I’m sure you guys have seen tons of posts about bad behavior at BEA and how you should act if you plan to go next year.  That is not what this post is about.  Everyone must decide on their own how they want to represent themselves so I am not even going to talk about that.  Instead I am going to share a few of the tips I learned from publishers at BEA and BBC this past week!

#1-Early buzz is good!

When I first started blogging the rules were that reviews needed to be posted the day of the book’s release or around that time.  Now though 4-6 weeks in advance is okay for most publishers because of pre-orders.  Include a link where someone can easily pre-order the book that you are reviewing and you are good to go.  Maybe tweet your earlier review the week of the release as well but you don’t necessarily have to wait quite so long anymore.  Early buzz from bloggers has actually helped make some books, such as Divergent by Veronica Roth, best sellers.  It really does help!

#2-Send your links to the publishers!

Publishers really do want links to your reviews and they would love all links, including Goodreads, Amazon, your blog, and anywhere else you may post, to be included in one email.  This way if they want to use your review for anything they know exactly where to find it.  It not only helps the publishers but it also helps your blog because the publisher can use your review for quotes to help promote the book and other things like that.

#3-Use your Klout!
 
Klout is something that I only just learned about.  It is a new site that a
few publishers are going to start using to check out bloggers.  Klout gives you a rating from 1-100 based on your Twitter and Facebook influence. 
I’m not sure hwo you get your score but I assume it has to do with what you post on Facebook and Twitter, how often you post, and your audience.  Don’t quote me on this though!  =)

#4-All kinds of reviews are good!

Good reviews are honest reviews.  Publishers don’t mind if you give a book a bad review as long as you don’t bash the book or the author and EXPLAIN why you gave it a bad review.  Also, reviews of new releases are not all that publishers care about.  It’s okay to review a backlist title!  Oh and if you do review them, still send in your link.  They do care about those reviews too!

#5-Be professional with review requests!

Don’t send publishers a giant list of books you would like to review.  Pick a few and explain why you would like to review those few.  Make your requests professional but add in that personal touch with your explanations as to why you would like to review the books you asked for.  Also, include a link to your blog and some basic stats.  It may seem like common sense but not everyone does it and publishers do care about that kind of information.  They also would like a mailing address to be included with every request you send, no matter how many times you have worked with the publisher.  They don’t have time to email back and forth trying to figure out where to send the books that you requested.  Basically, just make things as easy as possible for the publishers!

So there you go!  These are the top five tips and tricks that I learned throughout BEA.  I will be posting some regular BEA recaps later this week and if I think of any more tips and tricks I will do another post.  I hope this helps you guys as much as it helped me!