You’ve written the book, it’s gone through editing, proofreading, formatting, cover art…the list goes on. As an author, you think, “I’ve done it.” But there’s one final, but very important, step. Getting advance reviews to include inside the book, at the back of the paperback, and on retail sites, like Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble, that allow them. In the business they’re called “blurbs.” If you’re with a big publishing house, they’ll almost certainly take care of that for you. If you’re with a small press or indie published, tag, you’re it. But how do you get them?

For my debut novel, The Hanged Man’s Noose, the first in my Glass Dolphin cozy mystery series, I was fortunate to have Vicki Delany, Elizabeth J. Duncan, and James M. Jackson agree to blurb it. I’d met Vicki and Elizabeth through Crime Writers of Canada, and Jim was, at the time, with Barking Rain Press, who also happened to be my publisher. But here’s the thing that helped: I’d not only read their books, I’d followed the three of them prior to Noose’s release, even, in the case of Vicki and Elizabeth, before I’d signed a contract, tagging them on social media, sharing their posts, announcing their news. That may sound like a lot of effort, but you can’t expect someone to put in an effort for you (and reading and blurbing a book takes a lot of effort) without putting in an effort of your own.

For book one in my Marketville Mystery series, Skeletons in the Attic, I tried a different tactic, approaching authors I met at Malice Domestic. I’d already had some authors in mind and had employed the same strategy. Read, follow, tag, share, repeat. And so I was able to add the blurbs of USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors Annette Dashofy, Ellen Byron, Diane Vallere, and Catriona McPherson to my list. I am eternally grateful to them all, and proud of their successes as if they were my own.

It’s been seven years since Noose debuted (time really does fly!) and since that time I’ve since been blessed with many book blurbs—and written a few, as well. My latest Marketville mystery, Before There Were Skeletons, has been graced with reviews by none other than Maureen Jennings, Winona Kent, Brenda Chapman, Allison Dore, and Kathleen Costa. With the exception of Kathleen, who reviews for Kings River Life Magazine, I met each of these talented individuals while volunteering on the Crime Writers of Canada Board of Directors, most recently as Chair.

And that takes us full circle, back to “How to you get them?” and I have my late mother to thank for this piece of sage advice: “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” It’s as simple, and as difficult as that. And for the record, it never hurts to pay a kindness forward.

To read my reviews for Before There Were Skeletons, click here.

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