Last time, I showed you how to find bloggers who want to review your book. However, most of those bloggers probably haven’t even heard of your book yet. You need to let them know what your book is about and that it’s available for review before you offer a free copy.

Today, I’ll walk you through creating an e-mail template that will help you contact reviewers in a professional, compelling manner. Those bloggers will be reviewing your book in no time!

My Review Request Template

The process of e-mailing a blogger with a review request is made much simpler if you don’t have to think about what the message says every time. That’s why I made myself a template. Here’s what it looks like:

[Greeting]

I’m the author of [your book title] and I’m looking for bloggers who would like a free review copy. Here’s a little bit about the book:

[Book pitch]

The book has already received positive reviews, such as this one:

[Review quote]

You can find out more about [your book title] here: [Your website]

I’d love to send you a free review copy. Just let me know where to send it and I’ll mail one right away.

Thanks for your consideration. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

[Your signature]

There are a lot of components to this e-mail template, but it’s really pretty simple. Let’s go through the pieces one by one.

Greeting

This is easy. If the blogger displays his or her real name, you can grab this and be friendly. “Hi, Bob!” or “Good afternoon, Tina!” is great. If you don’t find a name to use, simply saying “Hello!” will work.

The Pitch

Your book pitch is two or three sentences that summarize the story. The goal is to get across your book’s most interesting features in a short paragraph. A great tool to help you build this pitch is a logline, which is simply a single-sentence summary of your story. I’ve covered crafting a logline in depth in my book Finding the Core of Your Story, so I’ll direct your attention to its pages for the nuts and bolts of writing one. If you don’t have the book, check out the free sample, which includes the quick-start chapter that will get you up to speed with the basics.

But a logline is only one sentence. Let’s look at how to expand it into a pitch. Here’s a logline I wrote for my book A Purple and Gold Afghan:

A shy college student wrestles with what to do when he unexpectedly falls in love.

To expand the logline into a pitch, I might do something like this:

A Purple and Gold Afghan is a short and sweet story about a shy college student who unexpectedly falls in love. The book follows his misadventures as he takes his first stumbling steps into romance.

See how this works? You’re taking that single sentence and making it into something more conversational. Think of how you would quickly tell a friend about your book’s storyline. That’s what you’re after here. Two or three sentences that get straight to the point. Remember, this blogger doesn’t have all day. You want to grab them right away.

Review Quote

The review quote is the part of the e-mail where you let somebody else make the case for how good your book is. If you have some positive Amazon reviews, or if you sent your book to some pre-publication readers and have some quotes from them, this is a great place to put that feedback to use. I have this great review quote from my friend Aubrey Hansen that I use when I pitch A Purple and Gold Afghan:

This is romance as it should be—not idealized and contrived, but gentle and unsure. Joseph has no idea what he’s doing—or if this is even love—and that’s a feeling most of us in the real-world can relate to. ~Aubrey Hansen

The Link

Now that you’ve gotten the reviewer interested in your book, you can give a link to more details. It’s ideal to have a nice page on your website with plenty of information to further persuade the blogger that your book is worth reviewing. Here are some things to include on the page:

• Your book’s cover image.
• More quotes from reviewers.
• A longer book description.
• A free sample.

If you don’t have such a page on your website, you could link to your book’s Amazon page instead. That page will have all of the details above, but you have less control over what the blogger will see. It can be worth doing some extra work to set up a nice page where all the marketing messages are sure to positive.

Where Shall I Send It?

This part of the e-mail is where you ask for an address. Or, if you would prefer to send an e-book, you can offer that instead. Just change that paragraph in the template to this:

I’d love to send you a free e-book copy to review. Just let me know if you’d like one and I’ll send it right away.

Signature

It sounds easy enough to sign your name, but remember to think like a professional author. If you have a default e-mail signature with a quote or decoration, take that out. You’ll look much more professional if you simply sign with your full name (or pen name) and author e-mail address.

Putting It All Together

Here’s what the template looks with all the blanks filled in:

Hello!

I’m the author of A Purple and Gold Afghan and I’m looking for bloggers who would like a free review copy. Here’s a little bit about the book:

A Purple and Gold Afghan is a short and sweet story about a shy college student who unexpectedly falls in love. The book follows his misadventures as he takes his first stumbling steps into romance.

The book has already received positive reviews, such as this one:

“This is romance as it should be—not idealized and contrived, but gentle and unsure. Joseph has no idea what he’s doing—or if this is even love—and that’s a feeling most of us in the real-world can relate to.” ~Aubrey Hansen

You can find out more about the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Purple-Gold-Afghan-Jordan-Smith-ebook/dp/B00BEWB2WI

I’d love to send you a free e-book copy to review. Just let me know if you’d like one and I’ll send it right away.

Thanks for your consideration. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Jordan Smith

And there you have it! You now have a compelling, professional e-mail to send to any reviewer. I like to save each e-mail draft and date it. That’s because I usually find something to improve in my pitch every time I send a new batch of review requests. I keep a document with each version of my request e-mail so that I can pull from previous drafts, and also see how the pitch has changed over time.

Good luck finding reviewers!