How to get ebook reviews

TrailersteadingReviews
make or break indie ebooks by relatively unknown authors.  And I
hear a lot of authors complaining that their readers won't write
reviews.  In case you're having trouble getting reviews, here are
some tips for bringing in those essential ratings.



How many reviews should you expect? 
You're probably reading this post because you think your books aren't
getting enough reviews, but it's possible the problem is simply that you
haven't sold or given away enough copies yet.  Looking at all of
the books put out by Wetknee, we average about 87
paid downloads per review, so if you've only sold a handful of books,
you probably won't have many (or any) reviews.  Our most-reviewed
books are all fiction, in which category ebooks average only 14 paid
downloads per review, while the non-fiction titles average closer to 98
paid downloads per review.  (As a side note, you should keep in
mind that I put in
the effort with fiction to carry out review swaps and that I tend to
give away a lot more fiction books
during free periods than I do non-fiction books, so these numbers may
not be entirely due to the fiction/non-fiction divide.)  If you do
the math and find that your book isn't stacking up, keep reading for
more options.



Have you contacted potential reviewers? 
Review swaps are a tried-and-true method of garnering reviews. 
The theory is simple --- you read and review the book of another author
while they do the same for your book.  This strategy depends on you
being a fast reader and being able to find authors who write in a
similar genre and at a similar level (meaning that they're not best-sellers who have
thousands of fans itching to leave reviews through no effort on the
author's part). 



I use Goodreads to track down potential reviewers,
checking out indie authors whose books I've enjoyed reading in the past
and whose rank on Amazon is a bit below mine (meaning they're probably
even hungrier for reviews than I am).  I
usually sweeten the pot by reviewing one of the author's books even
before I send the message to ask if she'd like to take part in a
swap.  If you follow my lead, be sure to make it clear that you're
looking for an honest review, but include your standards if, like me, you prefer to simply leave no
review on books by new authors that would merit fewer than three stars.



On a related note, I sometimes also let my fans have the opportunity to
download a free review copy right before or right after a new book goes
live, but I haven't decided whether this strategy is the best use of
fan-power (since it reduces those critical early sales). 
No matter how you go about soliciting reviews, this strategy is most
helpful when used just before or just after a book launches so the title
jumps out of the gate.



Number of ebook buys in proportion to number of reviewsHave you run a free period? 
Giving away a few thousand copies of an ebook is a great way to net at
least a few reviews.  As a plus, people are naturally inclined to
leave nicer reviews when they get a book for free, so chances are many
of your reviews will be good.  To do this on Amazon, you'll have to
sign up for the KDP program,
meaning you promise not to sell your book anywhere else for 30 days,
then you simply use the dialogue within Amazon to "Manage benefits."



I'm still deciding whether the best period to set a new book free for
the first time is about a week after launch or a few weeks later. 
The first strategy gets more good reviews faster, but also tends to make
my fans wait to get a free copy rather than buying, which lowers the
early sales rank of the book. 



As a side note, if you run a free period and give away at least 1,000
copies but don't get any reviews, that may be a sign your book isn't as
awesome as you thought it was, or at the least that the book doesn't
have much appeal for the masses.  Scroll down to the end of this
post for more thoughts in that direction.



Do you explicitly ask within your book for readers to leave a review?  Don't forget to add in a page or two of back-matter after your story to plug your other books, to mention your email list,
and to beg for reviews.  If a reader really loves your book,
they'll be much more likely to write a review if they see the request at
the same time they bask in that sated afterglow of a perfect story.



If you want even more reviews, you might follow the lead of a few
indie authors I've noticed recently who tell readers at the end of the book
that if you leave a review and email the author a link, she'll send you
a free copy of a book of your choice.  The author I emailed actually sent me all of her books to review (presumably because my first effort passed muster).  This strategy often leads to even more good reviews by readers who adore your work.



How effective is an explicit request for a review?  I haven't
updated some of my older books to include either type of ask, and the
un-ask books average about 190 paid downloads per review while the ask
books average about 43 paid downloads per review, so the ask definitely
seems to help.  Take these numbers with a grain of salt, though ---
I also wasn't soliciting review swaps for early books and don't
currently run free periods for most of the early books for various
reasons.  That caveat aside, it's a safe assumption that the ask
strategy should garner you a slow-but-steady stream of reviews,
proportional to how many books you've sold. 



ShiftlessWhen should you stop worrying about reviews? 
More reviews are always better (unless they average below 4 stars on
Amazon or below 3 stars on Goodreads), but I generally stop hustling
once I achieve 10 to 20 reviews.  That's about how many reviews it
takes for strangers to decide your book isn't only being reviewed by
your mother and best friends, so after that you can let the book gain
review momentum by itself.



Should you read your reviews?  Many authors will tell you not to read your book's reviews, and it is
definitely bad form to comment on them (except to note when an issue
has been resolved).  However, if you can take a step back from your
ego, there are benefits to be gained from keeping an eye on those
reviews.



On Amazon, you can vote a review up or down, which helps the reviews
that you decide are most marketable rise to the front page, especially
early in a book's life.  You can also take excerpts from these
reviews and add them to near the top of your product page using Author
Central.  Both of these strategies can help turn specific reviews
into sales.



In addition, once you learn to separate the constructive criticisms from
the random comments, you can learn from bad reviews.  I was
selling ebooks on Amazon for years before I bought a Kindle, and it was
an early review that alerted me to the fact that readers expect linked
tables of contents.  Reviews also helped me
realize that readers expect about 10,000 words per dollar in the
non-fiction category but significantly more in the fiction category.  Finally, readers
are quick to note if your book has an inordinate number of typos
(which, thankfully, hasn't been a problem with my books) and to mention
other easily-solved problems.



Why are your reviews lower on Goodreads than on Amazon? 
If, like me, you enjoy Goodreads, you may be saddened to see that a
book with a 4.5-star rating on Goodreads has a 3.6-star rating on
Goodreads.  What's up?  I think that many reviewers realize
that reviews on Amazon affect an author's bread and butter, so those
readers tend to round their Amazon scores up, while they often rate for
purely personal reasons on Goodreads and thus trend toward lower
ratings.  In addition, I suspect I'm not the only one who rates
books on Amazon only if I feel comfortable giving the book five stars,
while I rate just about everything I read over on Goodreads.  
You can see this effect by looking at the Amazon and Goodreads reviews
of some of your favorite authors --- I'll bet their report card on
Goodreads is much less impressive than on Amazon.  Here, my advice
to authors is: don't stress about moderately low Goodreads
reviews.  Reviews on Goodreads help your books spread by word of
mouth and everyone understands average ratings will be lower there.



Pasture BasicsAre there book-related issues that make you less likely to get reviews?  With
free books, especially, it's essential to hook readers within the first
few pages.  Amazon now has thousands of free ebooks available at
any one time, so if a reader isn't sucked in immediately, she'll
probably turn elsewhere.  In my own experience, I tend to delete three free books for every one I finish, and in most
cases I give up on those supposed "losers" within a few minutes of
virtually opening the book.



Yet another point where your book might be losing reviewers is if it's
too far outside the mainstream genres.  Readers tend to be confused
by
books unlike anything they've read before, so you might have written the
next great American novel...but will see no reviews because readers are
too
confused by the work's unusualness.  On a related note, you may
simply be misclassifying your book --- if your readers are expecting
chick lit, they're not going to be interested in hard-boiled mysteries
and will quickly hit the delete key.



What if you've tried everything and you're still not getting reviews? 
It's a tough thing to accept, but if you've done everything I mention
in this post and you still aren't seeing many reviews, now might be the
time to ask yourself whether perhaps readers are being nice by not
saying anything at all.  The solution is: keep writing!  Your next book will likely be better and will garner more glowing reviews.



Do you have other
review-gathering tips I didn't cover here?  I'd love to hear other
authors' experience getting those critical first reviews.

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Published on June 18, 2014 12:12
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