Jessica Russell's Blog - Posts Tagged "reviews"

Just a quick post today! There's nothing wrong with giving one of your books away for free here and there if you really want to. However, nothing smells stronger of desperation than running after people giving them free books in exchange for reviews. You immediately devalue your work: great things are worth the price. Therefore, you are instantly creating a situation where the person is subconsciously thinking "how good could it be if he/she has to GIVE it away?" Focus on driving traffic to the sites where your book is sold, and reviews will eventually take care of themselves. Don't put the cart before the horse by giving your work away. It took you a long time to create your novel. Don't stamp "desperate" on your forehead after all that blood sweat and tears. Schedule book signings, do podcasts, advertise, get a good book trailer made and post it on social media, but don't devalue your work by handing it away for free!

Here's some info that may clear up some confusion for some of my fellow writers out there. I was at breakfast this morning with two friends of mine, who, like me, make their living writing web content but who also launched their first novel in the infamous 2020! 😮 Well, they got into a heated debate about reviews versus sales: One said "You must get good reviews and that will lead to sales." The other said "No no no, focus on sales and that will automatically take care of the review problem."
Naturally, I was suppose to be the tie breaker.

Well, they are both correct and they are both incorrect. Here's why:

A high rating and great reviews on Amazon (or wherever you sell your book) will definitely get you some sales. That's because when someone is considering taking a chance on a new writer, that person often wants to read reviews. if your rating is low and you have bad reviews, some customers will automatically pass. If they are on the fence and your rating is high and your reviews are good, they may very well get pushed off the fence in a good direction! So yes., reviews can be responsible for some sales. HOWEVER...reviews in and of themselves will not guarantee sales, because people have to SEE them for the reviews to benefit you. If traffic to your link has slowed down and no new eyes are seeing your book online, the reviews are useless, since no one is there to read them. In other words, reviews can get you sales if someone clicks on your link, but reviews can't get you the
CLICKS. Only advertising can.

As far as sales getting you reviews, again...yes and no. More sales obviously increase your chances of reviews, BUT...most people do not review the books they read. Experts estimate it's approximately one out of a hundred who read a book and actually review it. I know. Pretty grim. So sales alone do not guarantee reviews, and of course, there is always the problem with Amazon continuously deleting legitimate reviews due to faulty software that tells them the review is "fake." (insert eye rolling) So even if you get a pocket of sales and GET reviews, you may lose some to that nonsense. On the upside, yes...even if it is only one in a hundred who leave a review, it stands to reason that the more batches of "hundreds" you get, the better the chances are that more reviews will show up.
Ultimately, focus on advertising because it all starts with clicks. Then make sure your write up and cover are good, because those are the two things that affect sales the most for new authors. More on that next time. Hope that was helpful.

Keep Calm and Write on!

Someone posed the question “When do you finally decide your book is a flop?” I saw all sorts of answers, up to and including one who said, “NEVER. There’s no time that a book is ever a flop.”

Well, I know that person was trying to be encouraging, but there is such a thing as a book that flops. Even famous writers have had them.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question! It depends on WHY the writer is starting to think that the book flopped:

If it isn't finished yet, and the writer has just become increasingly unhappy with it, only the writer can decide whether it’s time to scrap it and start over. There’s not much anyone else can do.

IF it’s already published but there’s hardly any sales, I would definitely say the novel itself is not what’s flopping. THE MARKETING IS.
The author, particularly if he or she is self published, may simply need to upgrade or begin an advertising campaign that will get traffic to the link.

If the person is wondering if it’s a flop because all the reviews are bad, that’s a little scarier...
If the majority of the reviews are one or two stars, it may be time to read exactly what people are saying about the story and take it to heart. Then the writer can decide about making changes to possibly reverse the negative trend. Of course, make sure there’s enough reviews to count! If the book is 100% one star, but there’s only a total of TWO reviews, it might just be two people who don’t like that author and they’re being spiteful. LOL. But if there’s a lot of reviews and they’re overwhelmingly negative, THAT might be the best indicator that a book is flopping. But even if that’s the case, and it’s looking like the novel's a bona fide clunker, that DOESN’T mean the author should give up. It may just be time to try again. Hope that was helpful!

Doing reviews is an important part of having a presence online as an author. Whether you do them on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, or some other site, they should be simple and easy to follow. Many writers fall into the trap of trying to be too clever when they do reviews. This is not the place to show off your writing skills, it’s a place to describe, in simple terms, what you thought of a book! Save the fancy stuff for your personal works, but don’t try to impress someone when writing a review. It makes you look pretentious, ridiculous and over-the-top!

Many newly published writers often focus on networking with other authors once they are selling books. This is definitely a worthwhile endeavor, but it's essential to remember that you have to also connect with READERS, or all this networking will not do much to boost sales and get you reviews.

I am connected with a lot of other writers, and I would NEVER want to lose those associations, because we understand each other in a way that other people cannot. Nevertheless, if we lose sight of attracting READERS to our sites and pages, we're missing out on potential new fans.

Make sure to strike a balance. Never stop networking with other authors and novelists, but also join groups and pages of bookworms, book club fans, and other people who you know are interested in reading. This will yield a bigger return than you think!

Like many authors who are not yet well known, you probably have made a monetary investment into advertising. However, it’s important to understand that you can’t always immediately judge whether or not an ad was successful. It’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at stats the minute an ad commences and making an instant judgment on whether or not it was worth it. A friend of mine did this very thing recently. She ran an ad on twitter to get some clicks for her new book and as soon as it was finished, she went to Author Central and checked out her sales stats and said “That was just a waste of time and money!”

That was not necessarily true. Here’s the reality: a lot of readers see interesting books or ads for books they think they might like, but they don’t immediately click and make an impulse purchase. Maybe they don’t have time to do that right away, maybe they want to read some reviews about the book first, or maybe it’s just not a priority that second for any number of reasons. I retweet Whizzbuzz book ads a lot, for instance, and while I love to support fellow authors, of course I can’t buy them all. Sometimes I just make note of some that looked interesting and jot down the titles on a scrap paper on my desk. Those titles might lay there for a month before I ever get around to checking them out on Amazon and making a purchase. Then it may take me even longer to actually get the book read and reviewed. So never assume that if an ad doesn’t result in an instant sales boost that it was a total failure. You may have a lot of return yet to yield in the future from that very ad. It’s important to not get anxious and remember that slow and steady wins the race! Write on!

Just a short hit and run tonight. We hate to see it and it’s unfortunate when it happens, but we all know it’s a fact of life. Sometimes writers are the worst group of people when it comes to encouraging fellow writers. Why do we feel compelled to fight about everything?

We fight about whether an author should traditionally publish versus self publish, we argue about who the best publishers are, we argue about the best way to go about advertising and networking, and we defend our positions as if winning the argument is a life or death situation. It’s one of those weird occurrences that no matter how hard you think, you can’t come up with any reason why it should be happening. Bottom line is, it shouldn’t.

We should be encouraging each other, sharing each other’s links, and–Oh My!–actually reviewing each other’s books instead of getting envious every time another writer gets more reviews than we do. So state your reasons, defend your position, if you feel you must, and offer your thoughts and insights on the many different factors in our lives as writers, but don’t act like it’s the end of the world if someone disagrees. In this day and age of anger and hatred, it’s important to just be able to talk to each other without feeling like you have to change everybody’s mind.

The bottom line is, you can’t change anybody’s mind. And nobody ever changes yours either. We all do what we do for a reason, so let’s just respect each other’s choices and stop the shouting!

I know I have visited the subject before, but I have to do it again because I am absolutely aghast at the sheer number of writers who self publish or were published through a small press and then IMMEDIATELY begin to devalue their work by sending free copies of their book hither and yon to anyone and everyone in order to get a review. This does not get you anywhere!

Yes, reviews are important. And it takes a while to get them. There have also been some interesting business models to come along that seemed like they would produce legitimate reviews, but end up being disastrous. However, regardless of the many different things you might try, the worst thing you can POSSIBLY do is shove your books at people for free in exchange for reviews. This is equivalent to going down to a local tattoo shop and having "Desperate" stamped on your forehead. It's demeaning. PERIOD.

It's the tendency of every new writer to do this, because the author is thinking "okay, my book is out there now. If I get a few good reviews, I'll start selling a bunch of copies."

That's just not how it works.

I have 40 reviews on Amazon. It's technically 55, but I was caught in the crossfire of several of Amazon's infamous "review purges" (where they allow software to determine that this review and that review is "fake" and delete them.) Nevertheless, at the moment, I'm sitting at a net of 40 reviews. I also have quite a few sales. The majority of the sales did NOT come from the reviews. They came from MARKETING the book. And all the reviews that are on Amazon are from people who PURCHASED the book. So there is living proof that you do NOT have to give your book away to get reviews. If you do proper marketing, and encourage the people who VALUED YOUR BOOK ENOUGH TO BUY IT to also leave a review, the reviews will eventually take care of themselves.

Focus on advertising, because ultimately, ADVERTISING is the ONLY way to get your book into the hands of the people you most want to reach, which is readers with a true interest in your genre, and who are willing to pay for it like everyone else.

I think almost everyone has purchased some type of snake oil at some point in their life. Well, they’ve invented snake oil for authors, and sadly, they buy it by the gallon. One of the worst things a newly published author can fall for is what I refer to as the “Secrets Scam.”

Your book is out, you want it to do well, you figure there’s a whole lot of information out there concerning how to get sales and reviews, and you set out to find it. After a quick Google search, you discover hundreds of links offering to “let you in on secrets” for a certain amount of money. These “secrets” may concern marketing, they may be about getting reviews, or how to get your book to rank Amazon etc. etc. There are OH SO MANY “secrets” out there for sale. Here’s the reality check:

In the real world, also known as Unknown Author Planet, this is how it actually works...You have to get a good advertising and marketing plan and pay to promote your book. There’s no shortcut. There’s no way around it, there’s no way under it, there’s no way over it. You have to make an investment of time and money. Naturally, you do all the "free" things that make sense, such as sharing it on social media, and posting it wherever you can, but that alone will not propel you to stardom.

What you should NOT do is spend your hard earned money on “secrets to success.” They don’t exist. Whatever information these people and organizations are selling is information you can find on your own. There is no secret shortcut to becoming a best-selling author and IF THERE WAS, someone you never heard of would NOT be on Facebook selling it for $79.

People who have had smashing success with a book are busy managing their life and their success, they’re not telling everyone how they did it for a great bargain price because they “like to help people.” It would be nice…but it's just not the way life works. There’s nothing that you’re going to buy and read and then implement that will propel you to success with your novel. You have to go the long road and market and advertise. I wish I could say it’s easy, but it’s not. It is worth it, though. Just do yourself a favor, leave the snake oil where you found it.

Marketing is very important for a book, especially if you are not yet known. However, many new writers make the mistake of jumping the gun with this issue and they lose all their marketing dollars in one fell swoop. They hurry up and launch a large-scale marketing campaign only to discover that they are getting a lot of clicks, but not a lot of sales. Otherwise known as the Kiss of Death.

This is usually an indicator that the book does not have enough reviews yet. I know many writers feel frustrated, because most people simply will not leave a review for a book, no matter how good they thought it was. That means it may take a while to get legitimate reviews. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about that. Just keep attending events, going to book signings whenever you’re invited, and pushing your book on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and anywhere else you have a social media account.

When you get approximately 20 reviews, and believe me they will come, that’s the time to start advertising in earnest.

This is because a minimum of 20 reviews takes away that feeling in the customers mind that he or she is a “guinea pig” for this new author. Once you hit the magic 50 reviews, you will start to rank higher on Amazon, but 20 at least gets you out of the gate, so to speak, and it is definitely the magic number for marketing. Therefore, once you have that many, you should immediately launch a marketing campaign and advertise as much as your budget will allow.

After that, the sales will come, and reviews will begin to take care of themselves (albeit slowly, so keep that in mind and have patience.) But never jump the gun and spend money on marketing before you have any reviews. It will just be money wasted, and nobody wants to do that! Write on!