How To Get More Book Reviews With Joe Walters
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Joanna Penn
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are you struggling to get reviews for your book? Wondering how to navigate the different types of reviews, from customer feedback to professional blurbs? Joe Walters from IndependentBookReview.com gives his tips.
In the intro, how important is ‘truth' in memoir? The Observer on Raynor Winn's The Salt Path; Raynor's statement; Memoir controversies [The Guardian]; Tips on memoir writing and ‘truth'; The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection; and when life stops you from achieving a goal.
Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna
This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Joe Walters is the author of The Truth About Book Reviews: An Insider's Guide to Getting and Using Reviews to Grow Your Readership, and also runs IndependentBookReview.com, which focuses on reviewing indie books.
You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show Notes
* What are the three different types of book reviews?
* How to get customer reviews, whether you're a new author or more established
* Why blurbs / editorial reviews are still worth getting and how to use them
* Pitching influencers, book bloggers, and more
* What kind of reviews can you pay for, and what can you definitely NOT pay for?
* Handling negative reviews, and the importance of getting feedback before publication
You can find Joe at IndependentBookReview.com.
Transcript of Interview with Joe Walters
Joanna: Joe Walters is the author of The Truth About Book Reviews: An Insider's Guide to Getting and Using Reviews to Grow Your Readership, and also runs IndependentBookReview.com, which focuses on reviewing indie books. So welcome to the show, Joe.
Joe: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, |
| 0:08.0 | bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing craft and creative business. |
| 0:14.7 | You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at thecreativepen.com. And that's Pen with a |
| 0:23.7 | double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn. And this is episode 819 of the podcast, |
| 0:32.2 | and it is Friday 11th of July 2025 as I record this during another heat wave here in the UK. |
| 0:40.3 | In today's show, I'm talking to Joe Walters about how to get more book reviews. |
| 0:46.3 | It is a super useful and actionable discussion and we talk about the three different types of book |
| 0:52.1 | reviews, how to get them and how to use them, |
| 0:55.1 | what kinds of reviews are okay to pay for and which ones are definitely not okay, and how to |
| 1:01.9 | handle negative reviews. So that's coming up in the interview section. So in writing and publishing things, something that has been dominating headlines, |
| 1:16.1 | certainly here in the UK, not sure about the rest of the world, but it's been pretty big here, |
| 1:20.2 | the controversy surrounding Rainer Wyn's best-selling memoir, The Salt Path. |
| 1:25.9 | So the Observer newspaper published an investigation headlined |
| 1:29.8 | The Real Salt Path, how a blockbuster book and film were spun from lies, deceit and desperation. |
| 1:37.7 | And this has now spurned lots more articles and it challenges key elements of the supposedly true story about losing their home |
| 1:47.5 | and walking the southwest coast path and yeah, I mean, I've read it. I thought it was wonderful. |
| 1:53.3 | It still is a wonderful book. You can like a book for its story and its writing and then find out things about it and wonder |
| 2:04.1 | what's going on. So the article reveals their real names, Sally and Tim Walker, instead of |
| 2:11.1 | Rainer and Moth Wynne, and alleges that Sally was arrested after being accused of stealing |
| 2:17.0 | tens of thousands of pounds |
| 2:18.3 | from her employer, then borrowing money to pay it back, and then that loan got called in, |
| 2:23.2 | leaving them homeless. Now, the book opens with them being homeless, and in the book, it's made |
... |
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