Support for Indie Authors discussion
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Patience. A very small percentage of readers review. If you are looking to keep your reviews organic (meaning readers who naturally happen upon your work, not free copies offered to bloggers and reviewers), then yes, it will take time. I've had books that sat with no reviews for several months. I saw no ill effects on my sales because if it. However, if you are looking for ways to get reviews, there are many topics here that cover this.
Hi G.M. :) Congrats on your page reads. Realistically, only a fraction of readers will leave reviews, and an even smaller fraction leaves reviews for downloads from a free promotion. I get about 1 Amazon review per 1,000 free downloads. Some authors leave a note in their books asking readers to leave a review. You can try submitting your book to review groups or blogs.
My book hasn't come out yet and so far my only success has been having the book listed on NetGalley. Soliciting for reviews is a lesson in perseverance, I'm finding. You need the exposure, 1, and then you need the sliver of people who do leave reviews to leave them, 2.I did a giveaway here and got 809 people to enter and had my book added to hundreds of reading lists. Going through Xpresso Book Tours I paid into her NetGalley co-op for a 3 month listing plus I'm doing a book blitz and a blog tour in early 2017. If you have a marketing fund I'd recommend looking into blog tours, paid ads, and places like Book Bub.
Donna wrote: "My book hasn't come out yet and so far my only success has been having the book listed on NetGalley. Soliciting for reviews is a lesson in perseverance, I'm finding. You need the exposure, 1, and t..."Very good advice Donna
Garfield wrote: "Donna wrote: "My book hasn't come out yet and so far my only success has been having the book listed on NetGalley. Soliciting for reviews is a lesson in perseverance, I'm finding. You need the expo..."Thank you! I'm learning as I'm going. I'm definitely realizing that it is all about the dollar dollar bills, y'all. Like Xpresso will tap into literally thousands of book bloggers on her list for the blitz and the tour in one go, plus she has tens of thousands of followers across her social media platforms. There aren't enough hours in my lifetime to get that kind of access. So I'm still sending out individual requests to people I'm finding, but paying for that kind of access (and this is NOT paying for positive reviews, she's basically acting as my publicist right now) is worth every penny, I think.
If you can stomach it submitting to Kirkus could have it's benefits. My review from them is due at the end of the month and I gag every time I think about what they're going to say. I entered the BookLife Prize in Fiction and had I not gotten the critique and score I got from them I probably wouldn't have had the nerve to submit to Kirkus. You can submit to Publisher's Weekly for free through BookLife. They'll consider it there too.
G.M. wrote: "Is there a method of getting readers to actually review or does that mean no one cared for it enough to review?"Christina is quite correct, the only method is patience. But more important is why concern yourself with reviews at all? Personally, we'd love to never get another review or rating, and if there was a way to remove all of them, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Reviews are not for us authors. As feedback, they are worthless at best, and at worst, a distraction. They also don't drive sales. They allow that very tiny percentage of readers who like to spend time online to share their opinions with other readers. That's it. They don't concern us and we are best off not concerning ourselves with them.
Owen wrote: "G.M. wrote: "Is there a method of getting readers to actually review or does that mean no one cared for it enough to review?"Christina is quite correct, the only method is patience. But more impo..."
While I agree to an extent, especially in regard to reviews being for readers, not authors, reviews, and ratings especially, are what get people's attention (aside from cover art). They help tip the scales. If someone is scrolling through a list of books and are considering picking up your book to read, if they see that other people are vouching for the book, irrespective of the quality of those reviews, they'll be more likely to pick it up.
Books are sold based on word of mouth. Ratings and reviews are one component of that. From a writing standpoint I'd agree not to concern yourself with reviews. I know many authors who don't read any of the reviews they get, good or bad. They just don't do it. But for an indie author, if you don't already have a platform or a reader base and you don't have the backing of a marketing team, you don't have much else to go on when trying to get people to read your book. It'd be nice if quality alone was enough to get a book into people's hands, but that's just not the case. People have to know you even exist and then you have to get them to take a chance on your book. Not to mention reviews are tied to website algorithms in terms of promotion. Like on Amazon, hit that magical 50 review number and you end up in a whole different tier of exposure on the largest eBook retailer website in the world. Even commercial authors published with the big five strive for this because of the impact it can have on their book.
So I guess it depends on what you want to use reviews for and what you're hoping to get out of them. And what your plans are for your book and your writing career as a whole.
Mod
Maybe, but many of us here regard this as nothing but a rumor as we've seen no evidence that this is true. For example, people sometimes claim, for example, that you have to have X number of reviews to be included on "also bought" lists, but that is not true. I have seen my books, even ones with no reviews, on "also bought" lists.
Mod
I have to echo what Christina said. If you're only looking for organic reviews, be patient. They will come.
Owen has good points, too. Reviews are not for authors. There's no harm in reading them, of course, but take them all with a grain of salt.
If you want opinions and feedback on your writing, better to join a writing group or take a creative writing workshop.
Donna wrote: "Like on Amazon, hit that magical 50 review number and you end up in a whole different tier of exposure on the largest eBook retailer website in the world. "I've never seen any substantiation regarding the 50-reviews rumor, and I can assert that our first book hit 50 reviews quite some time ago, and nothing whatever happened as a result.
I don't know much about Amazon reviews and sales ranking. My focus will be getting Goodreads review first that are hopefully also posted on Amazon. GR reviews appear on the homepage of the reviewers friends, can be "liked" etc.
I joined Broad Universe for the monthly Netgalley rate, and submitted my book to Netgalley, and it is such a thrill to see yet another review from a complete stranger who liked my book.If you don't want to spend money, I'm afraid you'll just have to wait, but I found that Netgalley and a review alert on Xpresso Book Reviews helped seed my book reviews nicely.
Some people say that leaving a note at the back of the book prompting people to review can help, but I was too chicken to do that.
Thank you all for the feedback. I guess my fixation with feedback comes from recently graduating from grad school. I could think I wrote a good paper and then the professor would reveal their opinion. (The thought of a Kirkus review is like having the dean grade a paper... Maybe later in life!)
The thought of paying for a review is a little outside my budget right now. Hopefully, 2017 will allow for me to get on some site to help get my name out there.
When it comes to adding a note at the end, I don't think that would be a turnoff as a reader. I might try that next!
Just remember that paying for reviews violates both Amazon and Goodreads terms of service. Paying for an editorial review is fine, but those cannot be misrepresented as customer reviews. Keep running promotions. You won't get a lot of reviews that way, but with enough traction, you'll get readers who will want to read your next book and personally, I'm far more interested in return business than knowing what people have to say.
Christina, Yes I meant the Kirkus review an such. I am currently hammering away on book 2. I will probably post a free promotion for early next year. Thanks for the heads up! This group is very helpful.
G.M.
Donna wrote: "While I agree to an extent, especially in regard to reviews being for readers, not authors, reviews, and ratings especially, are what get people's attention (aside from cover art). They help tip the scales ..."This is something that gets repeated and I think it's become almost an article of faith among authors. Having studied this for almost 4 years now, I've reached the conclusion that this is not true, in general. In specific, readers of some genres appear [maybe] to put more weight reviews than others. (Personally I'm dubious, as the data are inherently biased.) Reader reviews also have a different effect at different times in a book's life, because organic reviews, past a certain threshold, are a valid indicator of past sales. In this sense, reviews might enhance sales for a successful book, but they don't create that success in the first place. A lot of books sell quite well without reviews.
Anyone who wishes can go to Amazon and study the correlation between reader reviews and sales ranking over time, do the statistics, and reach their own conclusions. Other data are too sparse and biased to be reliable.
Editorial reviews are wholly different and depend on the perceived credibility of the source. I have an impression that Kirkus reviews are not considered very credible these days by readers. Reader who care about reviews maybe aware they are paid for and this discount them. But again, this can be tested. Simply check to see if books in a given category with positive Kirkus reviews consistently outperform books without them. (I have not seen this to be the case.)
Finally, reviews for nonfiction are quite different than reviews for fiction, as the latter are wholly subjective while the former are not. Nonfiction can be assessed on objective grounds. Based on what I've observed, a lot of what is said about reviews for books and marketing in general is based on nonfiction. Very little of that applies to fiction. But this doesn't stop people who claim expertise in these matters from repeating it.
In the end, the key thing in my view, is that none of this really matters all that much. Time will reveal what happens. That takes years. Reality takes little account of our theories. And there is no rush. We have our entire lives to do this. Nothing can stop us but ourselves. So just write and try to have fun with it.
One thing that I've tried to get more reviews is offering a coupon code for the prerelease of book two. I respond to all reviews good and bad with a way to contact me to receive the coupon. I thank them for their feedback and make a direct connection with them even if they didn't give the best review. It also lets readers know that I actual care about their opinions and gives them a real link to me. It's something new so I don't know how well its' working but so far it has been doing pretty good and helps improve the impact of bad reviews. I don't take them personally. It's an affective way to improve my writing, by responding to all of them positively has improved my review responses and the over all impression.
I always look at reviews, on everything, no matter what it is. Goodreads seems to be a big reader base, but the problem is how to get them interested and reviewing... right? Perhaps the people willing to read and review your work would be other passionate authors struggle with similar situations? However review swaps are against policy, so do free read swaps instead and let the cards fall where they may. Seems like your fellow authors would be more inclined to help in this way.
I haven't figured out why it is so hard to get reviews on Goodreads. I've gotten some but many more from Amazon.
Hi, I Know what you mean about getting honest feedback. This is something that is very important to me too.I am a fitness author and getting reviews has been one of the toughest parts or the whole self publishing game. My personal "self-publishing game" is entering its 5th year and soliciting reviews is still like pulling teeth.
Every book that I have written has a page mid way through and at the end asking for a review. I have never had negative feedback from readers about this. On one of my audio books I even had my narrator hire me a studio to record an "outro" myself that thanked the reader for their purchase, offered them further help should they need it and of course request a review.
This particular book had over 12k downloads on its first launch day back in the summer....... It only has 31 Amazon reviews.
From my experience, the most effective way to get reviews is to offer your work to other authors and create relationships with them. Other self published authors know the value of these reviews and are more likely to help you out. I have also had success with readers that have emailed me saying that they liked my book or had great results from the advice. All I do then, is ask them to copy and paste their message into the review section on Amazon. If you do this, make it easy for them by sending them the review page link.
So, if you are an author who is looking for reviews and would like to connect, drop me an email, its always good to meet like minded people.
Jim
Jim@jimshealthandmuscle.com
James wrote: "Hi, I Know what you mean about getting honest feedback. This is something that is very important to me too.I am a fitness author and getting reviews has been one of the toughest parts or the whol..."
Thank you James. Sometimes solutions came in small obvious packages, just as yours did. I said to myself after reading your suggestions. "Why didn't I think of that?". Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.
Hello Jim,Well done for attracting over 12k downloads and 31 reviews on Amazon!
Comment deleted. We have recently posted an update outlining our policies on what is and is not allowed on review discussions. Please refrain from offering to review books. Thank you.
I'm kind of ambivalent here. If you are getting read, surely that's all to the good....Reviews would be a bonus, but let's not get too hung up on them.
Rose wrote: "Hello Jim,Well done for attracting over 12k downloads and 31 reviews on Amazon!"
Thanks Rose :-) . I have decided that my next goal should be to get 100 reviews for this book......
I just hope that I don't have to sell my soul to the devil himself to get these reviews and then find out that Amazon decide to remove them because, technically I paid for them! Hehe :-)
Mod
Reviews would be a bonus, but let's not get too hung up on them."
Agreed. I see too many creative spirits being crushed because they feel their work doesn't collect stars fast enough. Do not let this kind of stuff stand in your way. Keep creating!
Jane wrote: "I'm kind of ambivalent here. If you are getting read, surely that's all to the good....Reviews would be a bonus, but let's not get too hung up on them."
Good point - at the end of the day, this is all that matters. But self-publishing is a busy place and its getting busier so, the more reviews/ social proof that you have, the more readers you will get, and your work will stand up to the test of time a lot better in my opinion.
you've joined the club, William. Reviews - oh, how I wish! I, too, have a plead at the end of the books, asking - no begging for a review. I really don't know what the answer is.
I have two books published currently- one is quite an unusual sci-fi novel and the other is a psychological thriller. I have struggled quite a lot getting reviews for the sci-fi novel, but the psychological thriller now has 84 ratings and 53 reviews on Goodreads and a decent number of reviews on Amazon (34 on Amazon UK and 19 on amazon.com) One thing that helped with this was when I scrolled through reviews of other similar psychological thrillers on Goodreads until I found reviews written by bloggers. This seemed like a good way of finding people genuinely interested in my sort of book. Another thing that worked well for this book was a LibraryThing giveaway. However when I tried this for the sci-fi book I only got 1 review.I have used Kirkus reviews and Readers Favorite reviews- I think it can be useful if you want to pull a sentence from the review to quote, but it is an expensive way of going about it and I don't feel that readers pay any more attention to a quote from Kirkus than a quote from a blogger. It's not something I would spend money on again in the future.
I think as I have gained more reviews I pay less attention to each one, but it is really useful to identify patterns in what people are saying and I am using it to help me get a feel for what people do and don't like as I write my next book. I definitely feel that more reviews have gained me more sales, but it does seem to me like different things work for different genres.
My approach to getting reviews is:1) Put a note in the back of the book that expresses that, as an indie author, reviews are very helpful. Upon adding this to the back of a book that had not previously contained the note, I found that my review rate jumped sharply...but only when I have an influx of readership due to some promotion. YMMV.
2) I do a freebie promotion.
3) I occasionally pay to have my book featured on OHFB.com (or some other free book promotion newsletter) during a free promotion.
I'd agree with the notion that you shouldn't get too hung up on it; although I think reviews are important and provide valuable feedback, my perspective on reviews is shaped by my own experiences as a reader. That is, I'll look at the distribution of star ratings on Amazon, a few of the positive/negative reviews, and the total number of reviews, but anything beyond a dozen or so reviews has diminishing returns for me in terms of the confidence it provides in terms of the quality of the book. I'm not really more likely to buy a book with 50, 100, or 1000 reviews than one with 20.
I can't testify as to the accuracy of claims that Amazon uses review numbers as part of their algorithm, but I doubt it. They have access to much better data, such as exact purchase numbers, approximately how much of the book an average Kindle reader actually reads, and what other purchases correlate with purchases your book. I doubt that total number of reviews is as good of a predictor of Amazon's ultimate objective, which is to show you stuff that you will buy.
I would also discourage inorganic methods. I don't ask friends/family to review my book (though I won't tell them not to, either), I don't do review swaps, and I don't pay for reviews. Sending review copies out to book review blogs seems fine, though, if they agree to it in advance (I've done this a little, but not much, for some reason).
I guess my whole philosophy comes back to thinking of myself as a reader, then. What factors convince YOU to read a book? And when would you feel that an author was being deceptive? Seek out the former, avoid the latter.
Will,Some very interesting observations, although I don't seed the harm in asking friends on FB to review my book. I only ask for honest reviews and also don't swap or pay for them.
I have found that 2 things have helped the sale of my memoirs. One is email promotions suggesting y book as a gift and the other is the fact that all of the royalties are donated to charity.
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Is there a method of getting readers to actually review or does that mean no one cared for it enough to review?
Any ideas on getting opinions past friends and family?