So You Want To Be A Thriller Writer, A Discussion Group discussion

Authors are constantly seeking reviews for their book. Why? Does it help sell more books or can they actually be a hindrance?

If you are marketing well and getting people to click on your amazon page then reviews are going to help enormously to persuade that potential reader to make the leap and invest in your book.

Hi Bill,

Let's dig a little deeper into reviews. I agree with you, reviews will persuade the potential reader to either buy your book or not. I have read many readers are very leery of books with all 5-star reviews and, of course, all one stars. They say they want to see a balance in the ratings. I have to agree. I recently read a reviewer write how she couldn't understand why the book, she just read, received so many 5 stars. Many of the responses to the review also agreed with her.

What is your take on this?

Amazon reviews are typically a joke, though Amazon has recently tried cleaning this up. As a reader, relying on reviews to guide your decision to read a book or not is a crap shoot. I've many horrible (by any objective measure) books with multiple 5-star reviews.

However...

Once you've achieved a density of reviews such that it appears many people have taken a chance and been satisfied, your book starts to take on the feel of something worth trying. This is also defined as a Catch-22.

Where reviews become even more important is to sites like Bookbub, who will make the decision to advertise or promote based on the quantity and quality of reviews.

Hi Michael and Scott, I do think volume is a reasonable measure of a book. I have over 100 reviews on one of my books and a good average but some are critical. I think the reviews overall give a fair review of the book.
I can tell a funny anecdote of a friend who was mortified to receive a 1* review for his book. It said there was far too much sex and violence. His sales shot up as a result!

I think it’s fairly well-established that BookBub is (by far) the most effective and successful promotional program in the book business - and considering that they accept only 20% of the submissions and base their selection principally on the VOLUME of reviews, there you have the importance of getting reviews.

If you have not signed up (as a reader) for BookBub’s daily emails, you should right away. Select the genre you write in, and watch every one of the promos. Look at the reviews, then read the Look Inside.

I am quite certain that at least a few of you will think to yourself, “hey, my novel is definitely better than this.” And you would be right.

Pete,
Maybe BookBub is "the most effective and successful promotional program," but I can't afford it! Last I looked, promotion of mysteries and thrillers costs $400+. Moreover, they don't allow one to promote a series, which is what I'd like to do. And, don't you think it's a vicious circle if they base their selection on the number of reviews? Of course, all sites that do this create the same vicious circle.
If I'm to judge by my own reading for R&R, I ignore a book's reviews when I select a book because Amazon has turned them into just another product endorsement. I'd wager that overall there's a high percentage of reviews that are nothing more than a thumbs up or down, book retailing's equivalent of American Idol.
When selecting a book, I first check the price (anything > $5 gets ignored), I then read the blurb (PR-speak turns me off), and finally use the "Peek Inside" feature to see if the author writes OK.
Finally, if a book has more than N GOOD reviews (you pick N--I'd go for 10), what more is there to say about a book? (Good is emphasized here because most reviews have zero content, but if a book has 1000+ reviews, how do you weed out the trash?)
While I try to get reviews, it's like sitting in Times Square begging, it's so demeaning. And, oh, those book bloggers' egos! BTW, most of those on Simon Royale's list are either closed or don't respond.
I have a few reviews spread over many books. Most of them are more than a thumbs up or thumbs down. I'd like to have more of those. Neither readers nor writers learn much from most reviews.
r/Steve

We all know that Amazon and Goodreads reader reviews are mega-important for any number of reasons, so getting a high number of *quality* reviews is the first goal of a new author. (Even those published through the big houses have to do a lot of their own legwork here.)

Some websites, i.e. Choosy Bookworm, Book Partners in Crime, etc., advertise a service where an author can connect with reviewers. Author provides free book, reviewer reads and posts a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

Unfortunately, too many of these popular sites have become a bog of book grabbers who want the freebie, but don't want to do the review.

The authors with whom I've discussed this subject, as well as my own experience, all suggest you suggest you shouldn't waste your money paying for reviews. Put in the time, contact the reviewers, bloggers, and people who review works similar to yours. Request a review the same way you would an solicit an agent: Professionally, courteously, and with a well-written query letter.
The success rate is higher, and the quality of reviews are typically better, than anything I've seen from pay-per-review sites.

If your experience is different, I'd love to hear about it.

Scott,
I guess I agree a bit. Return rate on book review queries is low for reviewers listed by Simon Royale, and yes, I've had many go as far as ask for the freebie but not do the review there and elsewhere. I keep a black list!
Too many reviewers ask for the book up front and won't respond to a query. They basically say, "Send the freebie and I'll decide if it's good enough to review." To hell with that!
Because I review many books FOR FREE, I absolutely will not pay for a review. I figure the freebie is pay enough. I've talked about this with many authors.
I neglected to mention those review sites that offer free reviews but will speed it up for a fee. I also posted in Good Reviews an offer of TWO freebies in return for an honest review of one of them. Somebody (an author!) responded by offering reviews for $5.
I do my "official reviewing" at Bookpleasures. It's run the way I think review sites should be run: the author queries and all reviewers see the query and respond to the author if s/he's so inclined. The author has the option of having the reviewer repost to Amazon, but there is no guarantee of a positive review. (I generally try to say something positive. After all, I liked the book enough to pick it to review.) My reviews for Bookpleasures are many times longer than your average Amazon review--not an MFA critique but much more than what I liked and disliked and why (most Amazon reviews aren't even that).
I do this for good karma, wanting to give back something to the community of readers and writers. I just wish they'd return the favor. I set a limit for number of ebooks sent as promo copies (that includes freebies for reviews); I've never hit that limit. Other people are luckier with reviews, I guess, but I'm not sure I want any of those thumbs up or down reviews so prevalent on Amazon anyway.
r/Steve

Steven,
You said, "... but I'm not sure I want any of those thumbs up or down reviews so prevalent on Amazon anyway."

On principle, I agree. For practicality, what you and I think should or shouldn't be common practice isn't at issue. Since Amazon is the biggest bookselling site, and since ebook marketers such as BookBub rely on their (often less than helpful) reviews, the pursuit of reviews is as necessary for sales as is good grammar and punctuation. Oh. Wait. They're actually more important. Horribly bad books can be promoted far above better written efforts, if the less worthy author outworks the better one and reaches critical mass in terms of reviews.

I've been stuck on 35 Amazon reviews for some time, which for me at least was enough for BookBub. (Having said that, if the publisher wasn't paying for BookBub, I'd probably not be doing it, given the high cost.) We'll see how BookBub impacts my ranking at the end of April.

Stay tuned.

Scott,
More non-productive whining but bear with me.
You're lucky to have a publisher who pays for BookBub. Thanks for the interesting info. I'm anxious to hear how you do. I have anecdotal evidence that BookBub success is a coin toss.
Let's say that it costs $400 to promote a thriller book there. Even if I had the money and could sell them at the full $2.99 price (BB wants a discount), I'd need to sell about 190 ebooks just to break even. Of course, if I made them $0.99, I'd need to sell about 570 to just break even. That doesn't sound like a lot, but I've never sold that many of any of the ebooks in my catalog. This all assumes I have the $400 to gamble to begin with. And I'd rather spend that on producing the next book if I had it.
Even back when I did Amazon giveaways, the number of downloads was in the hundreds, not thousands (yeah, I got in on the tail end of that because I went POD at first before discovering ebooks),
It's a slog, man, but what isn't these days? Maybe watching Stef Curry sink a thirty-footer? :-)
r/Steve

Yep, the math only works one of two ways. Either the BookBub ad lights a fire under your title and blows your sales up high enough to pay for itself, or the ad is a loss leader to introduce your work to a wider range of readers. (I'm crossing my fingers for both.)
In my case, my BB ad will take place six weeks before my sequel release, so I'm counting on the sales bump to carry over.

Scott,
Yeah, if I had the money, I'd maybe try BB, because I could always write it off as marketing costs. But I'm always in the red anyway.
The idea of the sales bump carry over is a good one, if you can get one. I'm trying something similar: a Kindle Countdown for two ebooks before I go non-exclusive on Amazon with them and add them to Smashwords (that's because I've been selling more through the latter's distributors).
(self-promo alert) The two mystery/suspense/thriller books mentioned represent the entire Mary Jo Melendez series. Info is available at my website, http://stevenmmoore.com.
r/Steve

FWIW, I have never heard from a single author who did not make money on his BB promotion. Yes, it is a lot of money to lay out, but there is virtually NO risk that you will not get it back and then some.

Even the authors I know who did a BB freebie made up the fee in collateral sales of others in the series. So, you have a 4-5 book series, you put the first one up for free and keep 2-5 at full price (or varying prices).

I have my first perma-free and #2 and #3 at $3.99. Most days, I sell more of ##2-3 than I have free downloads.

Pete,
Your anecdotal evidence sounds OK, but I don't have the $400+ to invest that way, so it's irrelevant.
Good luck on your books.
r/Steve

Thanks for the input, Pete. Now I'm really itchy to see what happens at the end of the month. I've bought a number of spots on collateral sites--even Goodreads!--to coincide with BB, so I'm continuing with crossed fingers. (Which makes it hard as hell to type.)

Guys and gals,
I think we got a little distracted here. BB, ad spots on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere, free and sale-priced downloads via KDP Select--all these are really to sell books, and only peripherally related to book reviews.
The vicious circle ... sales --> readers & reviews --> sales --> readers & reviews ... can't be started with reviews, yet many sites require them to jump into the circle. One way to jump start this process is to ask family and friends to review a new book. Many reviews on Amazon used to result from that tactic, but now they say they're more careful. The tried and true way is to send a query to a book blogger. With so many new books, you're not likely to get one, and they're not interested in old books, so "old books" in your catalog (in my case, "old" goes back to circa 2006) won't get any new reviews.
So I always digress to the purist's POV. There are really only two benefits derivable from reviews: (1) a well written review can provide enough info so that a potential reader is enticed to read your book; (2) a well written review provides feedback to you, the author, about how you're doing from the reader's perspective. "Well written review" is key here. Poorly written reviews are worthless. Even well written reviews lost among hundreds of poorly written ones become worthless (why I don't review on Amazon anymore). So, in general, reviews are meaningless in today's publishing environment.
In that respect, to return to the BB, etc discussion, my real interest with your sales techniques is: what percentage of those downloaded ebooks result in a well written review? If it's more than 1%, I'd be surprised. If the download is a freebie (instead of freebie in return for an honest review), you really get nothing in return. $400+ wasted in the case of BB freebies!
Sorry, I'm so negative. It just seems like indie writing is like everything else: it takes money to make money, and that still doesn't guarantee success. Fortunately, my threshold is low: if each book entertains at least one person, I declare it a success. Anything else is gravy. One can't make a living on that, of course. I never intended to. I just enjoy telling stories.
r/Steve

Maybe off target a little, but the OP speaks to how important reviews are to a writer. Since reviews equal placement and consideration for things like BookBub, and BookBub equals sales, it should be concluded that reviews = sales.

I don't believe I'll ever be a Big Name Author with my titles in all the best grocery stores, but I do want to sell more than one or two books.

Besides my mercenary motives, good reviews help make the long, hard process of writing easier for me to bear. Bad reviews? Well those folks are just deluded. :)

Scott,
A "good review" isn't necessarily a "well written review." The latter will "help make the long, hard process of writing easier" because they will inform you. A "good review" equivalent to "I loved this book" has zero information content.
By "well written review" I don't mean an MFA thesis that analyses what the author did down to minutia and/or his Freudian impulses while writing. I mean a few paragraphs where the reviewer states what s/he liked and/or disliked about the book and why. I can learn from that, even if that "well written review" is negative.
Your equation is wrong. It's not even an equation but more like a Markov chain (I'll take back the vicious circle metaphor--there's a beginning and a circle has no beginning or end). It can be continued with sales from BB, for example, but you can't do that unless you already have reviews. The start must come from somewhere else before you can initialize the chain. That's why many authors are tempted to load up with reviews from family and friends, an easy albeit unethical way to initialize the chain. Giving freebies away initially in return for an honest review is more ethical, but the problem here is a numbers game: now there are too many books and not enough reviewers.
Bottom line: publishing today is like playing the lottery. Your chances of winning are essentially zero, but you can't win if you don't play. We just have to keep sloggin', man.
r/Steve

I believe Amazon take note of your reviews and sales when deciding whether to promote your book rather than the millions of others on Kindle. Amazon approached me in March and asked if I wanted them to promote my Powell trilogy as Kindle deals of the month in April, in the UK. Of course, I said yes and they decided the price would be £0.99 (Normally £2.62). This is free promotion and so far this month (16th) I have sold 3K books. I had a 110 reviews of my book Trafficking with a good rating and about 60 reviews split between the other 2 books. I don't believe Amazon would have offered me the promotion without my having the reviews.

We come from different places, Steve. I don't need a well-written critique by the time the novel is published. By the time I get to publication, I've had every chapter critiqued for content, prose, pace, arc, and style. I've adjusted, corrected, and rewritten dozens of times. I have content editors, line editors, and proofreaders review the book and I've made corrections from their feedback.

By the time I'm published, I'm looking for lay person feedback, and any review is a good review.

Do I listen to and learn from critical reviews? Absolutely. But I enjoy and crave "man-on-the-street" reviews just as much. Reviews from actual purchasers, even if they only write, "I loved book" or "It was okay" mean as much, maybe even more, to me than an in-depth review from a book critic.

Peace, brother. I hear you, loud and clear. I just have a different need than you.

Scott,
You're referring to the usual team of editors and beta-readers, I suppose. These are pros or semi-pros who any writer should use. A "well written review" lets you know what the audience thinks. To believe that you don't need a well written critique is a bit conceited, methinks. You call it "lay person feedback"? A zero content review isn't feedback--it's nothing, nil, zilch, nuchevo, nada....
Bill,
You think Amazon takes note of your reviews? BS. Why do you think they have that star-system? They only want a thumbs-up or thumbs-down (OK, the star-rank is five levels--same difference) because they do everything with computers. They even have algorithms to detect those reviews originating from friends and family (obviously they don't work very well).
Modern publishing perpetuates this egregious practice. We say "my book has such-and-such a percentage of 4- and 5-star reviews on Amazon" (if percentages are even mentioned). That sounds great, but zero content reviews don't count for anything in my book.
Sorry, I guess we do come from different places. I like mine better.
r/Steve

Steve,
"You're referring to the usual team of editors and beta-readers, I suppose."
No, I'm not. I use an online critique group, a real-life critique group, and the usual team of editors and beta readers. If I don't know approximately what the audience thinks by publication, then I'm shooting by going, "Ready, Fire, Aim."

"A "well written review" lets you know what the audience thinks."
And I'm saying to you I have this feedback prior to publication.

"To believe that you don't need a well written critique is a bit conceited, methinks."
Again, I've had dozens of well written critiques prior to publication.

"You call it "lay person feedback"? A zero content review isn't feedback--it's nothing, nil, zilch, nuchevo, nada...."
Disagree. Completely and totally. Completamente.

Steve, I get the feeling you have your hands over your ears going "La-la-la-la" to everything I say. You have a single world view of Amazon reviews, and that's fine, but your world view doesn't apply to me. You like yours better, that's cool. I'm not trying to convert you. But don't presume to tell me you have the Final Answer when it comes to reviews.

Steven wrote: "Scott,
You're referring to the usual team of editors and beta-readers, I suppose. These are pros or semi-pros who any writer should use. A "well written review" lets you know what the audience thin..."

When I say Amazon take notice of reviews I don't mean they read the content! They are looking to see you have a good number of reviews and a good average rating. This is one of the deciding factors in their deciding they want to promote your book over other books.

Scott,
FWIW, here's my opinion of critique groups and MFAs built on that concept: it's the best way in the world for an author's original style, her or his voice, to be completely destroyed. The most common critique: "I would have done it this way...." You end up writing like everyone else, which is why so many books are just like others in the same genre. Formulaic to the nth degree. Just my opinion.
I did a few critique groups way back when, mostly short stories (figuring that chapters from a novel need the novel's entire context to have any chance at a worthwhile opinion), but my stats are anecdotal, of course (most writing stats are).
I participated in one long ago, however, the now defunct Red Edit, that was a bit more rewarding. I had three or four novels already, so participation often reduced to helping others (why it's rewarding--I taught young people for many years).
My critiques never started with that phrase. That social media site catered to young writers, so I often focused on themes, telling them to get some experience so they have something to write about--put some meat on the bones, as it were. (King disparages this in On Writing, which is why he's formulaic like so many other writers--maybe not as bad as the A-Z woman or Higgins Clark, but still formulaic.) A lot of the kids' stuff produced the "what the hell do I care?" type of reaction, but I always tried to be nice about my critique. A writer needs life experiences, which is why I prefer the journalism degree over an MFA.)
Bill,
OK. Aren't we saying the same thing? Amazon book reviews are just product reviews, and they share all the negatives product reviews have. Amazon won't let a reviewer just do the ranking, though--the zero content has to have a few words to package it, so the computer counts them, I guess. But they only use the ranking to decide whether to push the product more. Each review is only a computer datum corresponding to the rank assigned. It's like American Idol at its worst.
I guess a ranking has some abstract content to it, but readers "grading your book" via that ranking is like taking a course and receiving the grade for it from many professors. It's also biased. If someone chooses to read a book, there's already a bias toward a higher ranking. Nobody can pretend that there's anything absolute about that ranking--well, no one but Bezos,
It's all done by computers. To prove my point, those famous "You might like..." emails often promote my own books to me! Any human would know that promoting Steven M. Moore's book to Steven M. Moore is silly and stupid (OK, it's a common name, but you get my point). I mean, "Yeah, stupid Amazon, I do like my own books!" Success in my writing life is determined by computer algorithms. I refuse to feel good about that! You can if you like.
r/Steve

After my BookBub ad ran yesterday, the computer algorithms put me at #74 on the list of All KIndle Paid and #2 in three genre subcategories (surpassing Lee Child for one brief shining moment).

So, yes, I quite like my approach at this point. And all the reviews that helped make it happen.

Scott,
I'll be a bit repetitious here, continuing my non-productive whining, but BookBub is a vicious circle I can't break into. While most of my reviews are good, I don't have many; BookBub would help there, but (1) they require reviews and (2) they require upfront $$$$ I can't afford.
So, how do you do it? For every book I publish, I go through Simon Royale's list. Most sites there are either closed, or they only accept books that already have reviews, or they want you to pay for reviews (those slip through on old Simon), or they don't respond to queries, or they want you to send the book and then they'll see if they want to read it. Picking off reviewers from Amazon doesn't work well either because most reviewers there don't provide emails.
When I started publishing my stuff 10+ years ago, I decided to also be a reviewer, thinking that giving something back to the community of readers and writer would generate good karma that would be returned. Never has worked that way! I'm thinking more and more about becoming an internet hermit...and certainly reconsidering why I should review any other author's book (I abhor review trades, by the way).
I never had delusions about making money in this business (most writers can't make a living writing), but I thought my business model of using royalties from previous books to finance the next book and necessary website maintenance and upgrades would keep me in the black. That's never worked that way either.
So, even though I have two MS's ready to go and have started another novel, they'll remain unpublished for now. I can't afford to continue right now. Maybe if I win that other lottery, Powerball?
r/Steve

How did I do it? A publisher that got my reviews cranked up through a blog tour, then my beta readers and online friends either bought a copy and reviewed (had to be careful there not to overstep Amazon's watchful eye), and then I queried the hell out of book bloggers and sent out a lot of free copies. To your point, I have many that request, but few that actually review.

I've also selectively queried people I've met here on Goodreads who I thought would do a good job. Not a rubber stamp, but a thoughtful review.

I recently signed up for a run on Choosy Bookworm, with mixed results. Again, a lot of requests, few reviews.

Every one counts, as I've mentioned previously.

My plan (hope, wishful thinking?) is that I'll come close to breaking even--not counting hours of labor--on book one, or not take too huge a loss, which will develop the fan base for books two through n.

Good luck and best wishes.

Scott,
LOL. I stopped counting hours of labor long ago, especially the actual writing, which is such fun!
I can't say I've queried as much for reviews as I did when I started this business querying agents and editors (1000+ rejections there), buy my returns are abysmal. I have met some very nice people online that way. I'm currently sweetening the deal: two freebies in return for one honest review.
I just had a Kindle Countdown Sale. We'll see how that turned out. I haven't had good results with those either. And way back when I gave books away on Amazon, nary a review.
It looks like we've tried the same thing, but you've had better luck. I'm happy it worked and is working for you.
Maybe I have to rethink this and accept that no one wants to read my stories. I had one pundit tell me to "rebrand myself." Others have told me to choose a pen name, cancel all my books, make new covers, and republish. Amazon frowns on that.
Thanks for the good dialogue, though. It's comforting that someone is having success, even if I don't.
r/Steve

Steven wrote: "Scott,
LOL. I stopped counting hours of labor long ago, especially the actual writing, which is such fun!
I can't say I've queried as much for reviews as I did when I started this business querying..."

I'm sorry to hear about your dilemma. As an author, I certainly understand what you are going through. I took a quick look at your books and they sound very interesting. Right up my alley. I will be more than happy to read your book and give you a honest review. If you are interested send me a pm and we can go from there.

Michael,
Will do. And thanks.
r/Steve

Michael,
Hmm, GR censored my thank-you message, so let's try it again. Thanks for the offer.
I couldn't find a way to send you a pm. Clicking on your name here gives me your GR page, but there's no contact info there. There's none at your website either.
Because I also write sci-fi, are you an AI playing tricks on me? :-)
BTW, I always try to line up reviewers pre-release among people who reviewed before, but that number seems to dwindle with time too.
Looks like your books do well. Congrats.
r/Steve

Hi Steve,

Odd you can't send a pm. I will have to look into that. Send me an email at Legalmagic5@hotmail.com. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.