Before we get into how to leave an Amazon book review, let’s talk about why book reviews are so important for authors.
Starting with the obvious, the more positive reviews you have, the more you will convince people who have hit your sales page to buy your book.
Here’s the less obvious part. The more positive reviews you have, the more people will see your sales page in the first place. Amazon uses an algorithm to help its customers find what they’re searching for and to recommend relevant products (in this case, books) they might like. Along with keywords, categories and sales rank, book reviews significantly factor into that algorithm.
While you clearly want as many positive reviews as you can get, certain benchmarks will goose Amazon’s algorithm. You need a minimum of 15 reviews to start the ball rolling. If you want to consider a price-drop promotion campaign, you need at least 25 book reviews.
Unfortunately, getting those Amazon book reviews is more challenging than it would seem. Take the new memoir I co-authored, Busting the Brass Ceiling: How a Heroic Female Cop Changed the Face of Policing. Even though I have gotten pretty bold about asking for book reviews from friends and colleagues since the memoir’s November 2020 pub date, I’ve only got 13 reviews. Now, they’re all five-star, which is fantastic. But I need more to convince readers who have clicked on my Amazon ads to also click the Buy Now button, and I need for Amazon to show Busting the Brass Ceiling to readers who might be interested in the memoir but don’t know about it. So I need a minimum of two more reviews to hit that magic 15 number. If I get 12 more book reviews, I suddenly have some options on the discount promotion front, and Amazon will promote my book even more.
Since I’m aware that several people have unsuccessfully tried to leave Amazon reviews for Busting the Brass Ceiling, I was thrilled when my friend and colleague, Keri-Rae Barnum, told me she had created a video that would help. I hope this video makes it easier for you to convince the people in your world to review your book(s) on Amazon. In the meantime, if you want to practice by leaving a review for mine, I’d be more than grateful.
Let me know how it goes!
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