Importance of Leaving Reviews
You’ve probably seen writers asking their readers to leave reviews of their work at places like Amazon or Goodreads; if you read any self-published stuff, you’ve undoubtedly seen the call-to-action that is almost always at the end of any ebook: “Please take the time to leave a review of this book wherever you bought it.” It might seem annoying, all of this begging for extra attention from the reader, particularly if you’re not one to do reviews. It might even seem crass to ask at all.
But the brutal truth is that reviews are an absolutely necessary part of the business. Writing is a business, and as such, authors have to treat it as one. Reviews are especially important to new writers, who don’t have selling-power connected to their name yet, and thus can easily find themselves languishing in obscurity not because they’ve written a bad book but because few people take a chance on them because their book has few to zero reviews at the vendor. A book that never gets read never gets reviewed, and so, in turn, continues to not get read.
So authors aren’t just asking you to leave reviews for ego reasons; there are solid business reasons for asking for those reviews. As much as we’d all like to think that books are all about the art, they are also about the business; they cost not just time to produce, but money as well; cover artists and editors must be paid; marketing expenses so people actually know the book is out. And so does the author, regardless of whether they’re traditionally published or they are publishing themselves. The sad reality is that bills must be paid or else the story isn’t going to be produced.
But I Don’t Know What To Say In A Review?
The thing is, you don’t need to write a sprawling epic which is probably longer than the book itself! People like bite-sized information they can digest in less than 3-4 seconds. “Great read,” “Really enjoyed it,” “Loved it.” That’s really all you need to say – and if you didn’t enjoy it, say why (but, please be constructive!). There’s nothing wrong with giving a book a 3 or 4 star rating if you enjoyed it, but think it could have been better. Say how it could be improved in one or two lines and I’m sure the author will work that bit harder in the future where you highlighted. Unfortunately, us authors aren’t mind-readers so we do need that little prod in the right direction from readers every now and then.
If you are still unsure of whether you should leave a review or how to approach it, here are a few tips:Write about the book, not the author. Never get personal in your praise or your critique. Never treat this more than a fictional story you read.Be honest. Write about what you liked or didn’t like about the book. Leaving a glowing 5 stars review on a sub-par book will actually do a disservice to the author in the long run. Others will read the book as well and might not be as forgiving, so your review will attract more negative attention then positive.Avoid spoilers. Maybe there is a plot twist you absolutely loved in the later part of the book, but don’t mention it in your review. You don’t want to spoil other readers, do you? You want them to reach that point and be as blown away as you are.Don’t worry if your review doesn’t look professional. So what if you didn’t structure your sentences properly or made some spelling and grammatical mistakes? You aren’t writing a dissertation or an article for New York Times. You are just sharing your opinion with fellow readers.Why Should I Leave A Review?
Getting book reviews is vital for recently published authors.
Customers searching online for books will often glance at book reviews when deciding whether or not to purchase a book. They may compare the review information for one book with a similar book to decide between the two which they want to purchase. Doing a quick search on Amazon for “book marketing,” for example, brings up 201,642 results. A customer has to narrow it down somehow, so they may glance through some of the books and look at things like the cover, publish date and reviews among other things. The becomes a quick comparison, and can usually boil down to what others think.
As an author in the self-publishing industry, reviews for your book are very important. A book published by an unknown author has little chance of gaining attention, while the same book (and the same “unknown” author) with a number of positive reviews can begin to gain momentum. Those positive reviews can help persuade potential new readers to buy the book and the word-of-mouth continues.
“I loved this book! It’s one of my favorite authors! But I don’t want to leave a review because I can’t formulate my thoughts well enough for it, or I’m afraid that I would make too many grammatical mistakes, or because it takes too much time.”
It sucks when I hear this, because the BEST thing you can do for that author (after buying their book legally of course) is to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and other book review sites for other readers to see.
The publishing world is not what it was even 10 years ago. Putting a book for sale on Amazon is incredibly easy now. There is a literal sea of new content being put out there every day – some good, and some bad. That book you absolutely loved is just one tiny fish in that sea, easily overlooked by readers browsing for their next book. The thing is, releasing a good quality book takes a lot of time, and costs a lot of money.
So, how can you help the author get more sales, which means he or she will get paid enough to release another book? By making their book more visible to potential buyers. And one easy and free way you can do that is by posting a review.
The more reviews it has, the better are the chances that it will be included in the different lists or the “also viewed / bought” tab.
With so many books clamoring for your attention every time you go on Amazon or in a bookstore, it’s perfectly natural to ALWAYS read a couple reviews before you decided if you will spend some of your hard-earned money on a book or not. No reviews = no sales.
That’s why authors are so desperate for reviews. Reviews are so hard to come by because most of the readers think exactly like the example above.
Reviews are the lifeblood of a book. It doesn’t need to be a sprawling tome covering everything from the themes, metaphysical, to exactly what the main character ate throughout the course of the novel and then giving them a proper diet plan. One or two lines is actually all an author needs. Honestly, that’s it! For some reason, a lot of people still think only professional book bloggers/magazines can write reviews for Amazon.
This is not the case!
Most reviews come from readers like you or I, from real readers who happened to pick up a book which caught their eye and decided to give it a chance. Some sites like Goodreads, you don’t even need a review, just a quick star rating when you’re done to let the author know what you thought.
Even just a ‘I liked it’ or ‘it was an enjoyable read’ is all you need to say. The writer has poured his/her heart and soul into the book and you’ve committed hours of your time to read their work. Although we already ask so much for devoting your time to our work, we need just that one favour. If you love it, great! If not, say what you didn’t like or would have liked to have seen. Don’t hold back for the sake of hurting the writer – sometimes the most damaging thing you can do is not say anything at all.
A book review doesn’t have to be a detailed analysis of the plot and characters. It can be as short…
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You liked something about this book, right? Or you didn’t like something, that’s okay as well. So write about that! ALL reviews are important and useful, as long as they’re honest.
So now that you read all this, how about you go to Amazon and Goodreads, open the page of the last book you read, and leave a review? Share your love by helping the author get more visibility.
Shameless self plug to my Amazon author page here if you want to get started!
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