How To Get Reviews For Your Book
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- čas přidán 31. 07. 2018
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Reviews can be one of the most challenging things for authors, so in today's video, I give some tips for getting book reviews specifically on the retail sites like Amazon (rather than in newspapers & traditional media). I cover:
- Why reviews matter anyway - social proof, big data, likelihood of further promotion
- Why you should always stick to the terms of service and get reviews ethically
- The short term view of reviews (wanting them on launch) vs. the longer term view of getting them over time
- It doesn't matter when you get reviews if you have a long term writing career
- Use a call to action at the back of your books
- Use Free to get more reviews - either KDP Select free days or permafree book on other stores and price matching on Amazon
- Goodreads promotions
- Book bloggers and pitching within your genre
- Using Amazon to find reviewers - or use AMC reviewer grabber (premium - my affiliate link: www.thecreativepenn.com/amc )
- Book review sites like Kirkus and NetGalley
- Using an email sequence on signup that asks for reviews
- Street teams and ARCs (Advanced Review Copies)
- Remember where you are. Your list will build over time, and so will your reviews. Don't get obsessed with it on launching your first book. Give it time!
For more book marketing tips, check out www.TheCreativePenn.com/marketing
and also my book, How to Market a Book, available in ebook, print and audiobook editions:
www.thecreativepenn.com/howtom...
Happy writing and book marketing!
Dynamite accent, professional, genuine and clear delivery. It's so refreshing to come upon someone like this lovely lady who is Not verbose and/or on love with her own cleverness. What a smart savvy sweetheart.
Thanks :)
Your book for indie author was the book that I went to when I started to have an idea to create and publish a book. I am so grateful to you because your book is very factual, easy to understand and right to the point. I also appreciated your kindness to encourage new authors, guided us with gentle and honest advice. You also saved me from almost falling into a trap of shady publishers. So I wrote this note to you with sincere admiration and gratitude.
I finally published a children’s book now and listened to you about marketing the book. It was not easy for me because most of the ways go against with how I was raised: discretion, humility, privacy, not self-promoting... this process will teach me how to adapt and grow.
May you be blessed with love and success
Thanks so much, I'm so glad to help :) You'll find info on marketing to suit your personality in my How to Market a Book. I think you have the wrong idea about marketing :) It can be whatever you want it to be. e.g. for me, it's helping people! (and it worked as you bought my book!)
So needed this today. Thank you!
Really relevant advice for newbies and veteran writers as well. Worth listening to her podcasts too!
I was over the moon when I finally got my first 1star review. It my my work look real. 😎
A few are always good :)
me too, my first and last :(
Thank you Queen....your video really encourages me as a new author
Thank you Joana! I’ve watched other videos on reviews but haven’t seen any as comprehensive as this.
Glad you found it useful :)
Those were great tips! Thank you Joanna :)
I love seeing five stars reviews about my book, but it's true "bad" reviews are also part of the game.
Also, I need to check out your tutorial on setting up email lists!
Here's the tutorial on email lists :) czcams.com/video/fudcH2Pm6kA/video.html
Thank you so much for this video. I am a new author of a children's book series and found the content you shared most helpful! Really loved the note for call to action at the end of the book by simply asking for the review.
Glad it was helpful!
Most helpful, Joanna! As someone going through the difficult and uncertain process of marketing my soon to be released book, I really benefitted from this video. Thank you 🙏🏻😊
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the great advice and tips.
Thanks for the tip about looking at people who have reviewed similar books. Such a smart approach - I never thought of that. I was focusing so much on booktubers, who can be hard to approach when you are self-publishing.
It is tough :) I recommend growing an email list as many of your readers are happy to do more reviews although this takes time to grow.
Great advice!
Thank you, Joanna! Great advice :)
Glad it was helpful!
Thumps up for this vid
Sounds like you just creat A map of reviews
Appreciate
amazing video. Thank you so much really! :)
This is great!
Thanks for some great tips, Joanna, I'm definitely going to try a lot of these. After 6 years of being self-published, I'm pretty desperate to get some more reviews.
I wrote a book Top 10 Ways College Drop Outs Become Billionaires: If Drop Outs Are Billionaires, Why Should children Study ( How they made money as a kid at home) on Kindle. This is to make everyone know their own path to success. This will be very helpful to all entrepreneurs, students and anyone who wants success. Can you please tell this to your readers and give me a review yourself since my book is free from 3 to 7 April. Please help me in spreading awareness regarding this.
Thank you
Let's help each other
Joanna has been a godsend as I get this indie gig off the ground. Her book is awesome too!
Thanks :) Glad to help!
I love this video and the others too. New subscriber and binge-watching all your videos all!!! :D Also, I wanna ask whether these marketing points can it be used for traditionally authors as well?
Glad you like the videos :) Trad pub authors have very little control over their books - they can't alter the price or the back blurb or the cover to try new things. Many trad pub authors use NetGalley for reviews and are often not allowed to use tools like BookFunnel. Basically, you would have to discuss it with your publisher.
@@thecreativepenn I see I see...I'll have to look more into bookfunnel..and thank youuuu so much for answering! 😁
great video good one
Joanna, Love the video like all your podcasts. I love the idea of having the subtle request at the back of the book for reviews. I know you are focusing and creating audio books now of your work. Are you considering adding something at the end of the audio book that makes a similar request but with a list of audio book review spots? Thanks.
It's difficult to do with audio as you can't change it so easily, and behavior is different there, plus they have some rules as to what goes into closing credits.
Thanks joannq. I'm going to look for those rules. I'm adding requests to visit websites and sign up for newsletter email lists in the closing now. I thought I had heard those before but better confirm those are kosher!
Thanks Bunches 😀🥰🤗👌
I keep hearing about this lady.
Very interesting TO ME
A million thanks for your expert advice! (From the silly American author who got you mixed up with Roz, LOL) That's what happens when a non-fiction book idea hits and I put a release date of December 1 on Amazon! I never thought that I'd write a non-fiction book, but here I am, working on Successful Women Have Grit: Life Lessons Learned from Horses. I have an idea for volume II as well, and also, this audience that I'm building will probably be interested in my women's fiction as well.
I won't be able to implement all the terrific ideas on reviews, etc., before my release date. BUT - am I right in believing that I can simply go in and change up the back cover of the paperback and put some reviews on after it has been out a while and I have some Amazon reviews? Isn't that one of the benefits of ebooks? To be able to go in and make corrections/changes? I really want to have the book out by December 1, and use the marketing tag line: Give the Gift of Grit for the holiday season book shoppers.
Plus, even though I am excited by the positive reviews and a growing Facebook audience, I have to consider this first book a learning experience.
Thanks!!
You can always change the cover later. Not an issue :)
Many thanks.You kind of corroborated everything I thought was the case. So far my debut thriller 'The Chair Man' is attracting very positive reviews. 56 on Goodreads with an average of 4.57. I have offered it free on all platforms and have done a couple pf promos with Fussy Librarian. Investing in my first spot with Freebooksy this Wednesday. Have tried BookBub but haven't got anywhere with them yet.I will perecevere though. Best, AP
hi you mean a call to action on the back cover of your book? (like paperback books or also kindle books or digital books in general?)? thanks
Uusally in the back matter, not the back cover - so right after the end of the contents
Thanks, very helpful 🥰I'd like to know how the Book Give Away method works with Amazon Print On Demand, where the author only asks the subscriber to pay for postage, usually for $5.99 ? I'd highly appreciate if you could help... Thanks ❗️❓
Some authors use that for big launches, in order to maximize sales on Amazon, but it's mostly common for those with large audiences.
Anyone please suggest few or several sites where a debut author may get good (constructive) reviews for Amazon? Thanks in advance!
This might help - blog.reedsy.com/book-review-blogs/
I have asked kdm support for making a last page asking a customer for a review if they liked the book the support told me that this infringing their policies but i am seeing maby authors doing it
You have to word it very carefully, so just check the back of authors books who are doing it successfully.
I listed one of my books for free on Amazon and got 13 orders, but I didn't get a single review. What a bummer!
If you have the book for free, you will need several hundred downloads for every review as many readers who download a freebie don't read, and even if they do read it, they might not review. So maybe do some promotions on it and get it to 1000 downloads, then you should get more reviews.
The few people we did get to read our books said they loved them (either they were lying or they were being honest), but getting people to post a review is like asking them to donate one of their limbs while still living. They tell ya 'i will i will' and three years later they still aint done it. Total strangers give the greatest reviews for mine and my wife's books that we posted on amazon. Friends tend to be less supportive, family too, At my nephews request, my own mother read each of the hunger games books, cover to cover. He didnt write the hunger games and neither did I, but I asked her to read a manuscript that I wrote, She read 5 pages of it and set it down, saying I'll read it later. Seven years later,, she still hasnt picked it back up, My own mom. Smh.
It takes time to build a team of readers who are happy to leave reviews, but it's worth doing!
We at Team Golfwell does free book reviews > www.teamgolfwell.com/free-book-reviews.html
Nonsense! With no reviews and no sales, Amazon drops you from the "best of" lists. Amazon drops your book from the "new books" that they promote every month. You get no boost whatsoever. Amazon ceases recommending your book to readers who search for or land on similar books. Soon, without enough sales, Amazon ceases offering your book at all. REVEIWS IN THE FIRST MONTH ARE CRITICAL TO SUCCEEDING AS AN AUTHOR! The heartbreaking thing is that my (paid) beta reader and (paid) editor both rave about the book. I wrote a damned fine story and NOBODY is ever going to read it because once you sink to the bottom of the Amazon sorting algorithm, it is IMPOSSIBLE to climb back up.
Any nonfiction lovers here?
Yes, and a non-fiction writer, too! Unfortunately almost all this advice seems to be pointed at writers of fiction. It seems irrelevant to my interests and needs. My books have never seen the inside of a bookshop and don;'t get reviewed on GR or Amazon. The same applies to Alli (Alliance of Independent Authors) who I am investigating. I have e-mailed them to ask if they have anything to offer non-fiction writers and have not had an answer yet.
So annoyed, just got asked to do paid reviews for Amazon books. No thanks! Not that desperate for money.
Do they pay you to write honest reviews? or is this authors bribing people for positive reviews?
Lizzy Chrome sounded like a service they sold to authors who wanted to pay for good reviews. They wanted people who would buy the book via Amazon, which I assume is so it would be a verified review, then they would “reimburse” you and pay a very small fee for each book reviewed. If your review was negative, less than 4 stars, it seemed you’d still get paid but they said not to post it. It seemed like a scam. Even if I did get reimbursed and paid as promised, it didn’t seem ethical to do it.
Yes, that is a scam and against the Amazon terms of service. Reviews are not allowed to be "in exchange" for anything. So back away!
Personally, I think getting reviews are pointless. I have a book up for 4 years and I only have 3 reviews. Two of them were from the same person on Amazon and Goodreads who said how bad my book is. I got over it though, thank goodness. And now Amazon is making all new rules up about "It can only be reviewed unless it's purchased" and "Family can't review it" and now you just said Amazon bought Goodreads. How long until they start putting up rules for that website? And paid reviews, I understand why it's necessary not to do that but reviewers these days don't give a rat's behind when you give a free copy of your book. You give them a month to read it and they won't answer back. It's like a needle in a haystack and you'll be lucky to find that one needle, only sometimes, they will pinch you with a bad review. And also, not all of us can afford bookbub promotion but then again, promoting and marketing your book on social media is almost pointless. I mean, I've tried spending money on book promotion but the result is zero.
I apologies for this negative comment and I think Joanna Penn is giving some amazing advice but not all writers are lucky in this book industry and I'm one of them and I wish every indie novelist out there good luck, you'll definitely need it.
I'd suggest using free and KDP Select days, as it's much easier to get reviews on free books. But you're right, the indie way is not for everyone :) It's an all-encompassing career.
I had the same response. I gave away thirty free copies of my book on a Goodreads giveaway, since they said I would get about 12 reviews, That was a lie and they knew it. I got three reviews, and one trashed it. Never again. Whoever reads it can do what they want. No more freebies.
After listening to all those podcasts, it's weird to see your voice coming out of an actual head....
I do have one :)
I have heard that rumor... ;)