Like it or not, reviews on Amazon help sell books. The vast majority of potential buyers will look at your reviews to assist them in making 
a buying decision (I know that I do). If you don’t have many reviews, it can make your book look less popular than competing books with many reviews. And if you have too many negative reviews, you will undoubtedly lose buyers. If this happens, take a step back and look objectively at the negative feedback. Often you will find a trend that needs to be addressed in a revised edition of your book.
The point is that all authors need to focus on generating reviews on Amazon on an ongoing basis. Legend has it that reviews also help Amazon rank your book. The more reviews your book receives, the more likely Amazon will be to display your book as an option in related search results.
Following are ways to generate more book reviews on Amazon:
Start with friends who have actually READ the book – This one is tricky. You don’t want to ask great aunt Edna or your mom to write a review. It will be too hard for them to be objective, and the results will show up in the reviews. But you do want to reach out to friends and family—those who have actually read the book—and ask them to take a few moments to write one for you.
Reach out to your email subscribers – If you maintain an e-newsletter list, and you should, ask your readers to write a review. It’s amazing what happens when you simply ask.
Ask via social media – There is nothing wrong with reaching out to your social media audience and asking for their help. A post like this should work: “Did you like XYZ book? I’d appreciate it if you’d post a review on Amazon!” Don’t forget to include a link to your book’s page on Amazon. Make it as easy as possible.
Give away review copies – Many authors host campaigns where they give away free books specifically for review. In exchange, if the reader likes the book, he/she should write a nice review on Amazon. You can offer up this option via any means at your disposal (email, social media, to trade associations you belong to, etc.). Dan Poynter also facilitates campaigns like these through his publishing newsletter. Sign up at ParaPublishing.com.
Ask buyers – When you sell books through your website or at a live event, consider inserting a note inside the book asking the reader to post a review. You could print this request up on a postcard or even on a business card, or if time allows, hand-write a note to include in each copy.
Offer incentive – Last fall I reached out to my audience and offered up a bonus report to anyone who posted a review within a specified time period (several weeks). This simple campaign inspired several dozen reviews from my readers with very little effort.
Remember, sometimes all you have to do is ask. The key for most of us is to remember to ask!
Posted this with your credit on my blog. Fantastic read and I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes us little bloggers do a lot of the work posting likes and links for Amazon.
Thanks very much, Renee!
Good ideas! Thanks for the thoughtful tips.
Thank you, Carol!
You say: “Remember, sometimes all you have to do is ask. The key for most of us is to remember to ask!”
In sales and fundraising the saying goes: If you don’t ask, then it is unlikely you will receive. It is all a numbers game. The more you ask, then more chance you have to receive.
Moral of the story: You better ask, and you better ask a lot, if you want to get a decent number of reviews for your product.
Yes!!
Hi,
All good advice!
I wanted to comment on the asking though. When my latest book was released on January 8th, I had several reviewers read it, love it and offered to post their reviews on Amazon. Only one did.
Another one said she would promote the book on her site but did not, yet she promotes other authors daily. She said she loved my book! I feel kind of duped into sending them a free ARC.
Also, this may sound dumb but what do you mean by offering a bonus report?
Thanks so much and I tweeted several of the articles here!
Hi Lisa, It is perfectly acceptable for you to send a friendly email to those who promised reviews and ask them about the status. They may have simply forgotten, and a gentle reminder can’t hurt. If that still doesn’t work, then just let it go. Other opportunities will arise. To answer your other question, a bonus report is something you offer as a free download, usually in PDF format. It might be some worksheets or templates that go with your books. It might be a list to 20 tips that would be helpful for your target audience. A bonus report should be something your target audience would find valuable. Best wishes to you!
I agree with some of your points but as someone who has published booth traditionally and online, one thing I would stress to all authors is that when you set out, it is vital that you are clear in your motivations for writing.
As a new “Author” I thank you for this tip. I believe when we are newbies it can be frightening to ask for reviews for fear of a negative review. I am taking a leap of faith and asking for reviews.
I also like your article on giveaways through Amazon and when to start calling yourself an “Author”
Blessings,
Denise Milianta, AUTHOR!!!!!!
Dear Denise, You should own that AUTHOR status–you’ve earned it!
These tips are great. I found this post through a search result and as such I’m a first time visitor to this site. I’ll definitely have to read some more links here.
So far, I’ve not had trouble getting people to write reviews of my book. In fact, on my blog and Google+ account I asked for people who’d be interested in reading a “complimentary review copy” so long as they went and wrote a review on Amazon once it was published. About 20 people responded, I sent them a PDF of the final draft, and also, many wrote me of the typos and errors I had missed–so it was like crowd sourcing the proofreading. Also, one of the people who responded was a professional editor as well.
Anyway, about 12 people have written reviews and 2 of them are new people who actually bought and read the book and weren’t initially asked to review it. I’ve reminded some of the others who haven’t yet but I’m going to just drop it since I’m not getting any response for the most part. I figured not everybody would actually follow through.
My next book is similar themed and I was going to launch it along with the previous book both on a 48 free promotion period (in the KDP select promotion days) and tell my blogging audience and the mailing list subscribers if they email me and show me the review they wrote for either book, I’ll give them a free digital download, which will be the audio version of the first book already out.
Is it safe to offer the incentive from your last point in this blog post **publicly**? Or is it best to only mention to an emailing list, for example?
I read somewhere that Amazon can de-rank your book or some kind of penalty like that if they catch wind that you pay for reviews. I was just wondering if that’s true and if offering incentive is like a way of “paying” for reviews?
Thanks for the great post!
Hi Steve, Congratulations on your books! I just want to be clear here–we are NOT talking about paying for reviews! That’s another issue entirely and something I don’t believe in. However, offering some incentives to get people to take action seems completely fair. Whether or not you post that publicly is really your call, though you’ll likely get the best results from people who are already on your mailing list because they are already fans of your work. Best wishes!