All Novels Need Reviews, But You're Going About it all Wrong

All authors need book reviews, and there's nothing wrong with trying to get some for your novel/s, especially in the days of AI’s magnificent failures. That last statement was prompted by a random thought about Amazon's “review purges.” You know…where they turn faulty AI software loose on all your book reviews and have it delete ones it deems “fake.”  I think I've only had 52 survive on my first novel, and at one point it was well over one-hundred.

The idiotic software tries to determine if it's just a friend or relative helping you out or if it's a legitimate review from a reader. The problem is…moronic AI is not capable of properly making that determination. I really don't know what Amazon is so worried about to begin with...friends and relatives flake on you anyway at times like that. They don't help you out with reviews.

The tiny, miniscule handful of reviews I have from friends or relatives are, amazingly, still there, meanwhile dozens of strangers’ reviews have been deleted. That's how well AI works in that particular category.

However, before I get too far afield here, I will quickly make my point. You definitely need reviews for your book. There are several reasons for this. Most importantly, reviews offer crucial information:

Did Your Book Hit or Miss?

You definitely need more than your own circle of friends and family members to determine that. You need the opinions of strangers. Reviews are a great way to determine whether or not your books are going to sink or swim in the real world. Secondly, good reviews help you get sales.

Yes! Buy This!

If there are many compelling four- and five-star reviews, naturally readers are more apt to purchase that book. It’s a no brainer…the higher the number of positive reviews, the better your chances of a customer hitting the buy button. Finally, a high number of reviews will also get you an added bonus.

Put it in a Nutshell, Please

At the top of your book’s page, AI summarizes the primary consensus of readers who have left reviews.  It's one of the few things AI can do somewhat competently.

This was mine for Hot Winter Sun:

Customers say:

Customers praise the book's intricate love story and beautiful writing style. They appreciate the meticulously developed characters, with one customer mentioning feeling the characters' emotions, and find the dialogues engaging. The book receives positive feedback for its readability, with customers describing it as an outstanding new series.

I write historical fiction, and a lot of the reviews also indicated readers were impressed with the historical accuracy. AI, for some reason, didn’t add that in, but overall, it was a pretty accurate synopsis of the readers' opinions.

Cool, right? This can be helpful for buyers who are in a rush and want to know what the reviews say but don't want to read through them all. I've read many of these summaries, and then read through at least 25 of the reviews, and so far, this seems like one of the few things AI actually does somewhat effectively. However, it's not going to try to summarize eight or nine reviews. You do have to reach a certain level, and getting extra reviews obviously helps you get there.

So, What am I Doing Wrong?

Now you're probably wondering why I said you're going about it all wrong. After all, how do I know how you're going about it? Well, it's because I hear so much noise from other authors online, and yes, we get pretty intense trying to procure reviews, but the part that's “all wrong” is that some authors do that to the exclusion of advertising and marketing their books. That just doesn't make any sense.

If you made a full time job out of groveling to everyone you know and everyone you'll ever meet, and end up with 150 positive reviews on Amazon for your book, how many sales is that going to get you? Well, if you're not advertising the book, the answer is zero. All you have is a book sitting on Amazon with a whole bunch of wonderful reviews that no one is ever going to see. I'm pretty sure that's not your goal.

Looking for new and improved ways to convince people to leave reviews for your work is an integral part of any novelist's life. But if you do it to the exclusion of procuring sales, you are quite literally spinning your wheels. A book can have exclusively 5-star reviews on every merchant’s site in existence, but if there's no traffic being driven there, no one's ever going to know about it, and no one's ever going to buy the book.

If you're traditionally published, you still have to hustle. If you are self published, you have to hustle and spend money, or your books are never going to make it beyond the dead-in-the-water stage.

Reviews and sales are two different things. You need both. But at the end of the day, if you only have time to focus on one thing, focus on sales. Once you get sales, reviews tend to take care of themselves. But it doesn't work the other way around. Hope that made sense.