Software Review: ScoreIt

Happy Friday! The topic for today is how the ScoreIt software could help you market your book. Imagine this:

The headline blares, “If you liked this story, you’ll love book XXXX by author YYYY!”

“I did like that story and I will try this next book,” you think as you click the buy button. You settle into your favorite chair, open the story and…

Darn. The book is not what you were expecting. Maybe you picked it for the type of story, maybe you picked it because you wanted the same tone and feel of the book you enjoyed. Now you’re left with a book experience that did not deliver. At best, you’ve wasted your money and time. At worst, you’ll write an unhappy review of your experience.

As writers, it’s our job to know who our audience is so we can effectively market our work to those people. The problem is you may not know who your audience is.

Sure, you can read other books in your genre, but will your writing style engage the readers of the other books? Are you missing opportunities to market to readers who might enjoy your voice even though they rarely read in your genre? This is where the analytics provided by ScoreIt may help you.

What is ScoreIt?

ScoreIt is a web-based software that provides analytics on your manuscript by comparing four elements of your writing with novels by best-selling authors. I found out about it via a webinar provided through Bowker, but you can also go straight to Inkubate’s website and purchase it from them directly. Here’s a short video that explains the software.

How Does ScoreIt Work?

The ScoreIt compares your manuscript with best sellers based on four facets. These facets are Authorial Vocabulary, Expressive Complexity, Grammar, and Tonal Quality. Using your work, the system identifies the top three best sellers that most closely match your writing style, based on the four facets. The report includes Goodreads hyperlinks to the top matching titles and the author’s Goodreads site.

The report also scours reader reviews for your top novel match and provides the prominent phrases and keywords that the reviewers used. Because readers search for new books using the same words and phrases with which they write reviews, authors can mine the prominent phrases and keywords to use in the copy we write for our books, both in terms of our book descriptions, and in the metadata/keywords we use when we publish the books.

Does ScoreIt Work?

Because I’ve written books for two different audiences, I’ve run the software on both An Ordinary Girl (Middle Grade) and on Oil and Dust (Adult).  ScoreIt matched my middle grade novel with Confessions: The Private School Murders by James Patterson, The Silence of the Library by Miranda James, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Because my top match was a James Patterson book for juveniles, I expected James Patterson to be a top match for my adult novel too. Instead, ScoreIt matched my adult novel with Contrition by Maura Weller, Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly Whittemore, and The Lost Sisterhood by Anne Fortier.

Once you have your book matches, you can look at the book descriptions, how the authors marketed the book and themselves, and even read the reader’s reviews to look for inspiration in positioning your own work.

“So many books, so little time.”
– Frank Zappa

What I Like

My ScoreIt results have provided me with a starting place to begin research for marketing my books. I hadn’t read the six books identified, so I plan to read them to compare them with my books.

The ScoreIt team also emailed an offer for a free consultation about the results. I took them up on it (what did I have to lose?) and ended up having a great conversation with Don Seitz, the Chief Executive Officer of Inkubate. It was fascinating to ask questions about how other writers had used their results to find the audience most likely to enjoy their work.

What Could be Better

Data can be useful but overwhelming. I found the amount of information provided by ScoreIt intimidating. Since I’m unfamiliar with the books and authors ScoreIt matched me with, I have a mountain of homework to read the books, analyze their marketing, and identify the type of readers who enjoyed the books. I’ll use this information to inform my marketing plan.

The software is a little clunky. I got confused and accidentally ran both my ScoreIt credits on the same book. In a panic, I emailed the company, and they graciously provided me with another credit to run my second book. Based on my customer service experience, I would suggest you reach out to them if you want to use their software but find technology challenging. They couldn’t have been nicer about my mistake.

Final Thoughts

Something I found interesting about my results was one of my middle grade matches was adult fiction. Also, none of my adult bestseller matches were in the Fantasy genre. Instead, ScoreIt matched other aspects of my book, including Action and Adventure (Contrition) and Coming of Age (Bittersweet).

Data mining the books identified via ScoreIt will inform my marketing plan. My results will also help with targeting future advertisements. The idea of reaching a pool of readers who don’t typically read in my genre is intriguing. In the future, I’ll poll my readers to learn what they typically read. I’ll also ask how they found my books.

Have you used ScoreIt? What data have you used to inform your marketing plans?

Header Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash