Construct a ‘What Others are Saying’ web page

Often readers make book purchases based on what others – friends, family, similar-minded readers, critics – say about the title. There are reasons sites like Goodreads and Amazon.com reviews are so popular. Before laying down money, readers like to see if a book was entertaining, stimulating or useful.

Your own website can contain favorable excerpts from such reviews and articles. The more such commentary you can place on the page, the better.

Cull positive comments about your book from any source that you can: a newspaper article, an online review, a blog telling about the book. Place the comment in quotation marks. Then list who said or wrote the comment, where they said or published (such as the name of the blog or newspaper) it, and the date the comment appeared public (such as the date of the newspaper the article appeared in or the day that blog entry was posted).

Comments shouldn’t be too long – certainly no more than 250 words. Visitors to your website generally will skim the comments anyway, and they’ll skip those quotations that go too long. Using fewer than 250 words also should keep you safe from any threats of copyright infringement.

If the bulk of the review or article is positive, consider linking to it from your page for those few visitors who do want to read more.

The header for the page can be as simple as “What Others are Saying”, “What Others Say”, or “Praise for (book title)”. Beneath the header and before listing the quotations, give an explanatory line such as “Here's what readers and reviewers are saying about ‘(your book title)’:”

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