How To Get More Book Reviews: Facebook Groups

Using Facebook Groups To Get More Book Reviews

There are hundreds if not over a thousand Facebook groups specifically for telling people about your new book. Many of these groups include the word “review” or “reviews” in their title because their purpose is to help members get reviews for their newly published books.

There are also Facebook Groups specifically for announcing newly published, FREE book offerings and 99cent sales.

Yet other Facebook Groups are for the purpose of sharing author and publishing information and asking for help with choosing Titles, book covers and even getting critiques on various bits and pieces of writing.

Finding and Joining Facebook Groups

Log into your Facebook Personal Profile account. In the top left corner there is a search box. Enter your search term starting with “groups: “. Starting with groups will filter out a lot of other unrelated accounts.

You will get a small popup panel that lists a dozen or more groups. In this panel you can see whether or not the groups is a PUBLIC group, meaning anyone can join, OR a CLOSED GROUP, meaning you need an invitation to join.

Click on the link at the bottom of the panel “See all results for …” A larger search panel will appear. All the CLOSED GROUPS will disappear and only the PUBLIC groups will remain.

You can go crazy and click on the JOIN button for as many groups as you want OR you can be a bit more cautious and click on the group TITLE to see more about the group. (see below)

When you click on the JOIN button, you will either be enrolled immediately, or you will have to wait for the ADMIN to approve your request. Come back in a day or so to find out what groups have approved you.

You can go crazy and click on the JOIN button for as many groups as you want OR you can be a bit more cautious and click on the group TITLE to see more about the group. (see below)

I prefer to be cautious when joining groups because some have become UN-moderated free-for-alls that are totally useless.

If you want to check the group and group rules before you JOIN … simply click on the title of the group. It will open the group and allow you to peek inside.

Read the DESCRIPTION first and see if you are prepared to live by the rules. Then take a look in the main panel to see what members are posting and how much they are posting.

Ask yourself if the members are being helpful and useful or are they just blasting away and not participating.

If you like what you see, then click on the JOIN GROUP button at the top of the main panel

Here are a few “group:” search terms that will give you good results:

groups: Kindle (you will get a wide open array that includes Kindle in the group name)
groups: Authors (a good place to look for author help groups)
groups: writing
groups: Kindle FREE (you will find hundreds of FREE books being promoted)
groups: Kindle 99 (99cent books only. Most rules state no free book, nothing over 99cents)
groups: Romance writer (this is a great way to find niche groups … substitute your niche instead of “romance”)

There you have it. Finding and joining groups is easy, creating posts, posting and responding to other Facebook members is the time consuming part!

Where Do You Find The Groups You Joined?

Go to your Personal Profile Facebook Dashboard by clicking on your Facebook name.

Then on the top menu find MORE, click on it to launch the drop down panel. Click on Groups.

Posting to Facebook Groups

There is nothing new here. You post and add images exactly the same way you do on your own Facebook page. You comment, like, and share exactly the same way you do on your friend’s Facebook page.

My advice is to keep your messages short. No one has the time or inclination to read a 600 word description of your book. Be sure to post an IMAGE. Either the cover of your book, or a banner you designed for Facebook advertising.

Play it safe by sticking within the guidelines (see Following the Guidelines Below).

If you are going to post to dozens or hundreds of groups:

Hire a VA (virtual assistant) posting is a perfect task for them. If they work for you daily, have them post for 30 minutes a day, with 10 minutes breaks every 5 minutes.

How to Get Reviews

These are the BIG questions:

Is using Facebook for getting reviews safe?
Is it ethical?
Will you have problems with Amazon?

It is safe as long as you stick to Amazons guidelines. For example if you simply post your book and tell readers about it, you aren’t breaking any rules.

If you post your book and ask readers to please download and review, you aren’t breaking any rules.

The “big crunch decision” comes when asking for guaranteed 5-star reviews or engaging in review exchanges.

I could NOT find any rules directly relating to review exchanges. If you can cite an Amazon rule in regards to exchanges, please do make a comment and let us all know.

A few years ago, IF I was having problems getting “starter reviews” for a clients books, I would do a few exchanges just to get the ball rolling. Over those few years, Amazon’s algorithms have gotten smarter and better at detecting friends and suspicious review. Mathematical formulas are used to detect black holes a million light years away … an algorithm that detects suspect reviews is child’s play in comparison! In spite of that, I continue to see “suspect” reviews! Would I do exchanges today? Maybe. If I have exhausted all other options I might do a few.

However before I engaged in exchanges I would first use Facebook Groups to post my books and politely request reviews (not exchanges). I would definitely engage in author groups to offer help and get help … and maybe a few reviews would come from those exchanges.

Engaging in Facebook Review Exchanges is YOUR decision. Do NOT say that I told you to do review exchanges, I am telling you that it is and OPTION and it is ultimately YOUR decision. If you choose to engage in exchanges don’t exchange reviews with someone more than once. Don’t display your exchange intent ON the Facebook group board … be sure to ONLY contact people via Personal Message.

IF you decide to do exchanges:

Remember, YOU have to read and review their book, so don’t load up too much. With review trades you will get everything from two sentence dreck reviews to really nice well thought out reviews. Because of the dreck reviews, I ask review partners for the link (URL) to their Amazon Review Page first. I look at their past reviews and then decide whether to proceed or not.

Keep yourself SANE by creating a spreadsheet and listing:
* their Facebook name
*the Facebook group you found them in
* the name of their book, URL and author name
* date on which you will do their review (add this to your calendar)
*date on which they posted their review

Once you’ve agreed to a review exchange, do your review, as promised and relentlessly follow up and make sure they review and post YOUR book review.

Here is the Amazon Review Rules Page. Make sure you read it.

Here is a quote about Reviews:

Promotions and Commercial Solicitations
In order to preserve the integrity of Community content, content and activities consisting of advertising, promotion, or solicitation (whether direct or indirect) is not allowed, including:

Creating, modifying, or posting content regarding your (or your relative’s, close friend’s, business associate’s, or employer’s) products or services.
Creating, modifying, or posting content regarding your competitors’ products or services.
Creating, modifying, or posting content in exchange for compensation of any kind (including free or discounted products) or on behalf of anyone else.
Offering compensation or requesting compensation (including free or discounted products) in exchange for creating, modifying, or posting content.
Posting advertisements or solicitations, including URLs with referrer tags or affiliate codes.

Following the Group Guidelines

Each Facebook Group has its own rules of engagement. Be sure to read them because if you break the rules you may be kicked out. This includes things like off topic posts, trying to sell stuff (other than the purpose of the group), posting too many times, etc. Sometimes you will get a warning, but some administrators are tough cookies and will simply ban you.

On top of the Group restrictions, Facebook also has its own restrictions on posting. Post too many times, to too many groups, in too short a time period and you will be restricted from posting anywhere for a week or even longer.

Best Advice

My best advice on using Facebook Groups for getting reviews is to join a group that will be useful to you in some other way. Participate and get to know some of the members. Help them out. When it is time to launch your book … ask some of your new “friends” to join your beta reading group or let them know your new books is about to be launched. Some of them will download or buy and some of them may give you a review.

Posting To Groups is a GREAT JOB for a Virtual Assistant.

Have your assistant join 10 to 20 groups. Supply them with several choices of images (banners) and blurbs about your book(s). Then have them post to five groups every day. If you want them to post to more than five groups, they NEED to leave 30 to 60 minutes between a pack of groups … otherwise they may get suspended. If they do 5 groups a day rotating groups each day (5 days a week) that’s 1300 posts in a year and will only take 5 minutes a day.

Do the Groups work? When I first started posting to book groups, years ago, I thought it was a pretty useless exercise and probably a gigantic waste of my time. But I promised myself to try it for a month.

In that month I noticed several things:.

#1 I downloaded about six free books and four 99cents books. I liked two of the books enough to do short reviews.

#2 Blew me away. I liked ONE of the free books I downloaded SO MUCH I bought the author’s entire series (27 books at the time and still going strong years later). To this day, the author keeps on posting her FREE book. WHY? Because it works! This woman KNOWS that marketing her books is all about persistence and consistency.

IF YOU TOO are persistent and post consistently, you will get downloads and purchases. You MAY get some reviews along the way.

Book Reviews are critical to your book’s success.
Be sure to read the entire How To Get More Book Reviews series:

How To Get More Book Reviews: Your Website
How To Get More Book Reviews: Social Media
How To Get More Book Reviews: Author Groups
How To Get More Book Reviews: Facebook Groups
How To Get More Book Reviews: Reviewer Blogs
How To Get More Book Reviews: Amazon Reviewers
How To Get More Book Reviews: Purchase Reviews (this method is legit)

Another GREAT Article: Asking for Book Reviews

Check out my list of recommended Books on Getting Book Reviews