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How to Get Reviews on Self-Published Books

How to Get Reviews on Self-Published Books

If you are going to be successful at self-publishing, you’re going to have to get good reviews on your books. This is not referring to critical reviews, although if you can get these and they are positive then you definitely should, but instead is referring to actual customer reviews from people who bought the book and want to tell others what they thought about it. If the book was good, the majority of them will tell others that they recommend it. If the book is bad, then the reviews are probably going to hurt your sales. But let’s assume that you have a good book and you are going to get good reviews. How do you get them in the first place?

 

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The Value of Amazon Reviews

First, understand that publishing on Amazon and getting Amazon reviews is going to be one of the most useful things you can do for book sales. That’s not only because Amazon is the largest retailer of digital and physical books on the planet, it is also because when someone types in the title of your book, it’s going to be those Amazon reviews that likely get listed at the top of the search results. Getting positive Amazon reviews for your book is going to drive sales more than just about anything else you can do.

Things not to do to Get Reviews

there are some things that you want to be aware of when it comes to getting Amazon reviews, as well as reviews from other retailers. There are lots of services out there that claim to be foolproof five-star review services that will get your book in the public eye and make people want to purchase it. While it is true that these people can leave five-star reviews on your book if you pay them, the odds are really good that Amazon will figure out quickly that they are posting reviews for money and remove all of their reviews from the entire site. Plus, this is against Amazon’s terms of service, so you may even have your books removed from the Amazon site. This goes for several other retailers as well.

Asking Readers to Leave Reviews

One of the best ways to get reviews is to simply ask readers to leave one at the end or beginning of your book. Most readers that love your book will leave a review if you asked them to. In fact, one of the main reasons that people don’t leave reviews simply because they forget or decide they’re going to do it later in the never do.

Getting Involved on the Kindle Boards

Finally, you definitely want to get involved in the Kindle boards, which is a forum for Kindle readers and authors. The benefit of this is that if you can get other authors to buy your books, or even offer free promotions such as through the Kindle Select program, these authors will likely leave a review because they know the value of having them.

A good place to hunt for book reviewers is Reedsy’s directory of blogs