How many reviews do you need before focusing on getting reviews for the next book in your series?

[Joshua]

This is not so much a direct number but an opinion poll. Say you have a series. Now you can't focus on getting book reviews for book #1 forever, so what do you guys think is a good review count before focusing on book #2 and so on? 25? 50? 100?

[Mellie]

Personally - zero.
I've never worried about reviews or done anything to garner them. I publish the best book I can and then move on to the next one. I figure if I sell books, organic reviews will trickle in. I prefer to spend my time writing and not chasing reviews.

[Joshua]

A.W. wrote: "Personally - zero.
I've never worried about reviews or done anything to garner them. I publish the best book I can and then move on to the next one. I figure if I sell books, organic reviews will t..."

I can definitely see the logic behind that.

[Alexandra]

Joshua wrote: "This is not so much a direct number but an opinion poll. Say you have a series. Now you can't focus on getting book reviews for book #1 forever, so what do you guys think is a good review count bef..."

As a reader and from what I see, one of the best things you can do to increase notice for Book 1, is release Book 2. More notice = more potential sales, and possibly picking up more consumer opinions.

Where ever readers/shoppers are looking around two books double the chances of one showing up in a search somehow, and if they see Book 2 first and it grabs their interest they're likely to check out Book 1 from that.

Happens to me a lot on GR. I'll notice a book later in a series that I didn't know about before, and often from that I'll grab Book 1.

Having Book 2 out, or out soon-ish, also helps because many people are reluctant to start Book 1 in a series when it's the only book out, because it's not that uncommon that Book 2 doesn't ever come out, or takes years.

So, best thing I think, concentrate on working on Book 2 and getting it out. And good writing, interesting story and characters, appealing cover all help :D

[Rita]

I don't actively seek reviews normally. Maybe one or two per book from people I know will give me an honest review and then I leave it to find it's own level. I know if you want to go on sites such as BookBub you have to have a minimum number of reviews before they will accept you, but I don't pay for promotions either.

[Carole]

I built up a mailing list of reviewers. It started with a press release. Usually I start getting requests for the book after I do that. With my son's latest book, instead of using a press release service, I combined all our mailing lists and sent out a Mail Chimp asking people if they wanted a copy of the books. It worked very well.

Over the years my mailing list has grown and I actually had to cut it down- it became too expensive to mail out so many books. The list is a mixture of reviewers from Goodreads, Amazon, and bloggers who put up reviews on websites. I think you can never have enough reviews.
I do the publicity for my son- one of his books was picked up by a publisher and he told me the magic number was 40 reviews. He said once it gets to that number, Amazon will start to move the book. I don't know if that is true- but we hit 40 last Sunday, and it is still in the top 100 of it's genre and we've pulled back on the Facebook advertising.

[Joshua]

Ah, the essential mailing list. I'm still working on that. I keep hearing about Mail Chimp. It must be fantastic. I'm relying on my Wix site mailing list feature at the moment.

[Marie Silk]

I'm not sure how necessary it is to pursue reviews on a sequel. Most readers who enjoy the first book are likely to continue with the rest of the series.

[Will]

I don't think there is a single magic number, or frankly that an author should hold back on book two until book one has got there.

Readers are reassured by good reviews, but it seems to go in bands. At the risk of over-generalising, I've seen other authors suggest something like this:

No reviews - the book is a risk.
1 - 9 reviews - at least some people like it
10-99 (ish) - this book has a good following
100+ - a popular book

The argument is that the brain counts the number of digits, not the actual number of reviews. So anything over 10 but less than 99 is a two digit score. Anything over 100 is a three digit score. I'm not entirely convinced by this, but it seems to have some truth in it.

But readers are also reassured by the existence of sequels. It shows that this author is going to stick around and that the story continues in a second book or more.

What I now try to do - based on advice from a Mark Dawson training course - is to split my writing day into two. Half of the time is spent writing or editing. The other half is given over to marketing.

That way I am always working on the next book and always marketing the books I have out already. Add in editors and beta readers and I can be working on 2 or 3 books at the same time but at different stages of development.

There is a big leap of faith in this. If you write in a series, you may be tempted to pause after book 1 to see how well it does. You don't want to waste your time writing book 2 until you know that book 1 has been a success. That's certainly what I did after my first book.

A braver course, I think, is to have faith in your first book and start writing the sequel immediately. Sure, you run the risk of wasting your time if book 1 flops, but you will get book 2 finished sooner. And a 2 book series has more than double the appeal of a single book.