Review Group discussion

Just asking a question since getting reviews is challenging. I'd think a free book to Giveaway winners would help. 10 winners, maybe 1 review (Not sure since full name was not attributed). The book in question is "A Cup of Tea on the Commode" which has over 50 amazon reviews with a 4.8 average rating (91% 5-star). It makes the Giveaway, plus the books, plus the postage to the winners a very expensive proposition with little return. Anyone else experience this?

Hi Mark! The thing with giveaways is that they have a low rate of people reviewing. If you got one out of ten, that's actually better than expected. I think Amazon expects based on their stats that something like 1 out of every 500 people who download your book will leave a review (when it's not people within the author's circle who have a connection or additional motivation to review.)

I do giveaways, but I don't do giveaways that I have to pay for. If you're enrolled in KDP select, you can make your book free for 5 days out of every three month enrollment period and that costs you nothing. You may give away lots of books with one of those giveaways, you may give away only a few. But at least it doesn't cost you anything to play around with it.

For getting reviews, I would try one of our review rounds the next time we have one open (look for a round that says "now forming"):

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Also our one for one list, see the instructions in the first post:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Here's another group on GR that is great:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

I have also had success with ARC sites like BookSirens, BookSprout, and Hidden Gems (romance), and know others who have used NetGalley. There are many others that are similar. Those are sites with ARC readers actively looking to review books, so if that's your goal, that would be where I would start. Giveaways... well, those are for people who want something for free, and the vast majority of people do not review. This does not change just because they enter a giveaway.

Ok. Great. Thanks for the info. My publisher uses NetGalley and Edelweiss for ARCS. I'll check the above links.

Take Care,
Mark

Mark wrote: "Just asking a question since getting reviews is challenging. I'd think a free book to Giveaway winners would help. 10 winners, maybe 1 review (Not sure since full name was not attributed). The book..."

This seems to be a perennial problem because I've seen it a fair bit on these forums. It seems that with freebies, a lot of people download the book and never get around to reading it unless they're particularly motivated to read it. I've been caught like that too. I gave away 100 ebooks and got one review!! Mind you, it was a 5 star review! :)

Thanks, Jenny. Though the reviews I have received are lovely, it seems Goodreads is not the place for reviews except for those readers who review dozens or more of books a week.

Mark wrote: "Thanks, Jenny. Though the reviews I have received are lovely, it seems Goodreads is not the place for reviews except for those readers who review dozens or more of books a week."

They're still valuable, I think. The question is whether they're good value if you have to give away books. Even worse if you have to pay for the privilege.

I do sometimes use them on my website, in the Editorial section on Amazon, and occasionally on social media.

Do you know for sure, they got the book to review.
because I won a book to review, but never got it!
so I didn't read it and never gave a review.
Just saying, it could happen, like it did me!

Rose wrote: "Do you know for sure, they got the book to review.
because I won a book to review, but never got it!
so I didn't read it and never gave a review.
Just saying, it could happen, like it did me!"

Wow!! There's not really any way to tell unless you do get a review. Although I did pay for my giveaway and they sent me a list of all those who entered. I sent them all an email to thank them.

Did you contact Goodreads? They're supposed to send them out!

Yes, all ten paperbacks were mailed out by us. How did you get the list of those who entered? Over 1800 entered. I'd love to refresh their memories about the book.

The promo I did was pretty expensive. You had to pay to get the list of those who had downloaded the book.