# The "What to do (and not do) to get reviews" Thread (Updated 8/1)



## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

I am by no means an expert on getting reviews, but hopefully this will be a long term endeavor in which I will update the thread with various Dos and Dont's. I will use my own experience as well as take feedback from comments here to update this post with as much information as I can. I decided to do this in part because it is one of the most asked questions on these boards it seems, as well as to discover new and legitimate ways for my wife's books (and hopefully my future books! ). I will eventually cross post this to my blog.

*Do I need a bunch of reviews?*
Yes! The more the merrier. My stance on this has changed somewhat. I still do not think the actual review content itself dramatically influences a purchase...within reason. Of course if a book has 70% of its reviews being only a single star, it could deter people. Let's look at it from the perspective that the book is rated fairly well however. A potential buyer may read a couple 5 stars, a couple 1 stars, and a couple mid-star reviews at most when determining whether they are going to buy the book or not. I know there are exceptions to this, but this is what I have found after asking many people.

I feel like the actual number of reviews gives credence to impulse buys. Or rather, helps a customer determine that this book is probably worth taking the risk on. if so many other people have taken time to review it, it must be worth checking out!

Beyond all else I do believe that the first few reviews are the most important. I will admit that I have never bought a book that had 0 reviews. Despite being on this side of the fence and knowing how tough it is to cross that first hurdle...I am still guilty. Unless I know the author or am already a fan etc. I think most book-buyers are this same way.

*What to do to get (more) reviews*

*Back Matter*
Back matter is all the stuff in your book after the actual story ends. It can include an about the author page, other works by page, glossary, contact information, etc. It should also contain a review request page.

I have no idea why I never thought to include this page originally, but it has been without a doubt the single most impactful way to get reviews so far. A quick example with numbers for you to all consider.

Reviews before adding back matter vs after adding. The first number was in a span of 10 months. The second is within TWO months. These numbers are only for a single book.
Amazon US: 12 -- 38
Amazon UK: 00 -- 09
Nook: 00 -- 12
Apple 00 -- 27!

I could list the other sites, but you get the idea. It is obvious to see that after adding that back matter page for reviews we received a much larger % of readers following through. Now as far as what exactly to put in it, that is up to you. I will warn that you should not say "If you liked the book leave a review!" Do not discriminate. Welcome all reviews. I am so cynical on seeing reviews now that I have been on this end, that when I see anything with an abnormally high number of only 5 stars I instantly am leery of fakes. Be it books or restaurants. Fake or boosted reviews are way more wide-spread than I would have ever thought.

Here is the exact one I added to my wife's book and the results are reflected above.

_THE END
Thank you very much for reading Twin Souls!

I know your time is valuable and I sincerely thank you for finishing this novel! If you would take a brief moment to return to where you purchased the book and leave a review it would be much appreciated!

Reviews help new readers find my work and accurately decide if the book is for them as well as provide valuable feedback for my future writing.

Thank you again, and be sure to check out the sequels in the Nevermore Series!_

In this thread it has been brought to my attention that another great addition to the back matter is to leave a hyperlink straight to a page on your website. The landing page will basically be another 'thank you' page. There you will also list your contact information, and then ask again about reviews. Anything at all to make it easier on the customer to do so, and hey...clicking a hyperlink at the end of the book is pretty easy! On this landing page you can even have direct links straight to the various places that sale your book, making it easy for a customer to click on where they bought your book and go straight to it rather than having to go back to the website manually and search. The more pain free and accessible to the customer, the better!

I am sure that could be improved upon even further, but it has been working.

*LibraryThing Giveaways*
It has been a while since I posted to this thread but I wanted to give the experiment with LibraryThing ample time to reveal its fruits. I gave it almost three months to ensure everyone that received a copy of the books had time to read it and leave a review if they were going to. It is true more reviews may trickle in further down the road. If they do, I will update this.

If you are unfamiliar with LibraryThing then I suggest you definitely check it out. The giveaway page for the website is HERE.

I put in a giveaway for 100 copies of book one in a four part series. The genre was paranormal fantasy (teen/ya). I also noted in the giveaway that I would include book two in the giveaway. Entrants were to agree to read and review both books. These are the results after three months.

Reviews contributed to LibraryThing Giveaway:
Amazon US - 2 reviews
Librarything US - 2 reviews
All other sites (including goodreads) - 0

As you can see the results are less than stellar. For the time it took me to make the giveaway and email out 100 books it was perhaps not worth it. Though as I said before, the more reviews the better--and I did get more reviews. I have gotten feedback from others who got a much higher review % (Up to 10-15%!) but I do not recall what genres they used. Your results may vary widely!

Despite all of this do plan on trying LibraryThing again in the future.

*What NOT to do to get (more) reviews*
Quid pro quo reviews: "Hey I will review your book if you review mine!"
Paid Reviews" I'm looking at you, Fiverr!

*Untested ways to get (more) reviews*
Amazon top reviewers emails.

*Tested ways to get (more) reviews but not yet added*
Blog reviewer reach-outs

*NOTE* I am going to go ahead and post this so far so that I don't somehow have a computer explosion and lose the current progress. Feel free to go ahead and request things for me to add to this main post, ask questions, and all that good stuff! Hopefully this has been helpful so far!

--
Review counts as of today (total of selling platforms, not goodreads.)
Twin Souls (Nevermore, Book 1): 122
Hybrid (Nevermore, Book 2): 12
Sacrifice (Nevermore, Book 3): 9
Destiny (Nevermore, Book 4): 7


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## Shalini Boland (Nov 29, 2010)

I'll read this tomorrow. I'm going to bed now  

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,148336.0.html


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I'm having some luck with Book Review Broker:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,146551.0.html


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## Tim McGregor (Apr 2, 2013)

Good post, Adam. Specifically the tangible rise in reviews after tweaking the back matter. I wish I'd had the foresight to do that too.

However I disagree about the number of reviews. The more reviews the better, regardless of whether they're good or bad, because that little number inside the bracket is a validation. That many people read your book and posted a review. The higher the number, the more the book has been validated. It's sort of a psychological thing but I honestly believe it has an impact on sales.

I blogged about it a while back. Clicky here if interested. http://timcgregor.blogspot.ca/2013/02/happy-valentines-day-your-book-sucks-or.html


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## markobeezy (Jan 30, 2012)

LibraryThing free giveaways are priceless. If your book has a great cover and synopsis, you can practically guarantee you'll get some reviews. There is an option when posting a giveaway that you (respectfully) expect reviews and once the giveaway ends all you have to do is send the book to the "giveaway winners." This website has helped me out a lot!


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I'm having some luck with Book Review Broker:
> 
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,146551.0.html


Thanks for the heads up. How well did this work for you? How many reviews can you contribute to it so far? Where all the reviewers fine with this query of yours or where some annoyed (or even considered it spam, maybe?). I do not think those things, but definitely looking for some more concrete results on it. I will have to look more into it and perhaps try it as well!


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

Tim McGregor said:


> Good post, Adam. Specifically the tangible rise in reviews after tweaking the back matter. I wish I'd had the foresight to do that too.
> 
> However I disagree about the number of reviews. The more reviews the better, regardless of whether they're good or bad, because that little number inside the bracket is a validation. That many people read your book and posted a review. The higher the number, the more the book has been validated. It's sort of a psychological thing but I honestly believe it has an impact on sales.
> 
> I blogged about it a while back. Clicky here if interested. http://timcgregor.blogspot.ca/2013/02/happy-valentines-day-your-book-sucks-or.html


I do see your point, for sure. For me I guess after a certain point I don't care how many reviews something I am buying has. "Wow this book has over a hundred views!" is just as likely to make me buy something as "Wow this book has over two hundred reviews!". The larger the gap the more impacting for sure though, I think. 100 - 200 isn't much of a comparison...but 30 - 1000 is huge. So I agree and not at the same time! hehe Thanks for the post!



markobeezy said:


> LibraryThing free giveaways are priceless. If your book has a great cover and synopsis, you can practically guarantee you'll get some reviews. There is an option when posting a giveaway that you (respectfully) expect reviews and once the giveaway ends all you have to do is send the book to the "giveaway winners." This website has helped me out a lot!


I will definitely be adding this also! Thanks for the information and reminder.


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## benji smith (Aug 21, 2012)

Tim McGregor said:


> Good post, Adam. Specifically the tangible rise in reviews after tweaking the back matter. I wish I'd had the foresight to do that too.
> 
> However I disagree about the number of reviews. The more reviews the better, regardless of whether they're good or bad, because that little number inside the bracket is a validation. That many people read your book and posted a review. The higher the number, the more the book has been validated. It's sort of a psychological thing but I honestly believe it has an impact on sales.
> 
> I blogged about it a while back. Clicky here if interested. http://timcgregor.blogspot.ca/2013/02/happy-valentines-day-your-book-sucks-or.html


I completely agree with Tim. For me, as a reader, I'm *much* more likely to buy a book with 500 reviews than a competing book with only 20 reviews. If you think for a moment about the page layout of an Amazon listing, you can't actually even see a precise rating unless you click a button to expand the review details. The default view of the page just displays the star icons, with the rating rounded to the nearest half star. But the *number* of ratings is spelled out precisely. So you can see at a glance which books have the most ratings. It's a much more prominent endorsement of the book, in my opinion, than the average rating.

Anyhow, I'm also one of the authors with a link in my back-matter. But I don't link directly to my Amazon review page. Instead, the link lands on a customized page on my website, called "Thanks for Reading". On that page, I thank the reader for spending time with my book and encouraging them to keep in touch with me. There's a form they can fill out to join my mailing list, and there's a link to they can click on to review my book at Amazon.

Ever since I added that page to my website and added a link in the Kindle back-matter, my reviews have increased dramatically. I went from 35 reviews (in the book's first three months) to a total of 137 reviews just four weeks later.

I've also been doing Goodreads giveaways every week or two, and I've gotten lots of really enthusiastic reviews from those readers (as well as a few highly critical reviews, but I don't mind those much either).


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

benji smith said:


> I completely agree with Tim. For me, as a reader, I'm *much* more likely to buy a book with 500 reviews than a competing book with only 20 reviews. If you think for a moment about the page layout of an Amazon listing, you can't actually even see a precise rating unless you click a button to expand the review details. The default view of the page just displays the star icons, with the rating rounded to the nearest half star. But the *number* of ratings is spelled out precisely. So you can see at a glance which books have the most ratings. It's a much more prominent endorsement of the book, in my opinion, than the average rating.
> 
> Anyhow, I'm also one of the authors with a link in my back-matter. But I don't link directly to my Amazon review page. Instead, the link lands on a customized page on my website, called "Thanks for Reading". On that page, I thank the reader for spending time with my book and encouraging them to keep in touch with me. There's a form they can fill out to join my mailing list, and there's a link to they can click on to review my book at Amazon.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info! I like the idea of doing what you said with the hyper-link to a 'review' page. I believe that coupled with the review message I posted would work extremely well in tandem. I will add that to the main post as well as tweak the 'review count' information.

Thanks again!


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Adam Poe said:


> Thanks for the heads up. How well did this work for you? How many reviews can you contribute to it so far? Where all the reviewers fine with this query of yours or where some annoyed (or even considered it spam, maybe?). I do not think those things, but definitely looking for some more concrete results on it. I will have to look more into it and perhaps try it as well!


I sent out two sets of pitches, for two different books. One set cost $30 and the other cost $39. I got 14 takers. One bought the Kindle version of my book and posted a review two days later. The other 13 requested paperbacks (I gave them the option in my pitch). One just emailed me yesterday to let me know she received the paperback. One review was posted today. That's the progress so far. I recognized the name of one of the takers for my anthology of memoirs. He's a retired Senior Foreign Affairs Specialist with the U.S. Department of State.

Three of the reviewers emailed me back to say their to-be-read lists were full, but that my pitch was so compelling they couldn't resist. One guy sent a rude message about starting to charge for reviews, and I reported him to James and suggested he be removed from the list. A few wrote to say thanks, but no thanks.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks for sharing your results!


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

So glad someone started this thread. I've got company--watching a hockey game!--so I'll have to read it later. 

Just want to say a quick thanks to the OP.


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

Sandwich boards definitely do NOT work. 

And there are better ways to get the exercise.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Adam, do I have your permission to use your example in my book and change the wording a little to my tastes?


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## Scott Daniel (Feb 1, 2011)

Very helpful thread, OP. One thing I am confused about: when you finish reading a book on Kindle, it automatically asks for your rating and a review. If readers won't take the time to give it a rating then, why would adding this back matter make them more likely to give a review?


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Probably because lots of people (probably) don't flip the pages all the way to the end. They probably stop after the end of the story and never get to that page.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I never flip all the way to the end, and didn't even realise that Amazon did prompt for a review!

I've just added something like this to the back of my book a few days ago. Will see if it helps with reviews.


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## Bree Roberts (Dec 1, 2012)

I listened to CreateSpace's Guy Kawasaki webinar this week, "How to Sell More Books with Social Media," and he had an interesting way of getting reviews right out of the gate, right when the book is published.

He sends free PDF copies of the book (before it's published) to anyone willing to read it in exchange for a review. So, you need to make it clear up front to people getting your book for free that they must be willing to review it afterwards (good, bad, ugly, any review at all).  I didn't hear how far in advance of the launch date he does this, but I would guess at least a week or two, maybe more?  He said "pre-reading creates evangelists for your book" and it gets off to a fast start with reviews once it goes live.  The day before the book goes live, you send an email to everyone that signed up to read it and you inform them that tomorrow is the launch date and ask them to please leave a review *tomorrow*.

Personally, I'd make sure your copyrights are in place before sending out the pdf.  I think I'd be worried about pirates signing up for that in order to get the book out on the pirate sites asap.  So, if you have a trusted circle of friends or organization you belong to (like a writers group) that you could target your exchange to, that would probably be better.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

markobeezy said:


> LibraryThing free giveaways are priceless. If your book has a great cover and synopsis, you can practically guarantee you'll get some reviews. There is an option when posting a giveaway that you (respectfully) expect reviews and once the giveaway ends all you have to do is send the book to the "giveaway winners." This website has helped me out a lot!


How long did it take, do you remember? I've only tried once--I had 30 requests (I had them email me to request a file format, just to make sure they were really interested), and in two months have had one review from that, posted on Goodreads and Amazon (which was nice). But it seemed a lot of work for one review. I did indeed say that the giveaway was for reviewers. Did you repeat the process several times, or something?


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

What NOT to do to get reviews:

Do NOT exchange reviews with another author.

Do NOT pay people to post reviews. 

The only thing you are allowed to give a reviewer is a free copy of the book.


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## August Wainwright (Apr 25, 2013)

Bree Roberts said:


> I listened to CreateSpace's Guy Kawasaki webinar this week, "How to Sell More Books with Social Media," and he had an interesting way of getting reviews right out of the gate, right when the book is published.
> 
> He sends free PDF copies of the book (before it's published) to anyone willing to read it in exchange for a review. So, you need to make it clear up front to people getting your book for free that they must be willing to review it afterwards (good, bad, ugly, any review at all). I didn't hear how far in advance of the launch date he does this, but I would guess at least a week or two, maybe more? He said "pre-reading creates evangelists for your book" and it gets off to a fast start with reviews once it goes live. The day before the book goes live, you send an email to everyone that signed up to read it and you inform them that tomorrow is the launch date and ask them to please leave a review *tomorrow*.


Bree,

Guy's plan is great in theory, the problem is that he leaves out the most important details. I did the exact same thing - offered a free pre-release copy in any format they wanted - and sent it to my subscriber list, as well as people who specifically asked on GoodReads, Twitter, and my site (but weren't on my list). The total number of copies sent out was right at 600, which doesn't count the 150 or so review requests I sent to bloggers. The entire thing got me a whopping 2 reviews. That's a 0.33% conversion rate. I sent the reminder email when the book went live asking everyone who read it to please review on the release day. Pretty much did exactly what Guy did, except for one MAJOR difference:

Guy Kawasaki has 4.5 Million followers on G+, 1.3 Million on Twitter, and who knows how many subscribers on his email list. He's an outlier. If I remember right, he says in his book APE that after using this method, he received something like 65 reviews on the first day and it helped drive him up the bestsellers list. What he doesn't say is how many people received and read the free PDF from those he contacted. I imagine it went something like this:

1. Reach out to and contact thousands upon thousands (possibly millions) of followers/subscribers a few weeks in advance of launch with offer of free PDF
2. Convert a very small number of those who request and then receive the PDF
3. Convert an equally small number of those who received the PDF to actually read it
4. Convert an equally small number of those who read it to leave a review

This is complete speculation on my part, but I would bet just about anything that his OVERALL success rate was actually much lower than my 0.33%, just due to the volume.

Anyways, the point is to sort of put things in context. Guy had a plan and he executed on that plan in the best manner possible. I tried a similar plan and got 2 reviews. With my overall reach, I've actually learned to look at it as "Yea, 2 reviews. That's great! 2 more than I had yesterday."

The question becomes - is it worth the time input? For me, the answer is no; at least not with my current reach. Might be different for you.


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## Bree Roberts (Dec 1, 2012)

August Wainwright said:


> Bree,
> 
> Guy's plan is great in theory, the problem is that he leaves out the most important details. I did the exact same thing - offered a free pre-release copy in any format they wanted - and sent it to my subscriber list, as well as people who specifically asked on GoodReads, Twitter, and my site (but weren't on my list). The total number of copies sent out was right at 600, which doesn't count the 150 or so review requests I sent to bloggers. The entire thing got me a whopping 2 reviews. That's a 0.33% conversion rate. I sent the reminder email when the book went live asking everyone who read it to please review on the release day. Pretty much did exactly what Guy did, except for one MAJOR difference:
> 
> ...


Not to mention the fact that if it's ready enough for PDF format, no way I'm sitting on it for a couple of weeks to release it, lol. That puppy's going out ASAP! A wasted two weeks (or more) of no sales? No thank you!

And a great point you made. I'm no Guy Kawasaki with millions of followers! I can get two reviews from two friends without any problem if I asked. I just have a hard time with the asking part.


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## JenniferHarlow (Jun 8, 2013)

Once I had someone write me a fan letter (awesome!) and I wrote back answering her list of questions, and at the end asked her to write a review or tell other people how much she liked the book. I got back another e-mail along the lines of, "Oh, I hate it when you authors ask me to write reviews. I thought you were cool." I just left it at that and it made me gun-shy to ask anyone else. They really don't owe us a thing, I don't think they realize just how important these reviews are in terms of algorithms and word of mouth and sales. I've heard of authors being very overzealous asking for them in constant Twitters and Facebook messages. I've even unfollowed a few because of that. How do we press our readers without being a salesman?


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Scott Daniel said:


> Very helpful thread, OP. One thing I am confused about: when you finish reading a book on Kindle, it automatically asks for your rating and a review. If readers won't take the time to give it a rating then, why would adding this back matter make them more likely to give a review?


Well, only some Kindles do that.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

JenniferHarlow said:


> Once I had someone write me a fan letter (awesome!) and I wrote back answering her list of questions, and at the end asked her to write a review or tell other people how much she liked the book. I got back another e-mail along the lines of, "Oh, I hate it when you authors ask me to write reviews. I thought you were cool." I just left it at that and it made me gun-shy to ask anyone else. They really don't owe us a thing, I don't think they realize just how important these reviews are in terms of algorithms and word of mouth and sales. I've heard of authors being very overzealous asking for them in constant Twitters and Facebook messages. I've even unfollowed a few because of that. How do we press our readers without being a salesman?


My experience has been completely opposite of this. In my back matter, I don't specifically mention reviews at all, but I do provide, among other things, a link to send me an email.

I get a pretty steady stream of email from people telling me they enjoyed the book. I usually answer the email with "Thank you for taking the time to read my book and get in touch. That means so much to me. My very best tool for spreading the word about my book is reviews on Amazon. If you have a moment, would you be willing to write an honest review? Either way, thank you so much!"

I would say that about half of my 333 reviews on the book have been generated from people who originally contacted me through email. I have never gotten a single person who complained when I asked. Usually, I get the feeling that they are really happy to help.

YMMV, of course!


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Bumping this thread because I think it's important.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Bumpity bump


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

benji smith said:


> Anyhow, I'm also one of the authors with a link in my back-matter. But I don't link directly to my Amazon review page. Instead, the link lands on a customized page on my website, called "Thanks for Reading". On that page, I thank the reader for spending time with my book and encouraging them to keep in touch with me. There's a form they can fill out to join my mailing list, and there's a link to they can click on to review my book at Amazon.
> 
> Ever since I added that page to my website and added a link in the Kindle back-matter, my reviews have increased dramatically. I went from 35 reviews (in the book's first three months) to a total of 137 reviews just four weeks later.


That sounds like a really cool idea!! I love it and I'm going to do it


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Okay, I've added it in!

My back matter now looks like this, page by page:
(First thing you see after the epilogue) - Mailing list, Twitter and Facebook links
- Review request
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

Updated with LibraryThing 3month test results!

Promise I will try to keep this more up to date . Thanks for the previous bumps!


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

benji smith said:


> Anyhow, I'm also one of the authors with a link in my back-matter. But I don't link directly to my Amazon review page. Instead, the link lands on a customized page on my website, called "Thanks for Reading". On that page, I thank the reader for spending time with my book and encouraging them to keep in touch with me. There's a form they can fill out to join my mailing list, and there's a link to they can click on to review my book at Amazon.
> 
> Ever since I added that page to my website and added a link in the Kindle back-matter, my reviews have increased dramatically. I went from 35 reviews (in the book's first three months) to a total of 137 reviews just four weeks later.


What a great idea, Benji...thanks. Am curious as to why you decided to go this route instead of straight to Amazon reviews?


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

Working on a review landing page for my wife's books. This is what I have so far. http://www.kaylapoe.com/p/review-landing-page.html

I will report more on it after I add it to all the novels.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Adam Poe said:


> Working on a review landing page for my wife's books. This is what I have so far. http://www.kaylapoe.com/p/review-landing-page.html
> 
> I will report more on it after I add it to all the novels.


Cool idea. The fewer hurdles the better!


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

Adam Poe said:


> Working on a review landing page for my wife's books. This is what I have so far. http://www.kaylapoe.com/p/review-landing-page.html
> 
> I will report more on it after I add it to all the novels.


Adam (and Benji) this is a good idea. Thanks for providing a link for us to see what you're doing, Adam! Question - how did you time it? Apologies for what may be a naive question (am about to publish my first book shortly) but do you not have to upload the book to the store first in order to get the link to incorporate on your site? Perhaps the page on your site is hidden to the public?


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

9thChapter said:


> Adam (and Benji) this is a good idea. Thanks for providing a link for us to see what you're doing, Adam! Question - how did you time it? Apologies for what may be a naive question (am about to publish my first book shortly) but do you not have to upload the book to the store first in order to get the link to incorporate on your site? Perhaps the page on your site is hidden to the public?


Sorry, not sure if I am completely understanding the question...but here's what I think.. 

Basically that review page is hidden on the site and only accessible from the direct link right now. I will probably change that though once I finish it. I want to get a title graphic for the page that says 'Leave a Review!' or something first.

I put the link at the end of the book, right after the "Thanks for reading, please leave a review." spiel that I showed in my original post on this thread. And say something like "Click here to review now!." The link goes straight to the review landing page and they just click the book+vendor they read. it goes straight to the respected review page.

With this format I can keep the link in all the e-books the exact same and only have to update the website as more books are published or more vendors are reached. You could definitely go even further and make a review landing page for each book or each vendor, though. I will experiment for the remainder of the year and see which one seems to pay off the most.

One more note is that you can use a link shortener like http://goo.gl/ while logged into your gmail/google account and track exactly how many people clicked that link from the end of your book. Just be sure to put that shortened link nowhere else but in your books or else it will skew the results.

Hope that is what you were wanting to know.


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

Thanks Adam.  That definitely answers one part of my question.  Sorry if I wasn't clear.  What I was wondering involved the link and the Amazom product page. Here's a visual:

1) reader finishes your book/sees thank you page and the link

2) reader clicks the link directing them back to your site

3) reader is asked to click another link to take them to the, say, Amazon store (the book's product page) to leave a review

4) the reader leaves a review on the Amazon product page 

My question is that once you publish your book on Amazon (in our example), aren't the links in your site (#2 above) only 'valid/working' once the produce page exists on Amazon? From what I understand, that could be up to 48 hours later?  I suppose that might work if you update your links on your site as soon as you have the URL for your book's product page.  If not, I would think that the reader clicking (#3 above) would be clicking a dead link.

Does that make sense?  Hope so


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

9thChapter said:


> Thanks Adam. That definitely answers one part of my question. Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was wondering involved the link and the Amazom product page. Here's a visual:
> 
> 1) reader finishes your book/sees thank you page and the link
> 
> ...


It does. It is true that you would have to immediately update your website's page. You would never have to change the link you put at the end of your book though (If you do the one landing page for all books and/or per series).

One way to make sure you have the link on your page updated before readers get that far is to check the status of the book. Before the book is even fully published Amazon assigns it an ASIN that you can see. Just grab that and make the link before the book is even live. Barring that, you can always just put a simple "Review link coming soon!" on your webpage for that vendor. Unless your book is super, super short I doubt people are going to buy it and completely read it before you even get a chance to go update your page/link.


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

Makes sense.  Thanks for clarifying!


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## bengcoleman (Aug 1, 2013)

Excellent thread.  Thanks Adam.

You answered a lot of questions with data.  Big help.


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

After adding the review landing page in the backmatter, we have definitely seen an increase of people leaving reviews. It seems like it has been a very good way to get people who do not normally review, to leave one (even if those types are usually a 3 ). I know this because many of the new reviews since adding the page are from profiles with no other reviews.

I will update the main post soon™.


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