Happy Wednesday Scribblers. Today I wanted to ask for your help. I’m trying to increase the number of reviews my books have on Amazon. Believe it or not, 50 reviews is a magic number for Amazon. But before I jump into that let me share a little something about book reviews and why they are so important.
Why are reviews so important to authors?
Many people believe that reviews for books (and reviews in general are not important or that no one actually cares about what you think of a product). That isn’t the case.
When you write a review, you are helping others to decide if a product, or in my case my books, are something they will be interested in. They get to hear from someone other than the author or the publisher. They may not know you, but because you took the time to sit down and take a few minutes to talk about a product, they might buy they will trust you, because you are a non-interested party. You have nothing to gain or lose by leaving the review.
Leaving reviews provides honest feedback. For good or for ill, your voice matters. Research shows that people are more likely to write a review when they’ve had an ‘extreme’ experience (negative or positive). In these moments you can take the time to provide suggestions or feedback you get to say what you loved or didn’t like and ways to improve it. That said, we shouldn’t only write reviews when we feel strongly. We should take this time to share our thoughts no matter what, because if the feedback is constructive they will appreciate the review.
Think of a review as giving the product or author some love (sometimes tough love). We all want to know if our art is enjoyed, respected and appreciated. Sometimes what we’ve created hits the mark. So, let us know. Sometimes our works are way off base. Letting us know that too is important and shows you care. The only way for us to learn what works and what doesn’t is by our reviews. The more reviews we have, the better understanding we have as to what our fans and readers want from us.
Last, when you leave a review for a product (even a lukewarm review) you help get the products noticed given the work a chance to be seen by more people, and hopefully enjoyed by more people.
Now, why 50 reviews on Amazon? Here’s the thing with Amazon they are huge and they use logarithms to promote items, in order for these logarithms to kick in books need at least 50 reviews (click here for the article from HuffPost). What I’m asking is that, if you have read any of my books, please leave a review on Amazon even if you don’t want to give my books 5-stars. The process is straightforward and makes an enormous difference. Book reviews on Amazon are essential to building my brand as an author. The more reviews my books get on Amazon, the more people potential readers will see them.
I can’t stress who important leaving a review is, so I hope you will take a minute and help me out.
To assist you in leaving a review, here is a link to each of my books. First you will need to be signed into your Amazon account. Then all you have to do is scroll down and click on ‘write a customer review’ (the button will be under the ‘Customer Reviews’ in gray). Once there, simple leave a review, save the review and you are finished. Here are the links:
A More Perfect Union click here.
Contact (A New World Book 1) click here.
Conviction (A New World Book 2) click here.
The Calling click here.
The Called (The Calling Book 2) click here.
T.A.D. (The Angel of Death) click here.
A Dragon for Christmas click here.
The Reunion click here.
I can’t offer any incentives to you for providing a review, but perhaps I will come up with a special offer in my winder newsletter if all my books each have 50 or more reviews. Also, you don’t have to write an actual review you can rate the book (give the novel stars 1–5) so that makes the reviewing process even easier. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking a moment to help me reach at least 50 reviews for each of my books. One more nugget about your reviews, they help me market my books, I will often pull customer reviews and use them as part of my marketing. I often create graphics along with the reviews, so by leaving a review you are a major part of my marketing effort, which is kind of cool.
One last note, for you this week. If you haven’t seen the news, this month Smashwords is offering 50% off on all my e-books. This is a great deal that you don’t want to miss out on, especially if you are short on cash and still need some summer reading and are missing a couple of my books. Find all my novels here.
Until next time, have a great week.