The Importance of Reviews
[I know, I know, itâs a repeat conversation, but itâs crucial enough to my survival as an author that I must repeat the conversation!]
FRIENDS, LOVED ONES, FOLKS SCROLLING BY, let me sing the song of my people, my people being authors and artists and fellow-creative types.
[hits a C, but a bouncy C]
No, Iâm not actually going to sing because Chairman Meow up there keeps borking it up.Â
But I am going to talk about how important reviews are for content creators such as myself. And let me blow your mind with this right off the bat: the type of content in the review is irrelevant. Like, it doesnât matter if itâs fourteen paragraphs long (omg, we love those, though) or if itâs a short âCool. Liked it.â or the even shorter ânot for meâ.
What does matter is that it exists. And more importantly, what matters most is where this review gets placed, in particular.
One. You leave a review on Goodreads. Thatâs awesome! Danke! But the people youâre connecting with are folks looking to (statistically speaking) borrow the book or... just add it to their TBR pile. And this is fine! A lot of these folks reading the review from Goodreads will stumble on a copy at a library or borrow from a friend, and faces in books of writers is always A+++. But the reach for new readers who buy the book is... so-so. Itâs good! But not great.
Two. You leave a review on Amazon. First, I know. I know we all have issues with Amazon, especially from the content-creator perspective. But the truth is that reviews on Amazon generate sales.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, there is a magic number of reviews on Amazon that push those sales into hyperdrive. Let me explain... Letâs say an author gets 50 reviews, and again, it can be paragraphs of gushing or a short âmeh, I didnât HATE itâ or even âI hated itâ. Itâs the number that matters. Why? Because Amazon will then start promoting that book-at no cost to the content creator-when it hits that number!
When you turn on your Kindle and a book cover appears as the home screen
When you log onto a website and Amazon Ads make suggestions for books to purchase
When you log onto Facebook and Amazon plonks a book suggestion in your feed or the side bar
When you surf Amazon itself and it suggests books for you to read both below and in the sidebar
And hereâs how magical our monkey-brains are: the more we see a cover and a significant # of reviews, we think to ourselves, âTHIS BOOK MUST BE GOOD AND/OR INTERESTING. ADD TO MY CART, JEEVES, I WILL ONE-CLICK THIS, BY GOLLY.â
Because, my precious, magnificent antelopes, you can buy RIGHT THERE. Goodreads, while without question is useful for researching what book is For You, is unfortunately a few clicks away from a purchase, which, we know weâre already exhausted from thinking about clicking THREE MORE TIMES to get somewhere when we only have to click ONE TIME on another site.Â
This is not to say that a review on GR is useless, not at all! It just doesnât generate sales like an Amazon review will. (And hey, no reason you canât cut-and-paste a review onto BOTH sites, ahem.) Goodreads leads to LIBRARY sales, and thatâs pretty stellar! Iâm a huge fan of libraries getting books! Itâs a raison d'ĂŞtre, you might say.Â
But reviews on Amazon auto-populate OTHER book sellers pages, which also have that one-click to purchase thing working, so itâs just a win-freaking-win.
My plea: asking for 50 reviews as a small press author seems impossible, so how about helping me get my latest book to 25? If youâve read AND IT CAME TO PASS and havenât left a review, would you consider it? (And hey, BITTER SPRINGS got to 26! How about helping me get it to 30? THE BONES OF YOU petered out at 19, maybe 25 is a worthy goal there, too? Iâd like to toot my own horn and remind the world that they got high-praise from critics. How about from you, Dear Reader Pal?
In conclusion, I love you. Thanks for helping support me and other writers like me. And if you liked it, LEAVE A REVIEW, not just for me, but for all content-creators. It sucks feeling like you live in a vacuum. (See what I did there? #MomJokes)