9 ways to use reader reviews in book marketing

You already know that reader reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and anywhere else books are sold online are essential.

They’re the social proof you need to convince people to buy your books.

But did you know you can make glowing reviews work harder for you?

Give your five-star reviews new life by incorporating them into your book marketing and promotion campaigns and material. Here are nine ways to use reader reviews in book marketing. You can get started using them immediately.

EDITED TO ADD: Helpful commenters below remind us that the reviewer owns the copyright on the review, so ask for permission before using it.

1. Add them to social media headers.

Use one (or two!) in your Facebook page cover image, Twitter and LinkedIn headers, and Instagram profile.

Here’s how Jamie Jo Hoang showcases a starred Kirkus review of Blue Sun, Yellow Sky in her Twitter header.

2. Showcase them on your website.

Where you place them on your site depends on your site design and purpose, but many authors can find a home for a good review next to a book cover image on the home page.

Do you have a page on your site for each of your books? Add the positive reviews there, too, in a large font.

3. Create quote cards with them.

I’m a big fan of using quote cards (also known as “image quotes“) to share good news on social media. They’re perfect for every social network you use.

I created several from the positive reviews of the new Build Book Buzz Reader Book Review Forms. Here are two of them.

Here’s one for The Wife Between Us. (Scroll down the page at that link, too, to see more of them that the publisher created.)

Create them using Canva.com or with a smartphone app that combines images and text. I like using WordSwag.

4. Print them on bookmarks.

Bookmarks are probably the most commonly used book marketing materials. They’re easy to create today, thanks to online services that include Moo.com (affiliate link).

A pithy reader review quote is one of my top five elements for a bookmark. The others are the book title, cover image, your name, and your website URL.

5. Add them to postcards.

No, printed postcards are not passé. Because more and more (and more and more) marketers have shifted away from postal mail to email marketing, printed marketing materials get noticed in a traditional mailbox.

Yours will make the best impression possible when you include a glowing reader review. You can order them online with VistaPrint (search online for a coupon code to use with your order) and Moo.com (affiliate link).

6. Add them to the back pages of subsequent books.

Each time you write a book, add reviews of earlier books to the back. This will help readers discover your “backlist” — your older books.

If you are stopping at one book, but will publish an updated edition, add those reviews to the front of the newest version. They will add the social proof you need for someone flipping through your book in a physical store or online.

7. Use them to improve your book’s description.

Did a reviewer describe your novel’s character in a positive, memorable way?

Did a reader add an observation about your credibility and expertise to a nonfiction book review?

When it makes sense, update your online description with this new information. For example, if a reader describes your twenty-something amateur sleuth protagonist as “a millennial Nancy Drew,” use it in the book’s description.

In the mid-1990s, when a journalist described me as “the Ermba Bombeck of the ’90s,” the publisher added that phrase to my first book’s back cover description.

8. Incorporate them into your next book’s marketing campaign.

Readers considering your new book are influenced by what others have said about your previous works.

Use that to your advantage by adding positive reviews on earlier books to:

• The inside pages of your newest book
• Printed marketing materials such as bookmarks and postcards
• Website
• Facebook page

Introduce those reviews with this simple sentence: “Here’s what readers have said about (AUTHOR NAME)’s previous books.”

9. Let them guide what you write in your next book.

Reader feedback can provide important insights into what your fans want from you.

For example, if readers adore one of your secondary characters, you can capitalize on that by giving her a bigger role in your next book.

Perhaps fans of your instant pot cookbook rave about your vegetarian recipes more than anything else. Give them a vegetarian instant pot cookbook, too.

Need help getting those reviews? You’ll love the Build Book Buzz Reader Book Review Forms. There’s one for fiction, another for nonfiction.

Each is a simple, easy-to-use fill-in-the-blanks form that you give to readers to help them write more reviews. Buy one form; share it with as many readers as you want. Learn more on the Reader Book Review Form information page.

How do you use your favorite reader reviews? Please tell us in a comment.