garner, the higher ranking they’ll receive on Amazon, which translates to more fans, more sales. But how do we get the reviews? Well most writers ask friends and family to review, offer free books on their blog or Facebook, in exchange for reviews or seek out bloggers on their own. Yet others may go to high profile companies and pay hundreds of dollars for one review.  I hope it was worth it!

This can be very pain-staking, and unfruitful. How many times can you ask your friends to write a review? How many bloggers ignore your requests?

Thorough some research, I’ve discovered a new website that brings readers and writers together… and it’s FREE for both parties. Not only will you get people eager to download your book, but they also promise to leave an honest review. The site has thousands of qualified readers. They even have an option where you can DOWNLOAD a .CVS of all the people who downloaded your book. That way you can gather email addresses and add them to your newsletter list.  To me, this is more priceless than the reviews.

Is there a catch? You’ll only have to offer one of three prizes for reviewers to enter and win (if they leave a review). This is a pretty cool incentive to get downloads and reviews. Simply adding a contest on your facebook page or website may get you a trickle of entries, but this site has access to more readers.

So what’s the name of this website and how did I do using it?

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It’s called www.storycartel.com

Here is an image of my current listing from the site:

Link to my book directly: http://storycartel.com/books/107/the-unfinished/

The listing shows my book cover, what I’m offering as rewards, description. Also has a heading: FOR FANS OF:, where you can list popular authors of the same genre of your book to make it easier for readers to find you. They also have a CONNECT WITH AUTHOR where you list your websites, social media sites, etc.

The three items you have to choose from in order to post your listing are:

1) Hard Copies Mailed to Winners or

2) 3 $10 Amazon Gift Cards or

3) Kindle

Now most of us choose the gift cards, But if you’re feeling generous and want a ton of reviews, offer the kindle. The website selects the winners and you just fulfill the orders.

Note: You’ll need to offer your book in different formats to make sure you can accommodate the most people. You need epub, mobi, pdf. If you don’t have versions of all these, check out free converters online. I use: http://www.go4epub.com/ and http://www.convertfiles.com/convert/ebook/EPUB-to-MOBI.html

I believe they have your book up for 4 weeks and provide instructions on how to promote.  Yes, you should still promote if you want a ton of downloads.  I tweeted and posted on facebook.

Here is my current dashboard which shows that I have 28 downloads so far. I have a couple more weeks for this run. I’m not sure how long the reviewers have to read the book, but there should be a deadline.  I hope there is.

I’ll post an update to this in about a month to see what the ratio of reviews to downloads is. But either way, I love the site enough to share it with you. It’s so nice having an avenue such as this to spread the word about our books. The website is sleek, easy to navigate and inviting.  (And no, I’m not an affiliate).

Readers – this site is for you too! REGISTER and start receiving quality books for free. Search by genre, favorite authors, etc.  But please, only register if you intend on writing a thoughtful review on Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, etc.

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