BWFoster78
Myth Weaver
Now that I’ve got a little actual self publishing experience under my belt, I thought I share my thoughts on how to obtain reviews. Let me know if you found it helpful.
First of all, a word of encouragement – you absolutely can obtain all the reviews you want without spending a dime, bugging your friends or family, or doing anything illegal, immoral, or unethical.
That’s not to say that obtaining reviews is without cost. You have to put in some serious time. I spent 8 to 10 hours getting the first 7 reviews on my novella, Abuse of Power.
My Goal:
I wanted to obtain 5 to 10 reviews in my first week of publication.
Why? Truthfully, mainly to make myself feel like someone actually cared that I had published a book. Other than that, though, I read some advice about reviews adding "social proof" or some such, and that sounded good to me. "Gotta get me some of that social proof," I says to myself.
How I Did It:
Step 1 – Found Amazon books that are similar to mine. Since Abuse of Power is a fantasy romance, I went to Romance -> Fantasy and searched for keywords similar to mine.
Step 2 – Chose books that have 20 to 100 reviews and that are self published. Note that this information is obtained by looking to the very right hand side of the book information. It shows five stars with some number of them shaded. Off to the right of that is a number; that’s the quantity of reviews. Under that is series information. And under the series information is the publisher. If it says “Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.”, you know it’s self published.
(I chose self published books only because I wanted to avoid reviewers who won’t review indie books. I picked the quantity of reviews based on my experience that books with a lower number of reviews tend to contain a higher percentage of profiles that contain contact info. Your experience may differ radically from mine, however. I’m simply relating what I did.)
Step 3 – Scoured reviewer profiles. Click the book title. Go all the way down below the first reviews and click “See all X customer reviews (newest first).” Go down past the “Most Helpful” reviews. Under the star rating for each review is a profile name in Blue. Click on that profile name.
You’re looking for contact information. Very few Amazon profiles list any kind of information at all, much less an email address. At first, I was even unsure of where the address would be located on the screen. Eventually, I found one. Turns out it’s located pretty near the top left. There’s the Reviewer’s Handle, a picture, ranking, % helpful, and the address is right under that above the line separating it from the “About” or “Public Activity” section.
When I first started, I literally clicked on every profile name, and my success rate at finding contact info was abysmal. We’re talking lower than 1%. Lots and lots of time spent clicking and going back. Repeat. Eventually, I noticed something: some profile names are listed as (first last “first last”). I’m not sure why, but anyone with the quotation marks seems to be more likely to have an email address listed. Note that it’s still not a high probability. I didn’t do any statistical analysis, but when I stopped clicking on people with no quotation marks, my hit rate went from less than 1% to closer to 5%.
Step 4 – Send an email. Note that I started this process with some degree of trepidation. Would I get a ton of angry responses saying, “How dare you email me out of the blue!”? Actually, the only responses I got were very friendly and positive. It’s generally considered that any reviewer who lists an email address is open to getting review requests. Note that it’s considered extremely rude to try to contact a reviewer with a request by commenting on one of their reviews. If they want to be contacted, they’ll list their info.
Aside 1 to Step 4 – The actual email format I used was something like this:
Again, no detailed analysis, but my impression was that I got a better response from people to whom I said, “Hey, I see that you liked book title because of this specific thing. My book kinda has that specific thing. Maybe you’ll enjoy my book, too!” That wasn’t possible with most of the emails (like in the template above) I sent because either a) the review didn’t list anything that correlated well or b) the book they reviewed wasn’t all that similar to mine.
Aside 2 to Step 4 – Generally, I encountered four types of reviewers who listed contact info in their profiles:
Authors – These are usually easy to spot because they also list a website like: Author Brian W. Foster | Official site of speculative fiction writer Brian W. Foster, author of "Rise of the Mages". Your preference may vary from mine, but I tended not to email other authors with requests.
Book Bloggers – Also easy to spot because they list a link to their book blog. If you’re looking for a quick response, these people are typically inundated with requests. They weren’t a huge part of my strategy, but I did send some emails out.
Top Reviewers or Vine Voice – Either of these designations will be listed beside their profile name. Like with book bloggers, I figured that these people will be inundated with requests, so I didn’t send out of lot of emails to this category.
Regular Reviewers – If the reviewer didn’t seem to fall into any of the other categories, I figured that they’re just average readers who like to post book reviews. These were my primary targets because a) they’re probably not snowed under with requests, b) they might be available to read the book immediately, and c) they might actually be flattered to receive a request.
My Results:
I ended up sending 52 emails to those with profiles who did not indicate any blog affiliation or writing of their own. Of those, I got 14 positive responses. Of those 14 “yes” responses, 7 have thus far posted reviews.
I’m pretty happy with that response – 27% of emails resulted in a positive response and 50% of the positive responses resulted in reviews in about a week. I don’t think that I could realistically expect results much higher than that. It will be interesting to see if any more reviews trickle in from this group over the next month.
The reviews were (3) 5 star, (3) 4 star, and (1) 2 star. Overall, the readers seemed to really enjoy the book. Even the 2-star review was pretty positive. She liked the story and characters, but my style didn’t click with her. I get that; not every author’s style clicks with me, and she communicated well exactly what she didn’t like so that those readers who have similar tastes will know to stay clear.
I sent 15 requests to book bloggers. I’ve gotten a “no” from 3 of those and no response at all from the others. Some could still result in reviews down the road. Again, it should be interesting to see what happens.
One Afterthought:
In this thread Get Honest Reviews from People Reading Your Genre (BookRazor.com) a business offers to sell you names of Amazon reviewers in your category. I have not used that service, but I think I probably will in the future. It took me a lot of time to dig up the names. A lot of time. Were seven reviews worth that amount of time? Probably not. Overall, I think it was good experience for me to do it by hand, though. Knowing the hard way to do something before taking the shortcut is generally a good idea, and I don’t think that spending time learning about other books in my genre and the reviews those books were given is exactly a waste of time. Once I start actually making some money from my writing, I think one of the first luxuries that I treat myself to will be the aforementioned service, though.
If you have any questions or want elaboration, please don’t hesitate to comment.
Thanks!
Brian
First of all, a word of encouragement – you absolutely can obtain all the reviews you want without spending a dime, bugging your friends or family, or doing anything illegal, immoral, or unethical.
That’s not to say that obtaining reviews is without cost. You have to put in some serious time. I spent 8 to 10 hours getting the first 7 reviews on my novella, Abuse of Power.
My Goal:
I wanted to obtain 5 to 10 reviews in my first week of publication.
Why? Truthfully, mainly to make myself feel like someone actually cared that I had published a book. Other than that, though, I read some advice about reviews adding "social proof" or some such, and that sounded good to me. "Gotta get me some of that social proof," I says to myself.
How I Did It:
Step 1 – Found Amazon books that are similar to mine. Since Abuse of Power is a fantasy romance, I went to Romance -> Fantasy and searched for keywords similar to mine.
Step 2 – Chose books that have 20 to 100 reviews and that are self published. Note that this information is obtained by looking to the very right hand side of the book information. It shows five stars with some number of them shaded. Off to the right of that is a number; that’s the quantity of reviews. Under that is series information. And under the series information is the publisher. If it says “Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.”, you know it’s self published.
(I chose self published books only because I wanted to avoid reviewers who won’t review indie books. I picked the quantity of reviews based on my experience that books with a lower number of reviews tend to contain a higher percentage of profiles that contain contact info. Your experience may differ radically from mine, however. I’m simply relating what I did.)
Step 3 – Scoured reviewer profiles. Click the book title. Go all the way down below the first reviews and click “See all X customer reviews (newest first).” Go down past the “Most Helpful” reviews. Under the star rating for each review is a profile name in Blue. Click on that profile name.
You’re looking for contact information. Very few Amazon profiles list any kind of information at all, much less an email address. At first, I was even unsure of where the address would be located on the screen. Eventually, I found one. Turns out it’s located pretty near the top left. There’s the Reviewer’s Handle, a picture, ranking, % helpful, and the address is right under that above the line separating it from the “About” or “Public Activity” section.
When I first started, I literally clicked on every profile name, and my success rate at finding contact info was abysmal. We’re talking lower than 1%. Lots and lots of time spent clicking and going back. Repeat. Eventually, I noticed something: some profile names are listed as (first last “first last”). I’m not sure why, but anyone with the quotation marks seems to be more likely to have an email address listed. Note that it’s still not a high probability. I didn’t do any statistical analysis, but when I stopped clicking on people with no quotation marks, my hit rate went from less than 1% to closer to 5%.
Step 4 – Send an email. Note that I started this process with some degree of trepidation. Would I get a ton of angry responses saying, “How dare you email me out of the blue!”? Actually, the only responses I got were very friendly and positive. It’s generally considered that any reviewer who lists an email address is open to getting review requests. Note that it’s considered extremely rude to try to contact a reviewer with a request by commenting on one of their reviews. If they want to be contacted, they’ll list their info.
Aside 1 to Step 4 – The actual email format I used was something like this:
Hi (first name gleaned from profile name where possible),
I hope it's okay to email you like this.
I found your Amazon profile while searching for people who review fantasy romances and thought you might enjoy my fantasy romance novella, Abuse of Power. If you're interested in reviewing it, I would love to email you a copy in the format of your choice. It will be published on Amazon on 9/1/15.
Here's the description: (Description followed)
Thanks.
Brian
Again, no detailed analysis, but my impression was that I got a better response from people to whom I said, “Hey, I see that you liked book title because of this specific thing. My book kinda has that specific thing. Maybe you’ll enjoy my book, too!” That wasn’t possible with most of the emails (like in the template above) I sent because either a) the review didn’t list anything that correlated well or b) the book they reviewed wasn’t all that similar to mine.
Aside 2 to Step 4 – Generally, I encountered four types of reviewers who listed contact info in their profiles:
Authors – These are usually easy to spot because they also list a website like: Author Brian W. Foster | Official site of speculative fiction writer Brian W. Foster, author of "Rise of the Mages". Your preference may vary from mine, but I tended not to email other authors with requests.
Book Bloggers – Also easy to spot because they list a link to their book blog. If you’re looking for a quick response, these people are typically inundated with requests. They weren’t a huge part of my strategy, but I did send some emails out.
Top Reviewers or Vine Voice – Either of these designations will be listed beside their profile name. Like with book bloggers, I figured that these people will be inundated with requests, so I didn’t send out of lot of emails to this category.
Regular Reviewers – If the reviewer didn’t seem to fall into any of the other categories, I figured that they’re just average readers who like to post book reviews. These were my primary targets because a) they’re probably not snowed under with requests, b) they might be available to read the book immediately, and c) they might actually be flattered to receive a request.
My Results:
I ended up sending 52 emails to those with profiles who did not indicate any blog affiliation or writing of their own. Of those, I got 14 positive responses. Of those 14 “yes” responses, 7 have thus far posted reviews.
I’m pretty happy with that response – 27% of emails resulted in a positive response and 50% of the positive responses resulted in reviews in about a week. I don’t think that I could realistically expect results much higher than that. It will be interesting to see if any more reviews trickle in from this group over the next month.
The reviews were (3) 5 star, (3) 4 star, and (1) 2 star. Overall, the readers seemed to really enjoy the book. Even the 2-star review was pretty positive. She liked the story and characters, but my style didn’t click with her. I get that; not every author’s style clicks with me, and she communicated well exactly what she didn’t like so that those readers who have similar tastes will know to stay clear.
I sent 15 requests to book bloggers. I’ve gotten a “no” from 3 of those and no response at all from the others. Some could still result in reviews down the road. Again, it should be interesting to see what happens.
One Afterthought:
In this thread Get Honest Reviews from People Reading Your Genre (BookRazor.com) a business offers to sell you names of Amazon reviewers in your category. I have not used that service, but I think I probably will in the future. It took me a lot of time to dig up the names. A lot of time. Were seven reviews worth that amount of time? Probably not. Overall, I think it was good experience for me to do it by hand, though. Knowing the hard way to do something before taking the shortcut is generally a good idea, and I don’t think that spending time learning about other books in my genre and the reviews those books were given is exactly a waste of time. Once I start actually making some money from my writing, I think one of the first luxuries that I treat myself to will be the aforementioned service, though.
If you have any questions or want elaboration, please don’t hesitate to comment.
Thanks!
Brian