Get Reviews! discussion

Hi all,

Mike and I have been kicking around some ideas to help motivate members to keep those reviews coming. We're thinking of running some quarterly contests, and we'd like to get your feedback and suggestions. Here's our first crack at how this might work.

Members who want to participate would have some period of time (like the three months of the quarter) to purchase and review other members' books. Depending on the number of reviews a member posts, the member would have a chance at some pretty darn cool prizes.

Here's a suggestion for the tiers:

Tier 1: Post 5 reviews to qualify. The prize will be a copy edit of your manuscript.

Tier 2: Post 10 reviews to qualify. The prize will be a critique/beta read with verbose feedback of your completed manuscript.

Tier 3: Post 15 reviews. The prize will be unique cover art for your novel, or an animated trailer, your choice. (For a trailer example, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEv15...)

If we have too many folks qualify at any of the tiers, we might have to put all the qualifiers into a hat and draw a limited number of winners. That would depend on how many volunteers we have to provide the prizes. Mike and I are both onboard already, and if this contest idea has legs, we'll be looking for more volunteers.

We'd also need a mechanism where we track who is reviewing what so we don't accidentally end up with reciprocal reviews, which Amazon frowns on.

Please take a few moments to think about this proposal, and let us know whether you see merit in the idea. Our goal is to have some fun while helping indie authors get ahead.

Thanks,
Kathy

The mechanics of avoiding reciprocal reviews could be difficult if enough try for 15. How many books are there out there? (I mean from our group, not the grand total.) There may also be the problem of someone doing a good number of reviews but getting none themselves, so maybe we need an idea of how many are out there in each genre and how many are willing to review in what genres so everyone is comfortable. For example, if only two people write in genre A, and they only want to review genre A, only the first one in gets any reviews, because of the reciprocal rule. So before setting out, I would like us to make a list of what is there to review, and how many like reviewing what? Am I unreasonable? I hope not :-)

Frankly, my reviewing runs in cycles. If I have a new release that needs reviews, I'm scouring GR and elsewhere to find places to review. But if I'm in the middle of a first draft of the next book, you'd have trouble prying me from the keyboard. I'm just saying that because when this happens (if it does) will affect my participation.

Second, I am totally out of step with the tier suggestions. My daughter is an expert in computer graphics so a cover has little value to me, and I have several regular beta readers. But a good copy edit? Just saying you might want to let people choose what they want.

Third, I thought this contest would just be a way to bump up the review chains you have going. Those already have mechanisms to avoid reciprocal reviews and to make sure everyone gets reviews. The contest just gets people coming back more frequently to sign up. I have a new release first of November, and if this contest was running then, I could see coming back every week or two for three months to get a book from the range that has 3.99 books.

As for genre, I like my periods of searching for reviews because it pulls me from the technothrillers that I read the rest of the time. I read just about anything during those times, so you can list me in every genre (well, maybe not erotica, but the rest). Good writing is good writing, regardless of genre, although notions of whats fresh within a genre may suffer.

Let me add a bit of background. Our group is made up of the active reviewers of two former groups plus new members coming through. We're not trying to give everyone a jolly along. You're all here because you get involved.

What we've been thinking about is ways we can add value to what we're already doing, ways of rewarding our members and making our group something more than just another Indie review group.

Obviously, participation makes the reviews go round. So we're looking for ways to reward people. What would help? Beta reads, editing, cover art...

In our former group, I floated the idea of a group editorial review which can be posted in the Editorial Reviews for your Amazon page.

Please share thoughts and ideas. We'd like to make something happen.

The editorial review concept has merit.

What Ian said. Also, I would be happy to "contribute" a beta read every now and then (I'm a good beta reader, not such a great line editor).

This is a very generous offer of time and talent with the target goal of getting reviews for others. Kudos.

Kathleen wrote: "This is a very generous offer of time and talent with the target goal of getting reviews for others. Kudos."

Ditto. Thanks for working to come up with something fun like this.

I know I keep track of all reviews I write for fellow authors (and people who've reviewed me) on an Excel spreadsheet in order to make sure there are no reciprocal reviews. I know many of us probably belong to multiple groups. I wonder if this would just be something we would need to track individually.

I do wonder if we had super-reviewers who were reviewing for many people, eventually they might run into the issue of having reviewed for so many members, there wouldn't be as many left who were eligible to review their book. I wonder if there could be some sort of mechanism where they could still be reviewed, but just on Goodreads or other non-Zon sites that didn't care about reciprocal reviews, but not sure how that would work, or if people would want it. I love the feedback, and don't mind getting just a GR review but everyone is different and of course Zon reviews are valuable.

I think this is an awesome idea for participation. Just the fun of the game (not even the gift card) inspired me to get off my tush, read some great books, and write some reviews this month.

Thanks to everyone who has already chimed in. So many interesting comments and ideas! What a great group!

My primary concern about reciprocal reviews is that two authors could pick up each other's books at the same time during a contest and be unaware of it until the reviews post. We could leave it up to members to contact the author of the book they intend to review just be sure the author didn't have the same idea.

As for reviewing only in your own genre, isn't that already a problem in the threads? What if you want a review of your work, and no one else in the chain has offered a book in your genre or price point? You're pretty much stuck reading something else to get your review.

Whether we run out of books to review without hitting reciprocal issues would depend on the amount of participation we get. We currently have 54 members (and 7 pending) and 85 listed member books. I would be very surprised if every member wanted to review 15 books every quarter.

I don't know about anyone else, but I would love to get reviews of my books posted to Kobo, and to heck with reviews on Amazon. If I've already reviewed an author on Amazon, I would happily accept a Kobo review without concern for reciprocity issues.

As to concerns about whether a member would get reviews of their own book, that's why we're offering the prizes. Members still get something of value even if they don't get a whole slug of new reviews on their work, but certainly the odds of getting some additional reviews would be higher because the group as a whole would be doing more reviews.

Interesting idea letting folks select their prizes. It might be useful to test drive that in the first contest.

If an author believes that a group recommendation/review on Amazon would be useful, then yeah, let's offer that as a prize, too. More prize ideas would be very welcome, and thanks to folks who've already shown willingness to provide the prizes.

K.S. wrote: "My primary concern about reciprocal reviews is that two authors could pick up each other's books at the same time during a contest and be unaware of it until the reviews post. We could leave it up to members to contact the author of the book they intend to review just be sure the author didn't have the same idea."

Oh, yeah that's a good point. What if like there was a dedicated thread sort of like the daisy chains but for the contest where you just post and announce the book you just bought to read? I got around it this time by choosing a book by an author I had previously reviewed, but if we had a system like that, it would be a way to pick random books and be safe.

As for genre, I know I read pretty much everything even if I only write in 1-2 genres.

Part of my comment about authors indicating multiple books means a reviewer would have a choice. Right now, the daisy chain nominates a book, so even if the author has not reviewed you, if you have reviewed that nominated book that is it. Authors with multiple books offer more choice.

I know we don't have time to read every post in the group, so let me clear up the reciprocity thing. Our rule only apples to Amazon because they have a firm policy about it. I don't see why we have to apply their reciprocity rules to any other reseller. You're welcome to read and review one another on sites like Kobo, Apple, B&N, Smashwords etc. If these sites implement reciprocity rules, we'll have to review it, but until then, it's a green light.

Sorry to stray off topic. Back to rewards...

I don't have anything new to offer. The prizes suggested, including the Editorial Review, sound very good to me. Who can't use another copy edit or beta read? And trailer or cover is quite extravagant. I have to admit, however, that copy editing or beta reading someone else's novel while in the process of writing one's own seems to be an enormous project. I'm pretty good at both, but they take large blocks of time. Those are either labors of love, or labors well-paid for. I'd be hard-pressed to volunteer. Short stories, of course, would be a different matter.

Excellent suggestions!

My ability to read and review depends on how much time I have so even though the prizes are amazing, I don't think I would be able to review more books.

I liked the idea of allowing reciprocal reviews and post them to other sites, excluding Amazon. We could make a list of sites so that we all know where to post them.

Hey guys -

Great work and innovative thinking! Due to life and work constraints, I can't give more detailed feedback right now, but it's really heartening to see how much thoughtful consideration our group members are giving to this discussion. The more options we can offer to potential reviewers, the better, especially since the suggestions you've come up with seem to address most of your initial concerns.

If only certain world leaders could display such leadership.