br

You, the self-publishing author, have spent weeks, months, possibly even years, writing your book. You poured everything you had into it; sweat, blood, tears but it’s finally finished! Your cover is dramatic, creative, and engaging. The book itself? A literary work of art. You publish and wait for that first review to come in. You wait. And wait.

 

Then, a friend, associate or another author has an idea. Why not contact people who have reviewed other books in your category on Amazon and email a free copy with a request that they review it? Brilliant idea, right?  As it turns out, not necessarily.

We (NDP Publications) receive many, many requests to provide book reviews.  Many are accompanied by an attached pdf file of the book in question. Due to the inherent conflict of interest, NDP does not provide book reviews. We do, however, respond to those authors to explain why the method that they are choosing to market their masterpiece may not be the method most likely to benefit them. Today, we’ll lay it out for everyone else.

Our writers have hundreds of reviews (combined – of course) – some great, some less than encouraging, and even a few declaring that our writers shouldn’t quit their day jobs – but none that qualifies as a “bought” review. A “bought” review meaning the book was offered free or at a discount specifically in exchange for a review.

As anyone selling anything on Amazon is required to know, all people responding to a request for an Amazon review – even if you send it to their email with a PDF copy attached – are required to attach a disclaimer stating that they received the book (or whatever the product is) in exchange for agreeing to review it*.  So while you may be able to rack up ten or fifteen reviews in a few days, the required disclaimer can leave potential customers with the impression that you have to “buy” reviews. Instead of encouraging people to take a chance on your story, those reviews can have the opposite effect and instead actually cost you sales.

They also have the potential to negatively impact your sales in two additional ways:

  1. People who post a lot of Amazon reviews (which will be anyone you find on an Amazon top reviewer lists) are frequently targeted by Amazon’s verification process as posting fraudulent reviews if they post a review on anything that doesn’t show “verified purchase.” A verified purchase meaning it was ordered through Amazon. That review is then removed, and the reviewer blocked from leaving one at all – sometimes on your future items as well.

 

  1. If you end up with a high percentage of reviews that Amazon can’t verify a purchase on, they can, and occasionally will delete all of your reviews as presumed fraud. Especially if those reviews are marked as fraudulent by another Amazon user. This, unfortunately, is an all too common “sour grapes” response by fellow authors who aren’t getting reviews.

Here’s the tried-and-true marketing recommendation that we make to our authors:

Do collect the email address from the profiles of people who have reviewed other books in your category. In addition to the emails that you collected, make a list of bloggers and Facebook pages (easy through Google and Facebook search) who focus on the topic that your Amazon category correlates with. They are frequently looking for related ideas to send out in emails and tweets just to keep their name in front of their customers. Free marketing!

Once you have your marketing list, use the Kindle marketing program to make your book free for a few days – preferably on a weekend. (I usually tell our authors to limit it to 2 days to apply urgency to the call to action.) People are much more inclined to leave a review when they feel that they got a bonus such as a free copy to keep instead of checking it out on KU.

Then, purchase an ad on Facebook with the link to the free book and schedule it run concurrently with your promotion. Use the advanced options to target the ad to people with specific interests that relate directly to your book. For example, a romance novel should be targeted to people who have “romance stories” in their interests. Our authors usually set the “lifetime” dollar limit at $20 per ad and see excellent results.

Email a press release to your marketing list first thing in the morning on the first day of your marketing push. It should be labeled “press release” and include the name of the book, publisher information (if applicable), a brief synopsis of the story, a picture of the cover and include the link to get their FREE copy.

At the bottom of the press release, simply state that “reviews are always appreciated and encouraged” and include the link to your book on Goodreads as well as Amazon. (It’s amazing how much bigger of an impact Goodreads reviews have over Amazon reviews). You have now offered a free copy as a marketing inducement which does not require the reviewer to post the dreaded disclaimer.

As with everything else in life and business, there is a potential downside to this method: If your book is enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program (KDP Select), you will not be paid for pages read in that book during the time it is listed for free. In the long run, the sales that you will garner will usually well exceed the $0.0047 (approximate) payment per page that you lose during that two-day marketing push.

Good luck with your release!

 

*It is important to be familiar with all applicable policies. Specifically, if reviewers are suspected of posting “bought” reviews and not posting the required disclaimer, Amazon does reserve the right to remove your book and cancel your Kindle Direct account. For additional information, read the policies regarding manipulating reviews.