aka: A Better Way to Contact Me

Like most book bloggers I get my fair share of authors, publishers and publicists making use of my contact form to try to get me to read/promote their latest book.

By far the most common request I get is some variation on the standard ‘form’ letter, now there’s nothing wrong with this, but unless you’re Suzanne Collins or Scholastic offering me the an ARC of Catching Fire – hey I can always hope! – then it isn’t going to stand out from the rest, so, if you are not in that fortunate position then a different approach is needed.

So, I thought might be a good idea to take a quick look at what makes some requests more successful than others.

Simply because of way I was contacted, I recently accepted two books that normally I would have declined, the first was a self-published work and the second was from a small publisher.

• If you are a self-publisher, then unfortunately, you are going to have to work harder than most. It’s probably not your fault and I don’t dismiss self-published works out-of-hand, but there are too many people who can self-publish that shouldn’t, and end up with poorly edited, un-proof-read, books, and I have unfortunately ended up with my fair share. So if you want me to consider your book, and you self publish, then you could do worse than follow the example of a recent publicist.

  Who, first of all sent a polite email commenting on my blog and reading tastes, told me a little about the book and the author and then pointed me towards a well designed informative website, where I cold get more information, and ended by asking if I might be interested in talking further.

  I was impressed by the site, and intrigued enough by the book’s plot that I followed this up with an email expressing some interest and asking for more information. To which I again received a polite and individual reply, the end result: I agreed to read the book.

• Another example: this time again from a publicist but this time from a small press publisher. Once again, I received a polite friendly initial email, from someone who had obviously read my blog and knew a little about the kind of books I liked to read.Unfortunately, this particular book didn’t tempt me. However, I still ended up accepting a book from them. Why? When I replied to decline the offer, I received a lovely response and ended up having a great conversation with the guy. The result? A week or so later a book dropped on my doorstep.

What do both of these have in common? They each took the time to tailor their pitch to me personally, had actually looked at my blog, and then didn’t just send a form letter, because of this I gave them the requests the attention the extra effort this deserved.

Will this work every time? Let’s be honest, no it’s not. I’m still going to have to be interested enough by your book to take it on and review it, but if I had just received a form email, then I probably wouldn’t have agreed to take either.

To open this up to everybody else; has the way you’ve been contacted, ever persuaded you to review a book you normally wouldn’t? Or have you had requests that stand out in of memory even if do didn’t end up reviewing the book. Share your experiences in the comments.