If you’re an author, you may be aware of a couple of small promotional opportunities you can make use of by leaving reviews on Amazon.
First off, your reviewer profile can include information about you so you can sneak in a plug for your work. You can also include your website or a link to your Amazon author page (which should list your books).
Second, you can customize your reviewer handle to use your author name (and you can even add on “mystery author” or some such).
If you’re a prolific reviewer, this can be a way to get your name out there and perhaps entice a few Amazonians into checking out your work.
A few suggestions in case you want to try promotion through reviews:
Try reviewing books that are similar to yours (similar but more popular, eh?), so it’s likely your target audience will notice you.
If it’s possible to be first, then go for it. I’m not positive how Amazon chooses which three reviews get to show up on the main book page, but it seems to be a combination of being early and posting something substantial.
Don’t expect too much out of this. If you already love reviewing, then this promotional strategy makes sense (as long as you’re leaving reviews, they might as well help you sell books), but reading and reviewing is time-consuming so if it’s a job and not for pleasure (i.e. you’re reading popular books you might not otherwise try because you want to be the first to leave a review…) then you’ll probably find the whole process tedious and not particularly rewarding.
Caveats
Personally, I don’t do many reviews and not any with the idea of promoting my own work. There’s an art to writing good reviews, the kind that entertain and inform, and if you’re not publishing that kind, you’re probably not going to get folks clicking your name to check out your profile.
I tend to be too critical (a common faux pas amongst writers — some of us think we know everything 😉 ), and I can’t imagine my overly analytical reviews winning me any fans. I’ve known other authors who leave short 5-star reviews praising everything they read. Again, that probably wouldn’t get you a lot of profile views, especially if it’s not even clear you read the book.
I’d be leery, too, about leaving harsh reviews for other indie authors if you’re an indie author. I’ve stumbled across some clearly retaliatory reviews on Smashwords, and I suppose they exist on Amazon too. A one-star review probably isn’t going to matter when you have ten other four- and five-star ones, but I imagine that could be a real sales buzzkill if that’s your first review.
Do you guys have any thoughts? Do you review on Amazon or not?
I’ve only reviewed once on Amazon (I imagine you saw it three days ago), and I must be honest, I’m probably only inclined to review on Amazon if I’m giving a 5-star rating. I WANT people to buy the stuff I really enjoy. I can’t decide if that makes me a little bit evil or controlling for trying to foist my views on the world.
I’m not easily impressed, so when I am, I want everyone else to be too. Downside, is that if someone doesn’t like the movie/tv show/book/cd I like, I tend to take it personally 😀
Way back, when I first started publishing, I was told that writing reviews is one of the best methods of getting your name in front of readers. I wrote a bunch. Dozens, at least. And now I kind of wish I hadn’t. No clear reason why, really. It just seems to muddy things somehow. It’s always nagged at me, but I’ve never seen it addressed anywhere. That’s why this blog is way high on my list of favorites.
First.
Haha!
Actually, I’ve had to think about this a lot myself as a writer-reviewer. I’ve finally settled on a two-step method. I always sample before committing to reading a book for review. And then if I can’t give the book at least three stars, I’ll contact the author directly first and discuss the issues before actually making the review public.
I’ve not yet had to do this because so far sampling has actually helped to ensure I find books I would at least give three stars to.
The question, though, is am I doing a disservice of sorts in not pointing out the bad books with the good? Now that is a good question that I’m not sure I have an answer to, but from what I’ve seen, no/few reviews is about as bad as getting a poor review, so in essence not leaving a review at all does much the same thing–apart, of course, of explicitly warning a potential reader off a bad purchase.
Ay me, why did I even start….
I agree that I feel like not leaving a low review on a book I hated is a disservice.
When I leave a low star review, I try to make it as informative as possible and always say that these are the reasons the book didn’t work for *me*, but others may enjoy it.
Dang, so much for long-winded replies knocking me off the perch!
I’ve done a few reviews on my blog and linked to them on goodreads. Of course I don’t review with writing in mind but with reading in mind. My main focus when I write a review is to tell why I liked the book while not giving anything away. With indie books, if there are some errors, I will note them but that’s more for the author’s benefit so they can fix it. I understand with indie books, errors will slip through so I figure it’s appreciated to say ‘FYI, a comma’s missing on pg 23.’
I haven’t done many reviews. I’ve been hesitant as my Amazon account is under my legal name. I want to keep my private life and author life separate. Maybe I can’t. I’ll have to look into it more.
I’ve done reviews on Smashwords and Goodreads. My motto, if you can’t say something nice, say nothing. Honesty should only be reserved for critique partners.
I discovered that changing your display name on Amazon is really easy and it doesn’t change your actual name!
I did that. My account was all set up with my real name, not my pen name and I thought I was stuck with that. Then I went into the profile and found that I could easily change to a username that wasn’t my real name.
Can’t remember now how I did it, but I remember it was super simple.
I’ve considered setting up a review site under a completely different name, so there is no question of conflict of interest. Of course that kinda defeats the purpose of using reviews as promotion. I haven’t figured out what to do about this. I would love to help promote the books I love.
Tara Maya
The Unfinished Song: Initiate B&N, Amazon US, Amazon UK
@Claire I must say I wholeheartedly approve of your one Amazon review…. 😀
@Mark Thanks! I get a lot of ideas for posts from the keywords people use to find my site. I figure if one person is curious others probably are too.
It doesn’t sound like leaving reviews was a big help for you, though it can be hard to tell, since Amazon doesn’t tell us how people found our books.
@Brondt Hm, yes, it is kind of a gray area. I used to have no trouble leaving critical reviews, but then I became a writer, heh. I just can’t stomach being the one to put a dent in someone’s dreams. But at the same time I’ve seen some bitter one-star reviews from readers who feel like they were deceived by piles of five-star reviews, so there’s something to be said for folks who tell it like they see it.
I do love the sampling system, as you really can tell plenty in the first couple of chapters. I can only think of one ebook I’ve picked up so far where I bought it after reading the sample and then was disappointed because it went downhill rapidly from there.
@Patricia Sounds like a good system. I definitely appreciate it when someone sends me a note and points out a typo. I hate that it slipped through, but I’d rather have the opportunity to fix it than not!
@Mary Yeah, I’m not sure. I think you have to fill out credit card info and and address and everything to leave reviews, so you’d have to get creative to make multiple Amazon accounts (and I’m sure there are ways to, judging by the book I ran across last night that had 100 — no, really, 100 — 5-star reviews, most by “people” who had no reviewer history).
@Tara I think you could do a review site under your author name (seems like you should so it can help you promote your work). I see lots of folks doing that, and it seems like it’d have more potential for good than bad, especially if you’re focusing on books you enjoy.
Interesting post. I think authors reviewing other author’s books is fine as long as they’re being honest. Authors can choose to only review books they liked, so they don’t get into the dilemma of leaving a bad review for another indie author friend or something. It’s probably helpful for readers too, if you’re writing in the same genre.
Whenever authors help each other out, I think the key question they need to keep in mind is “Am I adding useful information in the system, or am I adding noise?” Leaving positive reviews of a book you genuinely enjoyed is useful information. But leaving 5 star reviews of a book that you didn’t look like you read is adding noise.
I really dislike it when authors give five star reviews to friends, when none of the not-planted reader reviews are five stars. It discredits the author-reviewer, and it makes me want to avoid their books too, because their reviews are also likely plants from their author-cliques. It’s as bad as voting random Amazon tags around. E.g. putting paranormal romance tags in science fiction books. The internet is full of spam and full of noise, and it’s important to make sure that when you write a review, you’re adding useful information.
This is a timely post as I just heard last night about an interesting new (I think?) service called Book Rooster. The author pays $49 and Book Rooster sends e-copies out to their reviewers until at least 10 reviewers have posted their reviews of the book on Amazon.
What I think is interesting is how they say on their website that they are not a pay-for-review service. “Our reviewers love to read in their favorite genres and they will write objective, sincere reviews that reflect their real opinions about your book. “
I was looking at them too. I came across this criticism that is worth checking out:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,74950.0.html
@Frida Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I wasn’t really thinking of reviewing authors you know when I wrote the post, but you bring up good points. A lot of authors do swap reviews or ask friends to do reviews. And, of course, your crit buddies want to help (I’ve got two or three from those folks on EE and Encrypted, heh).
Oh, and I hate those tags, laugh. There are a bunch on EE that were from some good-hearted folks over at the science fiction romance brigade but they have nothing to do with the story or even the genre of the book. I guess they don’t hurt anything, since they’re not anything anyone would actually search for, but I’ve been tempted to go against my policy and ask people to tag the book with fantasy things just so I could push those ones off the page. 😛
@Nicole Yeah, I’ve heard of that site. It doesn’t necessarily sound shady (assuming the reviewers aren’t getting any of the money), but I’d lump it in with a lot of other businesses cropping up to take advantage of, er, cater to indies. You can go onto any popular ebook forum, post a blurb of your book, and ask people if they’d be interested in a review copy, which you can give away via a Smashwords coupon. There’s really no reason to spend money on that.
One problem with getting ten reviews in short order is it then looks a little weird if three months pass without anyone leaving another review. They look more natural if they trickle in over time, heh.
I go back and forth on this. I’ll only review a book that I finish and if I don’t like a book I’m reading I just don’t finish it. If I finish a book and thought it was worth a three star review I don’t leave one, at three stars I didn’t love or hate it so I just go on with life. I will leave a review for a four or five star and I have to agree, that leaving a bunch of overly glowing reviews probably is counter productive.
I’ve seen a few indie authors that make a point of giving almost all one and two star reviews and it seems like your playing with fire doing that. So basically I don’t know if there is any value in leaving reviews on Amazon. Now I think if you come across a book that you think is all kinds of wonderful you can do a blog post to help that author out, but I wouldn’t expect anything in return.
I review books regularly (usually every Monday) on my site and post a short summary review on Goodreads pointing back to my site. I usually avoid Amazon reviews because they don’t give the option not to post a rating. Something about the Amazon politics… I just don’t want to get into it. Either people think you’re promoting the book because you’re buddies or people think you’re slashing it because you have a vendetta.
It’s like a no-win situation. You’re an author so you can’t have an opinion? Sometimes I swear it’s worse than high school. Well, it’s definitely worse than high school for me. I didn’t experience this kind of cattiness, so this is all new to me.
I’m also rather selective about the indie books I choose to read. If I don’t think it’ll be a 4-5 star for me, I don’t move past the first few pages. Being an indie author, I know how difficult it is to get a book off the ground. I’m not out to hurt anyone’s chances. Usually I offer to promote an author’s work if the read isn’t for me. Doesn’t mean all books I finish are 4-5 stars though. And if I get to the end of the book, I’ll provide my honest review whether I liked it or not.
I will mention one thing which makes me worry less about leaving reviews. Writers typically visit other writers’ blogs, not readers… especially in the indie community. Of course you’ll get a few of your buddies who’ll purchase a work. But how many writing buddies do you really have? Most sales come from readers who couldn’t care less what’s going on at a writer’s blog.
Sure unfavorable reviews are downers. But if authors’ are going to be snippety about an honest review, that reflects more on their personality than the reviewers. And for an author to go around playing tit for tat for unfavorable reviews… well that’s just really really pathetic.
I’ve only done one review so far, and I want to stay very selective about what I review due to all the politics involved (as mentioned in the other comments).
Even with my one review, I’ve already been sent a request/demand from someone I don’t know, telling me to read their book and review it because it’s in the same genre as the book I already reviewed. Yeah, not cool.
As a side note, I wish Amazon would put those custom titles added to the reviewer name in brackets instead of quotes. Whenever I see my name and “Fantasy Author”, I keep imagining sarcastic air quotes, LOL.
@Jacquelyn rofl at the air quotes. Actually, the “signature” aren’t viewable (at least for me) when you’re shopping on the Kindle store using Kindle device. Instead of putting my location on the brackets, I’ve put (indie book blogger). Does anyone else notice that lack of signature thing?
I’ve done several reviews, a few on Amazon, but mostly for Goodreads. I can’t say I’m going to hold back if I didn’t like a book though. I’m honest, and I can’t help but tell the truth. Sometimes I don’t say much, but I did “go off” a little on one Omnibus, but mostly because I spent a lot of time reading it and I hated it all the way till the end. It just kept teasing me with something great is going to happen, and it didn’t. Other than that, I have fun rating books, and if someone attacks me because I didn’t like their book, well, I’m just going to have to deal with that when it happens. I see the issues that can come from my stubbornness though, but I’m not ignorant, and I expect someone to lash at me for a bad review eventually. Generally though, I don’t review books I really hated, because I won’t review it unless I finish it. Such as the” Bored of the Rings.” I read 5 pages, and returned it to it’s owner, bored of it.
Interesting post! I agree with you that putting a zillion short 5 star reviews will *not* garner you any followers. I will say that, as a reader, if I realize a review is coming from another indie author, I usually completely discount that review (unless it’s from one of the very few whom I trust to leave an honest review). Of course, the average reader may not know it’s from another indie author. The surest way to get ignored is to end the review with “check out my books! .” Ignore.
@Frida Fantastic: “I really dislike it when authors give five star reviews to friends, when none of the not-planted reader reviews are five stars. It discredits the author-reviewer, and it makes me want to avoid their books too, because their reviews are also likely plants from their author-cliques.*SNIP*The internet is full of spam and full of noise, and it’s important to make sure that when you write a review, you’re adding useful information.” Totally- right on! I agree on all these counts.
From the outside, it feels like indie authors comprise a secret club, and there are unwritten rules: don’t blast someone else’s work, support each other whenever possible, etc. I would think those unwritten rules would make it difficult to be honest in reviewing, and make even honest 5-star reviews suspect to others.
I know this isn’t the newest post, but I can’t help but continue to comment.
I agree with Grace on the secret-club thing. I know that some authors follow those unwritten rules, while others don’t. The problem with following some of those unwritten rules to a T is that it becomes hard for others to figure out if Author A, who likes to network with Author B, C, and D, gave them 5 star reviews because Author A genuinely likes them or wants to expand the Author A social/promoting network.
If Author D doesn’t provide 5 star reviews often and/or doesn’t review the other authors she’s friendly with often, and gives Author B 5 stars, that five stars just seems more credible. Author D could be further promoting her work, especially if her work and Author B’s are in the same genre. Author D can’t leave behind 5 star reviews everyday, maybe only once in a blue moon… but Author D’s fans and Author B’s fans will notice. That review has a higher impact than the numerous 5 star reviews that Author A leaves behind. Author A’s fans lost track of her reviews, and Author B’s fans have no idea why a military SF writer decided to review a historical romance.
I review if I bought the book so my review says so. I don’t like the idea of authors swapping books for reviews. It puts you in a tough spot for that 5 star review.
I’ll be honest, but brief in my reviews.
-JB
Very tricky question.
For me, part of my plan is to become a resource for my very niche audience, a node where they can get information about the kinds of books they want.
I write some of those books, but I can’t write them all, so I want to help my target audience find more books that they will like too. It’s a voracious audience.
With that in mind, I read and review many books that are similar to mine/in my genre.
If I like the book, I’ll ask the author to do an interview at my website. I also do reviews for a niche blog that I was invited to work on.
However, what happens when I don’t like a book?
I still want to support my audience and tell them my honest opinion and thoughts about whether or not (in this case, not) they would like it.
But I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m being petty and competitive and trying to tear down my competition. Far from it, I want to build up my competition to make the audience stronger for all of us.
I just can’t leave it alone. I can’t resist doing reviews. I hope that people look at all my different reviews and see that I leave plenty of five and four stars along with some much lower.
I try to leave long reviews with honest assessment of various parts of the story so that it is clear that I’m reviewing as a reader and my status as another author is not interfering with that.
I’ve also learned that I should not accept free copies of books to review because it makes me feel really terrible if I don’t like the book.