How do authors manage reviewer outreach?
- Reviewer outreach runs as a five-stage pipeline.
- Personalized outreach in batches of 10-20 to maintain quality.
- T-90 to T-60 is the optimal outreach window.
- A launch-day reminder lifts review-post rates by 30-50%.
- Post-launch follow-up turns one-time reviewers into next-book reviewers.
Authors manage reviewer outreach as a multi-stage pipeline: research target reviewers (T-180 to T-90), send personalized outreach in batches of 10-20 (T-90 to T-60), ship ARCs to responders (T-90 to T-30), send launch-day reminders (T-7 to T+0), and follow up post-launch (T+7 to T+30). The pipeline view prevents drops and improves reply rates over time.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Mass-blast outreach has 1-2% reply rates; personalized pipeline outreach has 8-15%. The difference is research and tracking. Authors who batch and personalize get more reviews per outreach hour than authors who copy-paste form messages — and they build relationships that carry into book two and three.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A target list of 100-300 reviewers researched 6-12 months out.
- Personalized opening lines naming why this reviewer.
- Batches of 10-20 outreach messages per day.
- A status pipeline: not contacted, pitched, replied, ARC sent, posted.
- Launch-day reminder messages at T-7 and T-1.
- Post-launch thank-you messages and a "book two" tag for repeat asks.
Chapter iii·Example
A working YA author runs reviewer outreach as a pipeline across 230 names. Over six weeks she personalizes batches of 15 daily, achieves a 14% reply rate, ships 32 ARCs, sends T-7 reminders, and 28 reviewers post on launch day. Book two uses the same pipeline; 19 of the 28 return for it because she stayed in touch between books.
Chapter iv·Related questions
WriteLoom’s Market studio runs reviewer outreach as a CRM pipeline — research, pitch, ship, remind, follow-up — across books.
See the Market studio