One study on product reviews found that 90% of online shoppers read reviews before deciding whether to purchase a product or keep looking for something else. Products with few reviews or ones with a particularly negatives review tend to lead potential customers to decide against buying the item. This is just one of the many reasons why authors need to encourage readers to write reviews about their books on Amazon.
Why Are Book Reviews So Important?
Along with convincing potential fans to read your work, having plenty of book reviews also increases your sales, expands your overall fan base, and helps you learn what your audience enjoys most and least about your work. Think of your book reviews as a free marketing tool that improves your conversion rate (total number of visitors/the number of purchase made) Reviews are authentic, they engender trust and they encourage unsure readers to purchase your book. Even if you get an occasional critical review, you can use these comments to learn about the kinds of things that irritates your fan base.
Methods to Avoid
Before you jump at any chance to get reviews, remember to abide by Amazon’s Customer review policies. In April 2018, Amazon changed its terms of service to crack down on sellers offering free products (and other rewards) in return for reviews. These incentivized reviews violated Amazon’s terms of service and can get you banned from KDP. They also mislead customers. To avoid getting in trouble with Amazon (or with other authors who might want to make an example of anyone caught breaking the rules) you should avoid the following strategies:
- Incentivizing readers. You should never offer to give a reader anything in return for a review. Bribing readers with prizes, money, or other incentives is not allowed. One exception…you can give someone a free copy of your book to read and review in they decide to review it. But the review must disclose in their review that they got a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
- Buying book reviews. Similar to the above, buying reviews from shady or even legitimate looking sites can quickly land you in trouble with Amazon and possibly with other authors. Don’t risk getting kicked off of KDP for life.
- Using a review service. Amazon is becoming more adept at spotting reviews that are provided by review services. Be careful with any site that promises to get you Amazon reviews.
The main point to take away from this is to focus on gaining honest feedback from real people who read your book. While having more reviews might look good for vanity’s sake, you’re not connecting with your audience or getting genuine opinions, which is what all authors should be striving to achieve.
Strategies for Gaining Book Reviews
Both new and seasoned authors alike benefit from getting more reviews for their books, no matter how long ago they were released. Here are some ways authors can gain Amazon reviews for their books:
- Temporarily price your book at $0.00 (free). Book’s enrolled in the Kindle Select program can be priced at “free” for five days at a time. Running a promotion for a free book will dramatically boost your book downloads. What’s the point of that you might ask? Good question. On average you can expect to get 2-3 reviews for every 1,000 free books downloaded.
- Lower your book price briefly. If you lower your book price to $0.99 you will sell more books at this price than at a higher price. With paid book sales you are likely to get 1 review for every 100 books sold.
- Ask friends and family. Politely ask your friends and family members who have read the book if they will write an honest review.
- Use social media effectively. If you have a new book coming out, pique your followers’ curiosity by posting sneak peaks of upcoming chapters or by writing ominous posts about what your latest book might contain. Creating a buzz around your book can encourage more people to read it and then share their opinion about it.
- Connect with top book reviewers. Plenty of top reviewers on Amazon list their email address on their profile. Some are even professional reviewers. All you have to do is find people who have reviewed books similar to yours and send them a brief email asking them if they would be interested in reviewing your book. (The full process is explained in detail here).
- Use back matter effectively. In the back matter of your book include a brief message that thanks the reader and encourage them to write a short review. You can even include a direct link to make it easy for your readers to get to your Amazon detail page to start the review process. (Learn more about using back matter in this article).
- Set up a review exchange. Connect with another author to do a review swap: ask if they’d be willing to write a review for your book in exchange for a review from you.
We hope these tips help you get more reviews for your titles on Amazon.
JustKindleBooks is dedicated to helping authors connect with thousands of potential readers. With affordable promotion options, authors can have their books posted on three different websites, several social media pages, and be highlighted in JustKindleBooks’ newsletter. See our Book Promotions page for more details.
