For self-publishers, after writing a book, the next biggest step is making people aware that it exists and is worth reading. But in such a saturated market, it can be hard to get your book discovered. Here are three book recommendation tools.
Word of mouth is still the most effective way to make a book go viral, and many people recommend books via email (this may be because it’s still somewhat private). It’s important to offer samples of an ebook, so that people can share and get a taste of the work before deciding to purchase.
Jellybooks
Jellybooks is essentially a book discovery/recommendation site. The idea is to scroll through covers, and then either sample or purchase books you like. But what may be even more helpful to authors is the Jellybooks Widget, which allows authors to include downloadable samples of books on their blogs, websites, or other places online.
BookPsychic
BookPsychic, according to its site, gives people high-quality book recommendations based on their libraries. “As you rate more items on BookPsychic, you’ll see more and better personalized recommendations for books, audiobooks, eBooks and DVDs you can get from your library now. The more you rate, the better your recommendations will get.”
Twitter has a fairly new service, called expanded tweets, which can be used to help with book discovery. If coded correctly, a tweet could show a “view summary” which could then display things such as book covers and descriptions/summaries. Jellybooks is actually using it so users can download 10% of a book tweeted for free.
Of course, there are many other ways to get a book noticed. For more tools and ideas, please visit resources.digitalpubbing.com.
