The
following post by Gwen Perkins
(used with permission) is a perfect follow up to yesterday’s blog on finding book reviewers. It walks you through how to write an Amazon review
and the impact reviews have on sales.
As
anyone who is or knows an author knows, many of us frequently go around wishing
and hoping that our book will receive reviews on that book giant, Amazon. (I
also wish and hope for Powell’s and Barnes and Noble’s but as more and more
authors publish exclusively through the Big A, that’s what this blog post is
about.) I thought that I’d explain my own reasons for wanting reviews and how
they work. I’m choosing to address this via questions that I’ve received from
friends and family.
1) I’m
no good at writing an Amazon review. What do I say?
The
beautiful thing about Amazon reviews is that you don’t have to be Roger Ebert.
You can click a star rating and then write a couple of sentences about the
book. Reviews can be as simple as “This book was really good. I wish there was
more romance” or really elaborate.
Here are
some things you could put in a review:
Adjectives
that describe the book (it was good, it was awful, etc).
Say
something you liked about it. Things that you could focus on could include the
plot, a particular scene, characters, how things changed during the course of
the story, etc.
If there
was a moment or character that personally impacted you in some way, don’t be
afraid to say so. Put yourself in the review. Authors love to know their
readers and I know that I’m always touched when I can tell someone made a
personal connection with what I wrote.
Talk
about what you wanted to see more of or what needs improvement. Do you wish
another character was in the book more? Say so. Did bad spelling distract you?
Tell us that too.
Tips to
remember:
Don’t be
afraid to be honest. Do, however, remember to be helpful. Don’t just say “it
sucks” but tell everyone why it sucked.
Don’t
give away the ending of the book. You can allude to it very vaguely (“the
ending surprised me”) but don’t say specific plot details.
You’re
not being graded. Write a review as long or short as you want. It doesn’t have
to be a masterpiece of art—think of it more as a conversation or what you might
tell people you know about this book.
Make
sure that you read the book before you review. This seems like it should be
obvious but… it’s not.
2) Do
Amazon reviews actually affect a book’s sales?
I have
to be honest with you and tell you that I don’t yet know for sure as I don’t
have the “magic number” yet. This is what I understand to be true from
conversations with my publisher and other authors:
Around
20-25 reviews, Amazon starts including the book in “also bought” and “you might
like” lists. This increases your chances of someone finding your title.
Around
50-70 reviews, Amazon looks at your book for spotlight positions and the
newsletter. This is HUGE. This is my personal goal although I use Amazon
reviews for other reasons (more later on in this post).
Number
of reviews may affect Amazon sales ranking. (Again, this is anecdotal–I have no
actual proof of it.)
Some
websites will not consider or promote your book unless you have a number of
reviews on the page (this is very true of those sites that highlight free
promos—I can attest to this).
And, of
course, readers may read through your reviews and decide to purchase or not
purchase the book based on this.
3)
Whatever. I don’t care if you sell this wonderful/awful book. Why should I
write a review if it doesn’t change how you write the next one?
Oh, but
it does.
When I
read my Amazon reviews, they tell me things that my editor might not. Let’s
face it, an editor is only one person and even with beta readers, you’re
working in a group of people who are familiar with the craft of writing. What
an author also needs is the opinion of the average reader, that person who just
picked up their book and doesn’t have an English degree.
While
you have to have a tough skin about reviews, as an author, they’re very
helpful. They can reaffirm something that you were already working on. For
instance, I’d already decided to make one of my minor characters in my first
book a point-of-view character for the second—my reviews have told me that
people wouldn’t be uninterested in him. They can also point out things that you
need to work on. In my case, exposition!
Likewise,
positive reviews tell you what you’re doing right. If people rave about your
characters, then that’s likely a good place to keep going. If reviews talk
about the fighting scenes in a positive light, then you know you’re making a
difference.
So, in
short, yes, what you write in that review is fairly likely to change something
about the book I’m working on now. Writing is a process.
4) But I
really hated the book! Should I still review it?
Here is
where I probably differ from some other authors so I’m going to speak only for
myself here.
Yes.
Absolutely. How will I know where to improve unless I get reviews that tell me
so? Yes, it can be painful to read some reviews but am I ever going to say that
there isn’t truth in them? No.
After the initial sting, I’ll read it again and take something home from that.
I’ll be a better writer for it. To be honest, not everyone likes every book.
There are people out there who hate Harry Potter. It would be a little
presumptuous to think that all of my reviews would be golden for any book
(they’re not now and I don’t expect that to change. Especially not if anyone
reads this post.).
The only
thing that I ask is to please make sure you have something to say about why it
is bad. The only review that I’ve ever been really irritable about was a
one-star on an old short horror story I posted for fun where the reader said
they were underage and hadn’t read it.
Having
said all of that, it is really tough to be a small press or self-published
author (I am the former). Bad reviews can kill a novel if they’re the first
ones a book receives or if they’re all that the book has. Please hold this in
mind if you decide to go forth. This post by Anne R, Allen
does a good job of explaining the impact in more detail than I’ll get into
here.
(Feel
free to share this post or copy it for your own blog. All I ask is that if you
do, please keep my author note.)
Gwen
Perkins is a fantasy novelist who is always on the hunt for Amazon reviews for
her first novel, The Universal Mirror (Hydra Publications,
2012). She can be contacted through email at gwen@ironangel.net.
Kathy here: If you read my book, The Ruby Brooch, I hope you'll write a review on Amazon. Matter of fact, I hope you write reviews for all the books you read! I know I will for now on.
Here’s today’s running song to get you up and moving.
Happy writing and running, Kathy
