If you are a book blogger, or you want to be a book blogger, but you struggle to keep up with regular book reviews, then Book Boosts might be the solution. I started writing Book Boosts as an addition to Book Reviews. It’s a way to continue to post regular content, without the large time requirements of a book review. These types of posts are a great thing to sprinkle into your blog content schedule to keep things interesting (without adding hours of work!)
What is a Book Boost?
On my blog, I call these types of posts Book Boosts. Other bloggers might call them Book Highlights, Author Highlights, Featured Books, or even work into a regular format (for example: “Book of the Month”). Basically, a Book Boost is a way to feature a book and share the book cover, book description, and popular reviews for the book, and I typically include why I am sharing it. For instance, sometimes authors reach out to me and ask me to review a book for them, but if my TBR is too long already, I might offer to feature their book on my blog in the form of a Book Boost. That way, the word still gets out there about their novel, it helps them market their book for free, and it helps me to share upcoming novels with my readers.
Why Should Book Bloggers Write Posts Like These?
I know so many book bloggers that will write their blog for a year or two and then get so burnt out on the hundreds of books that get sent to them, that they are completely overwhelmed, and stop writing reviews at all. There are so many novels published every year that it would be impossible to keep up with every single one. Let’s face it, we all have novels that have sat on our shelves for months or years at a time! I have even been sent free eBooks from some of my favorite authors and still struggle to find time to read them because the content simply moves too quickly to keep up.
Book Boosts and other types of low time-commitment posts allow you to fill out your monthly schedule, without getting overwhelmed. These posts are great to help promote authors that are friends of yours or that you follow on social media (but haven’t had a chance to read their books yet), books by authors that are coming out soon, and books that your readers might find interesting, but that you aren’t particularly interested in yourself.
Book Boosts are also different from lists of books (for example: 10 Books I Want to Read This Year) because they allow one book to take center stage and capture your audience’s attention.
If you are an affiliate partner with Amazon or other book sellers, you can also use affiliate links in your posts to earn money from these posts. I don’t currently use affiliate links in my posts, but if you do, this a great way to add a few more in your monthly rotation.
Check Out My Book Boost for “Majority” by Abby Goldsmith for an Example.
A Word of Caution
There is one thing to consider when writing and publishing Book Boosts and that is that you haven’t personally vetted the book. You will want to do some research to make sure you don’t accidentally promote a book that is controversial or just very poorly written. I am always clear that I haven’t read the book so that readers don’t feel like I’m promoting a book and personally vouching for its quality.
Because these are low-effort posts, you should also not post too many of them. I’d say one or two a month is plenty in most cases. You don’t want to slip into becoming a book promotion website (that is doing it for free!) If you do decide to take payment for these posts and your posts start to feature more “paid ads” then you might lose some readers or simply notice a shift in readers.
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