To raise your literary profile and market your book, it is essential to secure positive reviews and endorsements from well-recognized and well-respected literary experts. There are many pitfalls to avoid in this regard, like responding badly to negative reviews and leaving adverse reviews of other authors' books. In this brief, we explain from whom you should seek reviews and how best to approach them. You can also set yourself up as an expert reviewer first before seeking reviews from others for your own book; we explain how to achieve this by joining the right review sites (Goodreads, Shelfari and BlogTalkRaido), offering to do interviews, reviewing one of your reviewer's books; writing good reviews and always responding to any critics in a positive and polite manner, thanking them for their feedback even if their comments are less than favourable or constructive.

In the current digital and social media age, it is essential to seek and secure reviews and endorsements to raise awareness of your book – not just any reviews from anybody, but positive reviews from literary experts in the field and high profile endorsements. There are many pitfalls to avoid in this regard, like responding badly to negative reviews and leaving adverse reviews of other authors' books. In this ebook, we explain how best to obtain the sort of reviews that are going to work for you and generate more sales for your book.

We discuss who to seek reviews from and who to avoid, as there are plenty of book trolls on the Internet looking to criticize you if you over-engage in self-promotion or word your approach in an overtly self-centred way. We explain how best to approach those likely to provide positive reviews and endorsements by making it easy for them to review your book and spelling out the benefits to them in doing so, and we debate whether you should endorse your own book.

Often, it helps to set yourself up as an expert book reviewer first to lend credibility both to your writing and your reviews. We explain how to achieve this by joining Goodreads and Shelfari, writing good reviews, hosting or being a guest on a talk radio programme and always responding to critics in a respectful manner. A good review travels fast, but a poor review or a bad response to a negative review travels faster.