Reader Question Day #43 – how to get book reviews

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes:

I’m an indie writer too, and I have a book that’s selling pretty well – about 500 copies in three months! But no one leaves any reviews. I’m really worried that no one actually likes the book and that it’s really a terrible book. Should I be concerned? 

Well, no. This is no cause for concern, and, in fact, is the natural state of things. It may even be a good sign. Why?

Because 99% of Internet users are “lurkers”, and it takes something unusual to get us lurkers to post.

Most web users are lurkers. The average Internet browser will read hundreds of online articles and blog posts this month, and might leave maybe two or three comments. Or none at all – I read a lot online, but I’ll leave maybe two or three comments a month, not out of maliciousness, but simply due to time limitations. (There are blogs that I have read faithfully for years where I’ve never left a comment.)  Odds are that you are a lurker, too. Think of all the articles, all the Facebook posts, all the tweets, and all the other online material you will read but do not comment upon. Granted, there are people who comment on every single thing they read, but they are in the minority, and apparently have lots of free time.

This state of affairs applies to ebooks.

People are more likely to speak up when they are unhappy then when they are content. This is one of those quirks of human nature that leads to interpersonal strife, meetings with the HR department, and eventual nuclear Armageddon, but it also applies to ebooks as well. The average reader has to get really excited or really annoyed by a book before he’ll leave a review or a comment. A review is an investment of time on the reader’s part, and it usually takes a strong emotional response to trigger that investment of time. In fact, if your book is selling and there are no reviews, that is a good sign – it means your formatting isn’t screwed up or that you accidentally embedded your vacation pictures in the middle of the book. It’s entirely possible for someone to read a book, enjoy it, and feel no need to comment upon it – but if the book annoys them in some way, if it grates on them, a negative review is almost certainly forthcoming.

I see that your books have lots of reviews. How did you get them? Did you ask people to post them?

Time, mostly.

I don’t solicit reviews, because a.) it’s needy, b.) people don’t like to be nagged, and c.) I’m sure someone would respond with “Why yes! Your book sucked! I would be positively DELIGHTED to leave a review.” So the easiest way to get reviews is to wait until enough people have bought the book that someone wants to leave one.

Generally, I’ve found for that every 1000 to 1500 copies of an ebook sold on Amazon, you’ll probably get one review.

It’s also a lot easier to accumulate get reviews on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iTunes than it is on Amazon, since Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iTunes allow for anonymous ratings and Amazon does not. People are often reluctant to leave comments or reviews anonymously (there’s this mental barrier against writing something on the Internet WHERE THE ENTIRE WORLD CAN SEE!) – but the hesitation goes way, way up if they have to leave their actual name or username attached to a review.

This leads to another point – never ever, for any reason, respond to a review, especially if the review is negative. It will not end well.

The most famous example is Anne Rice attacking various negative Amazon reviews for the failure to understand her sublime genius, but this is a comparatively tame example. Every few weeks, an example of a writer completely melting down over a bad review will circulate over the Internet. Think about the time investment that goes into something like that. Flame wars are tedious and exhausting, not to mention time-consuming – at some point you’ve got to stop arguing with strangers on the Internet and go to work or stop your kids from putting your iPad in the toaster or whatever. So anyone writing a review will think “do I really want this writer emailing me 400 times in a single day to ask why I didn’t like her book? Is it really worth it?”

(Note that melting down on bad reviews to defer further bad reviews is not a good long-term strategy. Eventually people will conclude, correctly, that you are nuts and ignore your books.)

Finally, its important to remember that people who read your books do not owe you a review. In fact, they don’t owe you anything. If someone wants to leave a favorable review, that’s quite nice of them, but they are not obligated to do it.

Thankfully, this also means that people who dislike your book are not obligated to leave bad reviews. 🙂

-JM