A new ebook author on the Kindleboards asked if reviews are vital to ebook sales.
To me, the answer seems obvious (yes), since I doubt I’d buy an ebook from an indie author without several reviews posted on Amazon. Heck, I don’t even buy books from established authors without seeing some reader reviews first these days. Of course, I’m not representative of every reader.
Most folks in the thread did say, yes, readers are much more likely to download the sample and ultimately buy the ebook. We like to see social proof that others have done the same and not regretted the experience. Some authors said they’d received sales on books with no reviews, though, so not having one isn’t necessarily a death knell. You’re just likely to see more purchases with reviews.
This begs the question, “How does one get reviews in the first place if one needs to have reviews up to get people to buy?”
Catch-22, eh?
So, how does one get those first few reviews? Here are a couple suggestions from the thread and a couple of my own:
- Find book review sites/blogs and offer a free copy of your ebook to the owner. Ideally, target folks who read and review in your genre and have already posted reviews of ebooks from indie authors (a lot of the bigger reviewers aren’t interested in ebooks or indie authors, but there are quite a few out there who specialize in these types of books).
- Make use of your social networking contacts. If you’re a big chatter on the internet or if you’ve been planning a book-marketing strategy, you may already have a legion of Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or Goodreads buddies. (If not, get busy!) You might get a few nibbles if you get onto your favorite social site and offer some free copies with the subtle hint that a review posted at Amazon, B&N, etc. would be appreciated (even better, just put this request in the author notes of your ebook–i.e. thanks for reading and if you enjoyed the story, please post a review).
- Join ebook forums, such as KindleBoards, MobileReads, and NookBoards, and look for members interested in doing reviews in exchange for free reads. Especially on the KindleBoards, I’ve seen several different members starting threads to let authors know they’re willing. You may get some people just fishing for free ebooks, but you’re not out anything even if that’s the case. You can always check the poster’s other threads to get a feel for them. Ideally, you’ll find a couple new fans who will leave reviews for you.
- Ask your blog visitors to read and review your ebooks. This may seem obvious, but you don’t get what you don’t ask for. If you maintain a blog (and you should!), make sure there’s a prominent link to your ebooks in the sidebar, preferably above the fold (visible to people without scrolling down). Don’t make visitors surf through several pages of your site (or even two) to find the link that will take them to Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, etc. If you have free review copies to offer, also make it known right up front.
Those are a few suggestions for how to get ebook reviews for your babies. If you have others, let us know in the comments.
