I thought I’d write a post on the importance of reviews. We all get bombarded with requests for reviews from practically every service we use, or anything we buy. It can be quite annoying, but the way people buy things has changed. Most of us check the reviews on a product or service before we buy. We don’t know the reviewer, but we often listen to what they have to say.
For an author, one of the best ways to make your work more widely recognised, is to have lots of lovely reviews. Peer recommendations are by far the most popular way for people to try new books. If you love a read and post a review on Litsy, Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and Pinterest or LinkedIn, then that is a strong indicator that it’s something you feel your friends or colleagues might enjoy too.
As an author of romance books, I write them to make people smile. Having a reader send out a tweet or post on Litsy like the ones below, makes me want to rush to my computer and keep writing. It means so much to have readers tell others that they loved the story and when they post it online and let me know, I then share it with my followers on Twitter @Lizzie_Chantree and across social media too. Once an author has over 30 reviews, Amazon shares it to a bigger audience. Over 40 and the 50+ reviews and it goes much further, so by posting those reviews and sharing your thoughts, you are actually a very big part of an author’s journey and are helping them to be able to write more books.
3 tips for posting reviews:
- Don’t forget to not only post your review on Amazon.co.uk, but to copy and paste it to Amazon.com and to other countries Amazon is registered in.
- Share your reviews on social media and notify the author, so that they can share the review too. They might feature you on their blog or Facebook etc and give your own blog/page a shout out, like I’m doing for the wonderful reader here (I hope she doesn’t mind!). If you like reading, join up to Litsy and give her a follow there, as she posts some fabulous news about books.
- Reviews don’t have to be very long. A couple of sentences that take minutes to write are enough. Using keyword like romance, or humour, for a romance novel helps other readers find the review.
A great post Lizzie! You don’t know how important reviews are until you are also an author. I Love supporting others and reviewing their books.
That’s great to hear Julie. Tell us more about your own work. What are you currently writing?
My book, ‘Born for Life: A Midwife’s Story.’ I wrote three years ago. I have just written, ‘Born for Life: Midwife in Africa,’ which will be released early August. Just got the proof copies and having the final edit.
Great reminder, Lizzie.
Thanks Jan. I recently posted a review about one of your books!
Great post, Lizzie. Congratulations on the fabulous reviews you’re receiving. Bravo to you! 🙂
Thanks Natalie. Likewise! Congratulations to you too.
Important post Lizzie! Reviews have become so important and connected to whether someone makes a purchase or not. I was not in the habit of leaving reviews until I saw that when I started publishing and was selling on Ebay. Right now we like having the reviews to read but I think we have to realize we need to give back and leave our opinion for the next person. Thanks for the post Lizzie:)
You’re welcome. Thanks for joining in with the debate about how important reviews are. Your book is next on my kindle and I will be leaving a review!
Yay! Thanks:)