Devi Ansevi's Blog: Devi Does...Dialogue - Posts Tagged "save-an-indie-campaign"

Author Kat Crimson has kicked off a campaign I heartily endorse. Her eloquent plea to Save an Indie, Leave a Review resounds loudly from the halls of the indie and self-published community. Many of us who write take inspiration from the reviews of our readers, poring over your words, treasuring what you thought we did well, promising ourselves to do better.

I've seen the stat that a book gets one review out of a thousand reads. 1/1000. One tenth of one percent. Yet, many of us prefer to read reviews to help inform our purchasing decisions.

These two things are difficult to reconcile...



Erotica is one of the more difficult genres to get reader feedback. Some may feel there's a social stigma in admitting to reading such books. I get it. I write under a pen name, after all - no judging from this corner. Maybe I'll write a blog post soon about how to anonymize reviews so people can't track them back to your real name.

But if that's not your reason, the next time you read something you like - whatever the genre - consider jotting a line about what you liked. Doesn't have to be long, though Amazon suggests a minimum of 20 words. Urban legend also has it that Amazon moves a book up the search results list after it has at least 50 reviews.

Twenty words...Two sentences. Or one, if you like run-ons. "Oh wow. What I liked most about this book was" and you're halfway there.

"Save an Indie, leave a review." It's a brilliant tagline. Wish I'd thought of it.

Wishing you joy in (Good)reading,
Devi