Why Book Reviews Matter

Reviews are a simple action that readers can take after finishing a book that greatly impacts the author. While yes, it’s lovely to see a nice review, it is also so much more than that…

Firstly, Amazon is the best place to leave a review because it’s the main point of sale for a vast majority of authors. Whilst we as readers will buy a lot of books from indie bookshops, Amazon has a monopoly as the biggest book distributor for both trad and indie published books. It’s even more important for indie authors because our resources are much more limited than a traditional publishing company. All authors benefit from reviews but traditional publishers tend to have a wider reach, often a bigger marketing budget and more options for distribution, including printing and storing their own copies in warehouses.

Reviews aren’t just beneficial because of the nice words – the rating itself is typically the first thing a person will see on a sales page on Amazon (and other store fronts) alongside the product name. Books with thousands of reviews are an easier snap decision purchase in the mind of the reader, even if it’s subconscious because it comes with a level of trust from previous consumers. Books that sell better and therefore have a higher review rate tend to be promoted more by Amazon, not necessarily due to the reviews, but because of the number of sales (which are encouraged by reviews being left). For indie authors with much smaller marketing budgets we don’t get the benefit of having our books pushed by Amazon as much. A very small few who’ve made it big, sure, but not the vast majority.

There are millions of books published every year and it’s a sea of products that we have to wade through in order to get our books seen, and hopefully, read by our intended readers. Reviews help to reach that audience through the sales page, GoodReads etc., people taking note of their friends reviews, using the reviews for our own marketing content – the list goes on.

It’s heavily stressed to authors that reviews are for the readers – they’re not for us authors. They’re for other readers to identify which books might be their cup of tea. This is definitely true but they do benefit us as well. Even though authors shouldn’t engage with reviews (good or bad), it does help to get our book out there for others to see. Authors are very grateful for every single review. Statistically on average for every 100 sales you’ll get 1-2% reviews – so literally only 1 or 2 people will leave a review for 100 copies sold. It’s a very small percentage which makes reviews a bit like gold dust, especially for us smaller authors.

GoodReads is the second best place to leave reviews (if you ever copy and paste the same review to both sites you’re an actual angel) because it’s one of the biggest reading platforms and therefore is a great place for new readers to come across one of our books. GoodReads does tend to receive harsher ratings than Amazon, though I’m not sure the reason for it. I would assume it’s because a lot of people on GoodReads are very ‘professional’ about reviewing and view it similar to a part time job, whereas on Amazon, it’s no different than reviewing any other product. But typically the ratings on GoodReads will be lower on the same book as they are on Amazon.

That said, even lower rated reviews or bad reviews can be beneficial. As I said earlier reviews are for the readers so leaving a ‘bad’ review will help other readers to know about the book. Not to mention that sometimes a bad review makes for great marketing – if someone leaves a 1 saying there’s too much sex and violence – that might be someone else’s perfect book. And typically you don’t want your book to be only 5 – it gives the impression that the only people reviewing your book are your close friends and family, rather than non-biased readers. So don’t feel bad if you wish to review a book for less stars, it actually can help.

No one can expect you to review every single book. Life is busy, books aren’t some big world ending thing and so sometimes they take a back seat. That said, if you enjoyed a book then we do really appreciate you taking a minute to review. If you only have time to rate that’s fine, though if you are leaving a rating of less than 4, please do write one sentence at least, explaining why. It helps identify potential changes to make to future books, and can also ensure that people aren’t just leaving ‘troll’ reviews for some unrelated reason.

Overall, we really appreciate any reviews you take the time to leave. Being an author is an extremely personal job. I leave a bit of my soul in every book and every character that I write, so being able to look at reviews from people who enjoyed it has a huge impact on me. It’s something I can look back on when I’m feeling like I’m a terrible writer and have really bad imposter syndrome. It makes me feel better if I come across a less positive review, to be able to read the nice ones. It helps motivate us and make it feel worth it when it’s hard. Nobody goes into writing novels to earn the big bucks. It’s a hard job that involves blood, sweat, tears and usually a few downward spirals for hardly any pay so knowing that just one person out there loves the book we’ve written? It makes all the difference.

Other things you can do if you like an author and their books:

• Follow their socials and engage
• Recommend their books to your friends
• Take part in ARC or Beta reads if you’re able to offer that bigger commitment
• Sign up for their freebies and giveaways
• Take a nice picture of their book and post it on your socials and tag them
• Ask your local library to stock a copy (we get paid for the copy they purchase, but readers can read it for free!)