Author Marketing Guide: Online Reviews
Attracting online reviews for your book can sometimes seem like an uphill struggle. But without reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, your book will struggle to sell.
If you give your book away, or know someone who has read it, tell them that you would appreciate an honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, Wordery or other websites.
Most websites (especially Amazon) are fairly strict about who they accept reviews from. Sometimes our authors have had reviews of our other authors’ books rejected. It is important not to try to game the system or review books where there is a conflict of interest.
Amazon
Amazon is the biggest online bookseller in the world and, alongside our website, all of our books are available on this site. Crucially, Amazon is a popular place to post reviews of books and these are very influential in people’s decision to purchase. Encourage those that you know who have purchased your book to post reviews and make sure that you are also an active reviewer on other people’s books. These ratings MUST be honest as Amazon maintains a robust approach to dealing with false feedback. Always remember that many mediocre reviews are much better than just a few that seem unrealistically positive.
While you’re at it, make sure you join Author Central so that you can keep your author profile on Amazon up to date.
Other websites
Believe it or not, Amazon is not the only online bookshop. Bookshop.org, Wordery, Hive, Waterstones and Blackwell’s are all important online retailers, and reviews on these websites will all help.
Goodreads is a popular social media platform for book-lovers. Star ratings from Goodreads currently appear on our website, so it is important to establish a presence on this website as an author, and engage with potential (and actual) readers.
Google Books allows books to be rated and reviewed, and sometimes these ratings can be used to enhance how the book appears in the search results. Reviews for e-books can also be posted in Google Play Store. Reviews from some other websites, such as LibraryThing, are sometimes displayed on Google Books.
Next up: Traditional Reviews