Book Reviews - Part 5

Part 5:
NAKED REVIEW: HOW TO GET BOOK REVIEWS
What to do now that Amazon closed all loopholes (2017)

STEP 3: ASKING AMAZON TOP REVIEWERS FOR BOOK REVIEWS

In my last edition of NAKED TRUTHS About Getting Book Reviews, which I unpublished when I released this book I wrote:

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Please mark your reviewers’ reviews as “helpful”! It’s common courtesy.

As a reviewer, who puts a lot of effort into writing reviews, I am sometimes saddened by the fact that reviewing indie authors’ books does not bring as many positive reactions as reviewing other authors’ books.

Sadly, I have reviewed quite many books from indie authors that did not even get one single “like” (1 helpful vote) from the author. Considering all the talk that’s going on in Facebook author groups – how difficult it is to obtain reviews – I find it strange when authors ignore reviewers’ efforts.

For me reviewing consists out of: Investing a) money b) reading time and c) time to write a thoughtful review.

Therefore, when I find out that after I put in approximately 3-6 hours for all of the above the indie author of the book I reviewed can’t even invest 3 seconds to like my review, I drop the author; obviously, this indie author does not care about my efforts. 

As an analogy: If you enter a public building and somebody holds the door open for you, you say “thank you,” automatically. Marking a review as helpful is the equivalent of that gesture. 

That being said, I discourage you to push certain reviews’ rankings by getting your friends and family members to “find positive reviews helpful” or “find negative reviews not helpful.” Amazon has a zero tolerance towards manipulating reviews, which goes for “liking” or “disliking” them, as well.

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Whenever I mentioned this advice in author groups, at least two or three authors piped up and told me that Amazon forbids authors to mark reviews of their own books as “helpful.” That isn’t quite true.

Amazon forbids any kind of “posting from multiple accounts or coordinating with others,” regardless of the activity. Amazon does not disallow authors to like a review their book received. By that I mean that an author who notices a new review his or her book received, reads the review, and then clicks the “found helpful”-button. However, Amazon forbids that authors then contact all of their friends to ask, “Hey, can you please up-vote this review.”

Like with everything else that Amazon forbids, the problem was caused by people who “made calls to action” and “coordinated with others,” namely their street teams, to find specific reviews “helpful.”

In contrast to many other street team activities, Amazon must have had a really easy time discovering street teams who “liked and/or disliked” reviews. 

As an example, picture a book ranked #987,654 that received 23 reviews in a time span of six months. Suddenly, out-of-the-blue, 300 “Amazon customers” swoop in and find all positive reviews helpful and all negative reviews unhelpful. At the occasion none of the 300 “Amazon customers” buys the book. Could this be a coincidence?

It is beyond me why anybody could think that Amazon’s clever algorithm won’t detect and identify activities like that. Please note: At the same occasion, Amazon also identifies all members of the street team who were willing to engage in this kind of activity, because all of them followed “the call to action” at the same time. 

“Liking reviews” is not forbidden right this very moment, which doesn’t mean that it could not be banned next week already. Please don’t have all your friends like your reviews and contribute to Amazon banning the liking of reviews.

Here is the bigger scope of the problem, the one that connects this issue with Amazon top reviewers. As it’s well known, Amazon top reviewers’ rankings are affected by the number of “helpful”-votes their reviews receive.

Since non verified reviews aren’t displayed any longer by default, the reviews of Amazon top reviewers who accept free review copies in exchange for an objective review won’t be seen as often as before. Which implies that these reviews can’t get “liked” as often as before.

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Allow me to interrupt this chapter and point out that this is the type of disastrous damage unqualified, smart-aleck-non-expert bloggers, and some book promotion services and review clubs did to the industry.

Throughout 2016, too many of them promoted the concept, “Just write a review and add the line, “I received a free copy in exchange for an objective review.”

And, people did that. It seemed so easy.

Equally, authors saw reviews they liked or didn’t like and sent out their street teams to “up-vote” or “down-vote” these reviews.

After watching this kind of activity for more than one year, Amazon

had enough. Non verified reviews and their “like”-votes are no longer shown by default. That’s not good for Amazon top reviewers because most of them accept free review copies.

Summing it up: As a direct result, of trying to manipulate the number of reviews and up-voting and down-voting these reviews the writing of non verified book reviews became less attractive for top reviewers. Top reviewers need helpful votes to keep their rankings.

Whatever you think about Amazon as a corporation that dominates the industry, it was really the smart-aleck-non-expert bloggers, and some book promotion services and review clubs who undermined indie authors’ real interests by urging them to exploit loopholes.

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Still, though you absolutely should not “coordinate efforts with others” when finding reviews helpful you should like them yourself.

If the reviews your book received aren’t liked at least once, you are indicating to Amazon top reviewers that you don’t care, as described at the beginning of this chapter. 

Additionally, reviews that haven’t even been liked at least once make it obvious that the author isn’t exposing the book to too many people; otherwise somebody else might have liked the review.

That being said, this situation does not mean that top reviewers won’t review unknown authors’ work anymore. There is a certain kind of thrill in discovering “a gem” before anybody else does.

“You saw it here first” did not become a punch line for no reason. People want to see things first and book reviewers want to be the first ones to discover books.

Since Amazon top reviewers can choose from thousands of books, they are looking for clues if you, the author, will take measures to allow readers discover your book (and their review).

Here is a fictitious example of what probably does not work: An author offers his second book for review to a top reviewer, accompanied by an extremely well-written email. This email arouses the interest of the top reviewer, who promptly checks out the author’s work on Amazon. There, the reviewer discovers that our fictitious author’s first book received only three reviews, of which only one was found helpful once in the twelve months since the book was published. While I am not saying that the top reviewer might not accept the book, I am pointing out that this kind of showing indicates that the possibly truly fabulous author does not understand that he also needs to market his/her books.   

Most recently, 38 of 100 Top-100 Amazon reviewers made their reviews and contact information unavailable. You can probably guess why. At the same time, the remaining reviewers reviewed almost 700 books within a five-week period. Hence, it  does make sense to contact top reviewers, but you’ll have to put your best foot forward.

Though only time will tell if other options will become available because Amazon might ease up on their restrictions, here is one perfect blueprint how to proceed:

1)      Scan the list of top reviewers from the top toward 10,000.

https://www.amazon.com/review/top-reviewers

2)      Investigate thoroughly! Check out at least 25-50 reviews the reviewer wrote so you know what kind of books each reviewer really likes. Only contact reviewers who review the kind of book you wrote. [Analogy: It doesn’t make sense trying to convince a vegan to eat a steak.]

3)      If you managed to get any kind of media coverage, mention the details in your email. Demonstrating that you work hard to expose your book to many audiences is going to help a lot.

4)      Even if you could not get media coverage, you should have been able to get some editorial reviews. a) Mention the quotes you’ll be able to add to the editorial review section when contacting top reviewers. If you are contacting top reviewers by the time your book is already on preorder, be sure to add these quotes temporarily to the book description so they are visible somewhere.

5)      Also mention if you are going to do any kind of promotion.

Choose wisely! – Planning book promotions is going to force you to make new choices you didn’t have make in the past.  As mentioned in the section “Everything you always wanted to know about Book Reviews” you could enroll your book in Amazon KDP Select.

That would allow you to

a)      contact top reviewers

b)      explain to them why your book is remarkable

c)      cite the editorial reviews your book has already received, and

d)      list details about your free promotion, which will allow hundreds, if not thousands, of readers to see the top reviewer’s review. That’s enticing to a top reviewer.

The downside is that after your promotion ended your book will be  enrolled in Amazon KDP Select for another 85 days and all reviews posted by readers who are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited will be non verified reviews, automatically.

Your second option is to run a 99 cents promotion and inform the

reviewer about this plan. If you selected only “perfect” top reviewers they might even consider buying your book for 99 cents.

Please note: Your email will serve as the writing sample based on which reviewers will decide if they are going to read your book, or not. 

If you  intend to keep your book enrolled in Amazon KDP Select, you can offer your book to top reviewers every time you run a free promotion. Be sure to point out in your email, “...right now you can pull my book free which will make your review a verified review should you decide to read and review my book...”  

Another best way to stay in the loop on which kind of books a top reviewer reviews is to follow reviewers of your choice. 

Amazon will send you an update on which books and products these reviewers reviewed, once per week.

For best practices on how to write a really great request email, please consult the addendum in the back.

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Gisela Hausmann dares to write what others' won't say or don't know. Her work has been featured in regional, national, and international publications including Success magazine and Entrepreneur, and on Bloomberg's podcast "Decrypted."

Gisela tweets @Naked_Determina.
Her books are available at Amazon and other fine book stores.

• Naked News for Indie Authors How NOT to Invest Your Marketing $$$

• BOOK MARKETING: The Funnel Factor: Including 100 Media Pitches (paperback only)

• The Little Blue Book for Authors: 53 Dos & Don’ts Nobody Is Telling You
• The Little Blue Book for Authors: 101 Clues to Get More Out of Facebook
• The Little Blue Book for Authors: Essential Manners for the Modern Author

• NAKED TRUTHS About Getting Book Reviews 2018
• BAT SHIT CRAZY Review Requests: Email Humor (paperback only)

© 2017 by Gisela Hausmann

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