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A step-by-step playbook for indie fiction authors who want 50 to 100 honest reviews before launch day. Includes a free outreach tracking spreadsheet.
Your book deserves more than seven reviews from people who already know you.
The readers who would love your book the most have never heard of it. The bookstagrammer who reads exactly your genre, posts detailed reviews twice a week, and has 4,000 genuinely engaged followers. The BookToker whose videos in your category regularly hit 30,000 views. The Substack writer whose readers trust every word she says about fiction. The Goodreads member who has reviewed 400 books in your genre and still gets excited about a new discovery.
None of them are going to find your book by accident. You have to find them first, pitch them properly, and give them enough time to actually read it.
That is what this guide is about.
What is inside:
The Ultimate Guide to Getting ARC Reviews: Fiction Edition is a 36-page strategic playbook for indie fiction authors who want to build a real review base before their book goes live on Amazon. It covers the complete ARC campaign process from six months out to four weeks after launch, with dedicated sections for thirteen fiction genres.
The guide opens with the timeline most authors ignore. Four to six months before publication is when this work begins, not four to six weeks. It walks through the full sequence: building your outreach list, preparing your ARC file, choosing your delivery system, writing pitches that actually get replies, and managing the follow-up without being annoying.
Part Three covers how to find ARC readers on the four platforms that matter most for fiction: Instagram, TikTok, Goodreads, and Substack. Each platform gets its own step-by-step search method, with specific instructions for finding genre-relevant accounts rather than general book accounts with inflated follower counts and low engagement.
The guide includes an honest section on BookTok saturation for romance and romantasy authors specifically. The two most popular fiction genres on BookTok are also the most oversubscribed for ARC requests. Established BookTokers in these genres receive more pitches than they can ever accept and many have closed their ARC inboxes entirely. The guide tells you exactly what to do about this: which account sizes to target, which platforms will serve you better, and how to write a pitch that stands out in a crowded field.
Part Six covers thirteen genres in dedicated sections: romance and romantic comedy, romantasy and paranormal romance, psychological thriller and domestic thriller, mystery and cozy mystery, fantasy (epic, urban, portal, and grimdark), science fiction, historical fiction, women's fiction and upmarket fiction, young adult, horror and dark fiction, crime fiction, literary fiction, and speculative fiction and science fantasy. Each section includes Instagram hashtags, TikTok and BookTok hashtags, Substack search terms, and Goodreads group recommendations specific to that genre.
Part Seven is for authors whose genre is not on that list. It walks through a five-step process for finding the right reader community for any fiction category, starting with Google research to find the vocabulary your readers already use, then applying that vocabulary across Instagram, TikTok, Substack, and Goodreads.
The guide also covers the soft launch strategy that generates verified purchase reviews before your hard launch date. For KDP Select authors, a three-day free promotion before hard launch gives your ARC readers a way to download the book through Amazon, which records as a purchase and means their review carries a Verified Purchase badge. The guide walks through the exact KDP dashboard steps to set this up. KDP Select authors only; the guide is clear about that from the start.
What you get:
A 36-page PDF guide covering the complete fiction ARC campaign, from timeline and ARC file preparation through platform-by-platform search instructions, pitch templates for Instagram, TikTok, Substack, and email, comp title strategy, content warning guidance, the KDP Select soft launch sequence, and the follow-up process through post-launch.
A free ARC Outreach Tracking Google Sheet with 1,000 numbered rows, built-in dropdown menus for platform, contact method, and response status, automatic colour coding, and a live campaign dashboard that counts contacts, responses, ARCs sent, and reviews posted as you go. Download it, make a copy in your Google Drive, and your campaign infrastructure is ready before you send your first pitch.
The maths:
A 5 to 10% conversion rate from ARC request to posted review means you need 1,000 contacts to reach 100 reviews. The tracking sheet has 1,000 rows. The guide tells you how to fill them, genre by genre.
This guide is for you if:
You are an indie fiction author with a book releasing in the next four to six months and you have not yet built your ARC reader list. Or your last launch produced fewer reviews than you hoped for and you want to do the next one properly. Or you are writing in a niche genre and have no idea where your readers actually spend time online.
This guide is not for you if:
You are publishing wide across multiple platforms and not enrolled in KDP Select, in which case the soft launch strategy in the guide does not apply to you, though everything else does.
A step-by-step playbook for indie fiction authors who want 50 to 100 honest reviews before launch day. Includes a free outreach tracking spreadsheet.
Your book deserves more than seven reviews from people who already know you.
The readers who would love your book the most have never heard of it. The bookstagrammer who reads exactly your genre, posts detailed reviews twice a week, and has 4,000 genuinely engaged followers. The BookToker whose videos in your category regularly hit 30,000 views. The Substack writer whose readers trust every word she says about fiction. The Goodreads member who has reviewed 400 books in your genre and still gets excited about a new discovery.
None of them are going to find your book by accident. You have to find them first, pitch them properly, and give them enough time to actually read it.
That is what this guide is about.
What is inside:
The Ultimate Guide to Getting ARC Reviews: Fiction Edition is a 36-page strategic playbook for indie fiction authors who want to build a real review base before their book goes live on Amazon. It covers the complete ARC campaign process from six months out to four weeks after launch, with dedicated sections for thirteen fiction genres.
The guide opens with the timeline most authors ignore. Four to six months before publication is when this work begins, not four to six weeks. It walks through the full sequence: building your outreach list, preparing your ARC file, choosing your delivery system, writing pitches that actually get replies, and managing the follow-up without being annoying.
Part Three covers how to find ARC readers on the four platforms that matter most for fiction: Instagram, TikTok, Goodreads, and Substack. Each platform gets its own step-by-step search method, with specific instructions for finding genre-relevant accounts rather than general book accounts with inflated follower counts and low engagement.
The guide includes an honest section on BookTok saturation for romance and romantasy authors specifically. The two most popular fiction genres on BookTok are also the most oversubscribed for ARC requests. Established BookTokers in these genres receive more pitches than they can ever accept and many have closed their ARC inboxes entirely. The guide tells you exactly what to do about this: which account sizes to target, which platforms will serve you better, and how to write a pitch that stands out in a crowded field.
Part Six covers thirteen genres in dedicated sections: romance and romantic comedy, romantasy and paranormal romance, psychological thriller and domestic thriller, mystery and cozy mystery, fantasy (epic, urban, portal, and grimdark), science fiction, historical fiction, women's fiction and upmarket fiction, young adult, horror and dark fiction, crime fiction, literary fiction, and speculative fiction and science fantasy. Each section includes Instagram hashtags, TikTok and BookTok hashtags, Substack search terms, and Goodreads group recommendations specific to that genre.
Part Seven is for authors whose genre is not on that list. It walks through a five-step process for finding the right reader community for any fiction category, starting with Google research to find the vocabulary your readers already use, then applying that vocabulary across Instagram, TikTok, Substack, and Goodreads.
The guide also covers the soft launch strategy that generates verified purchase reviews before your hard launch date. For KDP Select authors, a three-day free promotion before hard launch gives your ARC readers a way to download the book through Amazon, which records as a purchase and means their review carries a Verified Purchase badge. The guide walks through the exact KDP dashboard steps to set this up. KDP Select authors only; the guide is clear about that from the start.
What you get:
A 36-page PDF guide covering the complete fiction ARC campaign, from timeline and ARC file preparation through platform-by-platform search instructions, pitch templates for Instagram, TikTok, Substack, and email, comp title strategy, content warning guidance, the KDP Select soft launch sequence, and the follow-up process through post-launch.
A free ARC Outreach Tracking Google Sheet with 1,000 numbered rows, built-in dropdown menus for platform, contact method, and response status, automatic colour coding, and a live campaign dashboard that counts contacts, responses, ARCs sent, and reviews posted as you go. Download it, make a copy in your Google Drive, and your campaign infrastructure is ready before you send your first pitch.
The maths:
A 5 to 10% conversion rate from ARC request to posted review means you need 1,000 contacts to reach 100 reviews. The tracking sheet has 1,000 rows. The guide tells you how to fill them, genre by genre.
This guide is for you if:
You are an indie fiction author with a book releasing in the next four to six months and you have not yet built your ARC reader list. Or your last launch produced fewer reviews than you hoped for and you want to do the next one properly. Or you are writing in a niche genre and have no idea where your readers actually spend time online.
This guide is not for you if:
You are publishing wide across multiple platforms and not enrolled in KDP Select, in which case the soft launch strategy in the guide does not apply to you, though everything else does.
