Soliciting Targeted Review

[Ankari]

I just read the article entitled How To Get Endless Amazon Reviews For Your Book or Product. In it, the author suggests to target reviewers of competing books on Amazon and offer them your free book in exchange for an honest review. Here is a little excerpt.

The good news is you can get tons of reviews on Amazon for your book or product in a legitimate and honest way. The key is to proactively seek out reviewers. There are a number of people on Amazon who have bought and reviewed products or books that compete with yours. If you simply identify who these people are, and then offer to send them your product for an honest review, they are likely to do it. And since they already reviewed a competing product to yours, their review is highly credible.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone considered doing this?

 

[BWFoster78]

I definitely plan to do this.

My concern is the following: contacting reviewers takes time. An Amazon review seems to only impact people who are already viewing your Amazon book page. My main concern is how to attract people to that book page in the first place.

Book Blog Reviewers, on the other hand, have a built in following and expose your book to new people.

I'm still unsure, however, on if there is inherent value in building up a quantity of Amazon reviews beyond a certain point. I am also unsure as to whether or not people "follow" reviewers, thus giving them the potential to attract new views to your book page.

Which should be the focus: Amazon reviewers or book bloggers?

BTW, another great source of Amazon reviewers is the top lists for reviewers. These people actively compete to see how many reviews they can do.

 

[Dan Latham]

It seemed a bit gimmicky to me. However, I would be interested in the results of this experiment. I don't know my way around Amazon that well but the article was very specific in how to recruit reviewers.

 

[BWFoster78]

It seemed a bit gimmicky to me. However, I would be interested in the results of this experiment. I don't know my way around Amazon that well but the article was very specific in how to recruit reviewers.

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by gimmicky. Basically, it's just showing you a way to find people who might be willing to review your book.

From something that I just read: 1 star reviews do far more damage than 5 star reviews do good and your book can be perfectly successful with as few as 6 reviews though less than that is a kiss of death.

 

[gavintonks]

why not spend the same energy getting readers?

 

[Ankari]

why not spend the same energy getting readers?

That is exactly the goal. As the article points out, the more reviews you have the more likely you are to get readers buying your book.

 

[BWFoster78]

why not spend the same energy getting readers?

Huh?

Please enlighten us as to just how exactly to accomplish the goal of getting readers.

From my research, ads don't work. The impact of social media is iffy at best as to whether it's worth the time cost.

The only agreed upon method of gaining readers that I've found are:

Search Engine Optimization
Getting exposure on blogs
Getting reviews

 

[Dan Latham]

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by gimmicky.

By gimmicky I meant a complex method for gaining attention, not gimmicky as in cheap or tricky.

I will most likely use this method to solicit reviews. However, I'll wait until my WIP is finished. My belief is time marketing is better spent when you have more than once book for readers to choose from.

 

[BWFoster78]

By gimmicky I meant a complex method for gaining attention, not gimmicky as in cheap or tricky.

Okay. Gotcha.

I will most likely use this method to solicit reviews.

I'm not sure there is an easy way to solicit quality reviews. Bloggers and Amazon reviewers are pretty much your best options.

My belief is time marketing is better spent when you have more than once book for readers to choose from.

I can certainly see your point. Personally, I think I'd get depressed if my book didn't sell, though. I pretty much have to do something to move them.

 

[gavintonks]

Marketing is very simple, find person and sell if you are serious and want the hard work, get a stall at a book show if they have them in your area, go to a book show and ask them to have an authors half hour.
The malls are full of people have a little stall they rent them here per day and promote your book to the people in the mall.

People like to buy from people, there are often programs at libraries as well that opens your network. From here if your work is digital you can guide them to facebook or who ever, but getting people to know the author behind the story is always first prize.
My local newspaper did an article on me when I published my poetry book [for free] they put it under local news, and the book stores carried some copies.
I believe if you wish sales go for sales, and build up a readership around you then use their platform to grow.
We have hundreds of reader circles where a group buys one book and 10 to 12 people read it, the book stores encourage them as they are always buying some up to 8 books at a time to keep members happy, there are ideal areas to get your name and work known

 

[BWFoster78]

Marketing is very simple, find person and sell if you are serious and want the hard work, get a stall at a book show if they have them in your area, go to a book show and ask them to have an authors half hour.
The malls are full of people have a little stall they rent them here per day and promote your book to the people in the mall.

People like to buy from people, there are often programs at libraries as well that opens your network. From here if your work is digital you can guide them to facebook or who ever, but getting people to know the author behind the story is always first prize.
My local newspaper did an article on me when I published my poetry book [for free] they put it under local news, and the book stores carried some copies.
I believe if you wish sales go for sales, and build up a readership around you then use their platform to grow.
We have hundreds of reader circles where a group buys one book and 10 to 12 people read it, the book stores encourage them as they are always buying some up to 8 books at a time to keep members happy, there are ideal areas to get your name and work known

No offense, but this takes a very short sighted view of marketing.

Yes. If you go to a convention or what have you, you can sell some books, but there are multiple problems with this approach:

1. Once you leave the convention, it ceases to produce results. When you're not there, no one can buy your books anymore.
2. Every minute you spend at a convention selling is a minute you're not spending writing.
3. You have to physically purchase books to sell, introducing a risk factor.

Using the marketing techniques advocated by most of the people on this forum has the following advantages:

1. Once you put in the initial work, reviews and other online activities keep paying dividends as they never go away. Someone ten years from now may find an old interview you did on a blog and decide to check out your book.
2. There's no up front cost and thus no risk. You're selling ebooks and POD instead of buying something that you have to sell.

I do not believe that the methods you advocate are time and cost effective, and they have less potential than other methods. I have yet to see a sure fire method of making rich, and I don't believe that such a method exists. However, I am firmly in the camp that establishing an online presence and optimizing your chances in the Amazon marketplace offer much greater chances than your methods.

Look at Locke, Hocking, and the 50 Shades person. They tapped into Amazon's immense power to sell. The authors on this site would be much better off spending their precious time learning about Amazon than in going to book shows.

 

[Devor]

It's worth mentioning, but marketing and sales are not the same thing. The purpose of marketing . . . how do I put it in a way applicable to ebooks. Amazon gives you a sales page. Your marketing brings them to that page, makes them excited about that page, makes them pay attention to the good things on that page.

Conventions can be a good place to make a few sales, and if your book is right for the convention, you can generate buzz (guerrila marketing). But most likely, you spend a bunch on setup materials, have some fun, maybe sell enough to break even and set yourself up to make a small profit at the next convention. Unless there's travel expenses. I don't mean to put them down. Just be realistic. Booths at a mall aren't much better - fewer costs, lower percentage of worthwhile customers, almost no chance of generating buzz.

But that's sales. Most people are bad at sales. Like really bad. Just let Amazon do it.

The most effective ways to market are to network - get other people to help you out - or to make your product into an event. Networking is easy enough because there are plenty of people looking to talk about a good book. You can learn how to network well enough to promote your book. That's why that's what we're talking about. Events? - high risk/reward. Most of us probably couldn't pull it off.

 

[gavintonks]

You can expend enormous effort in proving why things should and do not work, or you can try them, there is nothing to loose, at the end of the day sales and marketing require budgets and if you do not have the money you need to invest time. People think that the web is a solution to everything but it requires as much effort time and resource, to achieve results and as is finally coming out people pay floors of people in India to generate leads and hits to make the sites look successful.

Amazon also requires a few success stories as then people flock to their sites and buy, they have just given a woman a US$20 000 up front fee and for all intensive purposes the book was iffy and rejected by main stream publishers. Know all the wanabees are flocking to Amazon in the hope the same happens.

There are at least 1 million authors trying to sell a book/ story what ever and that is a very long line, even in cyber space. You can try what ever works and I for one would be the first person to be proved wrong, but the reality is different, you need readers and places to sell your book. Then there are a whole host o basic requirements that fulfill a sale, so even if you do get 50 5 star reviews also does not mean automatic stardom.

You may as well do a youtube clip in the hope it goes viral, as that has more likelihood of success, look at Justin Beiber he was on Americas got talent is the highest ranking youtube hits and quite frankly his performance on the show was weak.
We may as well pitch so "you think you have a book?"

Every person is entitled to an opinion but people on the net are informed of choice, and are overwhelmed by information, it is no different having an opportunity and then missing it because all the ducks are not in a row. Just having one arrow in your quiver is no guarantee of a bulls eye

 

[BWFoster78]

You can expend enormous effort in proving why things should and do not work, or you can try them, there is nothing to loose

Nothing to lose except an enormous amount of time that you could have spent doing things that are more effective. I'm putting in the research effort now so that I don't have to use the dartboard method of marketing when I publish my book.

People think that the web is a solution to everything but it requires as much effort time and resource,

I'm writing and publishing, primarily, for the ebook market. I expect physical copies via POD to be negligible.

If my marketplace is Amazon, it seems to me that it makes sense to study how to market on Amazon and the internet, not to spend time going to book fairs.

Know all the wanabees are flocking to Amazon in the hope the same happens.

My expectation isn't to make a fortune, but I do want to give my book the best chance to succeed that I can. I do that by learning how to market on Amazon and on the internet.

You can try what ever works and I for one would be the first person to be proved wrong, but the reality is different, you need readers and places to sell your book.

To be a huge success, you need ways for people to find your book. Setting up at a book fair lets a few people find you, but, overall, seems like a huge waste of time to me.

even if you do get 50 5 star reviews also does not mean automatic stardom.

What it does is provide encouragement for people to buy your book when they find your page.

What you're discounting, though, is how many of these reviews may come from book blogs. There are a lot of book blogs out there that have a lot of readers. Each time your book appears on one of these, it's the potential for each of those readers to check out your book.

Just having one arrow in your quiver is no guarantee of a bulls eye

No one said that soliciting reviews is the only thing you should do. I think that what is being advocated is that seeking reviews is a part of a well thought out marketing plan.

 

[gavintonks]

You have summed it up so well - whatever you do is part of a well planned marketing plan