The vast majority will benefit from a relevant and clear digital footprint that makes them easy to find for potential customers and employers.
It should come as no surprise that, as a writer, I think book reviews are important and meaningful.
But my main message in this post is not for the authors, but for you, the reader. There are many good reasons why readers who review books can benefit greatly.
You are a brand (whether you like it or not)
When I receive a serious inquiry from a person I don’t already know, I first Google their name.
The first thing that comes up is always the person’s LinkedIn profile. Now I quickly assess whether there is a match between what the person claims on their LinkedIn profile and what the rest of the Google search results show. Often there isn’t. And the reason is typically that the person hasn’t posted anything online that relates to the areas of expertise highlighted on the LinkedIn profile. In other words, there is no digital trail that supports the person’s brand.
On the other hand, when there is a clear connection, it helps to reinforce credibility even before the first contact.
As pretentious as it may sound, we all have a brand. But few people have a strong brand, and that’s actually self-inflicted. It pays to work actively to strengthen your brand, especially by optimizing your digital footprint.
The vast majority of people (other than celebrities, retirees and investors) would benefit from a relevant and clear digital footprint that makes them easy to find for potential customers and employers.
Kill several birds with one stone
With book reviews, you can kill many birds with one stone.
Reading (or listening to) books remains one of the most serious ways to stay professionally up-to-date. If you invest your time in reading or listening, you might as well get some personalized advertising for your money at the same time. A book review gives you the opportunity to strengthen the digital footprint related to your professional interests and skills.
At the same time, you’ll be left with subject-relevant keywords associated with your name. This means that you can also appear in searches that use the same keywords. People who don’t even know who you are can now find you via the keywords.
When you review a book, you read it differently. You are more thorough, you take more notes, and you think more about what it actually says. When you’re done writing the review, you can also remember what from the book you find useful and what you can afford to quickly forget again.
What is a book review?
A review can be anything from a few lines to several pages of text. It’s up to you how much you want to write. Very short reviews like “this is a great book” or “this book is not worth the money” have no value and are a waste of time to write.
The more you write, the more relevant keywords will appear. You should ideally write over 400 words, around 1,200 words will be good, while over 2,000 words is too long (Google rewards long articles!)
Remember, book readers read book reviews, and they don’t mind reading plenty of words if the content is good. And they often respond with a like, a comment and a share.
A review should not be a summary of the book. This can be found on the publisher’s or author’s website anyway. It should be your assessment of the book’s content and can be garnished with your personal experiences and reasoned opinions.
Personally, I don’t review non-fiction books that I don’t like (on the other hand, I can be tough on fiction – especially when well-renowned authors write bad books). Whether you want to follow the same line is up to you, but I typically put the bad books aside before I finish them, and then I don’t think it’s fair to write a review.
I think reviews should have substance and an edge, so I don’t write so-called “back-slapping reviews.” Your focus should be on yourself and what you think is good or less good in relation to the book’s treatment of the topic and what your insight can contribute. That way, the relevant keywords will naturally appear in the text.
As you review more books on the same topic, you can link to previous reviews and grow your digital footprint.
Where do you post the reviews?
Most people think of editorial book reviews, but getting a book review published in a printed newspaper or other professional media has limited value for the average reader, and it is also close to impossible.
If you don’t have the ambition to become a regular blogger, the most obvious option is to write a review as an article on LinkedIn Publishing.
LinkedIn Publishing is a super easy way to blog, and book reviews are great for linking relevant keywords directly to your LinkedIn profile.
You can also use Medium, which is a dedicated platform for bloggers. I personally like Medium, but I think most people who don’t plan to blog that often would be better served by LinkedIn Publishing.
Of course, you can also start your own blog, but if you’re not much of a writer or have a direct commercial aim with your writing(like I do), you probably won’t get enough traffic for it to make sense.
Many people write short reviews in the LinkedIn comments section and tag the author. I don’t recommend this. The author is not the target audience (a single person can hardly be called a group) for your review, and a post in the comments section has a very short lifespan. It’s better to post a brief comment in the comments section and then link to your review wherever it is. You can repeat this activity over a few weeks. This will drive traffic to your review and improve your ranking on Google.
Book portals
You should also briefly review the books you read on the book portals (typically where you bought the book) and then link to your longer review elsewhere. Not all portals will accept you linking out (Amazon doesn’t, others do), but you must write enough for other readers to find your full review. You can gather many like-minded people on the book portals, where pretty much everyone with an interest in the same book will come by at some point. This in turn increases traffic to your review -> better ranking on Google.
On-demand review
When you start reviewing books, you will be contacted by authors who want you to review their new release. Often they will offer you the book for free, but you should decline.
Firstly, books are cheap (especially considering the investment the author has made in writing it) and secondly, you shouldn’t review books that you don’t want to buy and read. Commercial reviewers are obligated to review certain books, but you are not. And once you’ve accepted the free book, you have a moral obligation to write something, too.
You can hijack other people’s reviews
If you’ve reviewed a book that turns out to be or become popular, you can link to other people’s reviews. When you see someone else’s review, give it a like, add a short comment and link to your own review and share the other person’s review on your social profiles. You have now helped both your fellow reviewer and yourself. Your colleague has gained additional exposure for their review, and you will draw some of their readers to your review.
It’s similar to the Newsjacking phenomenon and can also work the same way, especially if you are early with your review.
Examples of reader reviews
If you would like some inspiration for reader reviews, click here to read my Danish reviews and click here to read my English reviews
