If you’re like us and love to read, then click here to score tons of free and discounted ebooks.
Many readers won’t buy your book if it doesn’t have at least a few reviews. More reviews also puts you higher on retailers’ lists, which means your ebook is more likely to show up in a search or as a recommendation from the site. This means reviews are vital to your book’s success, but how do you get more reviews for your ebook?
Getting Reviews for Your Ebook: Ask your readers
1. When you let readers know through your newsletter about new releases, ask them to write a review as well when they finish the book. Many readers are willing to post a review but just forget to do so. Building a newsletter list should be one of your first priorities because this is one of the quickest ways to get reviews.
2. Send a copy of your book to a list of beta readers and ask them to post a review in return.
3. At the end of all your ebooks, ask readers to leave a review if they enjoyed the book. Include a link so they can easily leave a review. Oh, and discounting your book for a time so that more people see your request can often substantially increase your number of reviews.
Getting Reviews for Your Ebook: Ask readers of your genre
4. Research book bloggers who review books. Find one who would be interested in your genre and submit your book for them to review. The payment is the free book; no other payment should be required.
5. Find books similar to yours on Amazon and contact the readers who gave that book a good review. Let them know that you saw their review and that you’ve written a similar book you think they will enjoy. Then ask them to write a review of the book in return for a free copy of it.
6. Find readers on Goodreads who have read and reviewed books similar to yours and ask them to review your book as well in return for a free copy of the book.
Using a service
There are book services out there as well that for a fee will put your book up on their website for reviewers to find, read, and download. These services legitimately pass on the books to readers, who receive no compensation. But there are also services that pay people to write reviews, and these you should avoid.
Some Quick Tips
Amazon has stringent review policies. They do not allow “any compensation other than a copy of the item to be reviewed,” so if you send your reviewer a gift card to buy the book, the review could be taken down (because the gift card could be used for something else). We suggest you send the reviewer a copy of the ebook via email. Those who review your book should disclose that they received it for free in return for an honest review.
When asking a reader to review the book, keep your request short and well-written. Do not pressure them to do it right away—they probably have other books to review, and a lot of pressure may just make them say no.
If your book is receiving poor reviews, revamping the text or making sure the cover and blurb reflect the contents can make a big difference.
Do you have any other tips for finding reviews for your ebook? Let us know in the comments below!
I’ve done most of what’s on this list. But I’d be careful about Number 6, finding and asking readers on Goodreads. Goodreads considers it spam if authors send unsolicited messages to readers on Goodreads, asking for reviews. It’s better to see if a reader has a book blog link on their Goodreads profile and visit their blog to see if and how they accept review requests. Or join Goodreads groups that allow authors to post review requests and let readers in the groups contact the authors if they’re interested, rather than the other way around.
Also, there’s a difference between everyday reader or customer reviews and editorial reviews. Indeed, reviewers aren’t supposed to be paid to post reviews at retailers and on Goodreads. However, if an author pays for a review from a place like Kirkus, the reviewer is paid for their work. But that isn’t a review the reviewer can personally post anywhere else. It’s an editorial review for the author to use for promotional purposes, like sharing a link to the review with their followers, or adding an attributed excerpt from the review on the back cover of their book and on their author website and whatnot. Authors can also post attributed editorial review excerpts on Amazon via their Author Central account. Editorial reviews will show up with the book’s product information on the Amazon sales page, separate from customer reviews.
Thanks for the clarification! For our Book Cave reviews, we also give them directly to the author or publisher to post on their editorial review pages.
Hey, Team Thank You for Posting This Article With Us. It is very informative and useful article. The way you present this ebook is literally very good.
Well, I wrote an ebook Top 10 Ways College Drop Outs Become Billionaires: If Drop Outs Are Billionaires, Why Should children Study ( How they made money as a kid at home) on Kindle. This is very good boom for all entrepreneurs and leaders. This will be on Amazon free promo from 3 to 7 April. Can you please tell this to your readers since it will help them to know their own way of success. Can you please give me a review yourself there?
i have contacts who purchased a hard copy of my book that i’m sure would send me a review. Q: What is the destination the review should arrive at?. i wouldn’t want it to
appear as though they are written by me!
When they are sending that review should it be addressed to my email OR to an independent address?Are there any other details i should request from those reviewers?
Thanks
David
Hi Tony
Thank you for making that point clear. My book is listed on Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.
David
Reviews should not be sent to you, ever. They should be posted on the retailer site, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., wherever the book is for sale. If the books is not for sale yet, then you’ll need to make it available at those sites and then send the reviewers the link to your book.