Using a Book Agreement Seal to get more Amazon Book Reviews
So you want more reviews on your book on Amazon?!
A Book Agreement Seal is a sticker or a simple sleeve of paper stuck over your book that makes some request of the reader ahead of them breaking the seal to read your book. If you love gifting copies of your books but are frustrated that almost nobody leaves you reviews, consider adding a book agreement seal (around the book) and a little insert book (inside the book) to encourage and remind people, respectively. I came up with this idea in 2023 and it’s already helped, hence I’m documenting the process.
Backstory
So I absolutely love self-publishing books and gifting away copies to friends and community members without asking for anything in return. While this has brought me great joy, in 2023, a friend suggested that I was foolish to gift away something of value for nothing. More importantly, I was shocked and a little let down when I realized that from the thousands of books I had gifted, I had very few of my friends leave reviews.
People especially have loved Limitless Questions, which I published with my friend Ann Swanson, and yet for probably ~700 copies gifted away, we only had 7 reviews. Ouch! Often when I gift books away, I lightly suggest a review would be helpful, and when I publish a book I post to Facebook to ask for reviews… but this is not enough. I spoke to others and they say way <1% is a fairly normal “conversion” for reviews, and that if I really want reviews I should be stronger in my approach. Why? Well, almost nobody writes a review unless you ask for it properly. Even then they might intend to write a review, but they will usually forget. If you want reviews as a new author you have to really chase them down. So I came up with the “Book Agreement Seal”.
A Book Agreement Seal
The first time I used a seal was for The Little Book of Dance Inspiration, which I wrote with my friend Sam Kennedy. I designed the seal in Google Slides.
If you can’t read the image, the most important thing it says is:
A FREE BOOK?!!
Yes, but please only take this gift & break this seal if you promise to:
… (1) Read at least 3 pages. (else it’s wasted paper!)
… (2) Leave a review on Amazon
… *and/or* buy a copy for a friend if you love it….
… gift it away if it’s not for you. (save a tree!)
I feel like that’s very reasonable. This is a homemade job where I was able to fit two of these per page, print them in color, cut them out, and then simply use some sticky tape to wrap it around the fore-edge of the book (opposite the spine) in such a way the person can’t open it without breaking the “seal”. I wanted it to be large enough to write about the book, but not too big that you can’t see the book underneath! Here’s what it looks like on the front and back:
Book agreement sleeve front and back view. Notice it wraps around the fore-edge”— it is wrapped around the spine it wouldn’t seal the book shut.
I imagine there are many other ways you could do this. If you printed on a large enough piece of paper you could have it potentially wrap all the way around the book so it could slip off, but personally, it gave me satisfaction to watch people semi-awkwardly remove it. Usually, they wanted to remove it without damaging it… although I’m sure others could simply tear it. It felt like it was treated with some revelry.
Using Book Inserts to Encourage Reviews
To follow this up, on the first page of the book I have what I will just call a “Book Insert”, which I also designed in Google Slides, and was small enough to print four per page.
The insert roughly reads:
Enjoy the book ?!
Please help support me as an amateur author by leaving a review on Amazon via this QR code. ☺
(bonus: order a copy for a verified review)
Here you’ll also see my other titles: … ♥ Andrew
This insert is important because, by the time they have read some of the books, they might forget they “agreed” to write a review. This insert they are likely to just leave in the book, so weeks later or when they find the book again they are still (perhaps) more likely to follow the QR code to my author page. You can generate a QR code to any URL with Adobe’s Free QR Code Generator.
For all my future books, I will make sure I also include a page asking for reviews and a QR code, because sometimes people require repetition and reminders to do something. Between the Book Agreement Seal, colored Book Insert, and a call to action at the end of my book, my hope is I get many more reviews.
Importantly, some people have never left an Amazon review and most will have no idea that without buying a copy manually, their review will not be verified. To help them out I will make a Kindle version of all future books at the lost possible price point to encourage them.
The Principle of Consistency
I read the consistency principle in a book once and it really landed with me. Humans don’t like to contradict themselves, so you can get someone to tell you that they are a generous human… then you follow that up by asking for money from charity… well they are far more likely to actually donate than if you didn’t. I don’t like to think of people as lazy or unreliable, they are just very busy and can easily forget that they agreed to write a review. When they open the seal, however, it can kind of lock into their minds that you are hoping for something in return. Generally, I love gifting without expecting anything in return… so I have no regrets about gifting away so many books for free, *but* it was a wonderful friend, Reese Zecchin, who first told me my books were too awesome to just gift away for free. People would be willing to buy them or at least leave a review. Ultimately it was Reese that suggested a seal, and inspired me to create one. In my dream life, I would write books for a living, but that day might never come. At least when I collect more Amazon reviews from people, there’s a chance more people will discover my books online and be inspired to buy one.
The Value of Reviews
You could have the most amazing book in the world, but nobody will buy it when they see it has been published a year ago and has not had a single review. It just doesn’t feel right. It’s like a restaurant with zero customers — people would rather wait in line next door in the crowded place because “probably the food must be good”. If nobody buys your books, and you have zero reviews. Well, it simply feels sad.
Following Up
If you really, really want reviews, I would suggest something I haven’t done before, but I might consider it. Create a People Map then turn it into a spreadsheet and make a note of who you have (a) messaged to ask for a review, (b) gifted a book to, and (c) who has actually left a review. If you keep politely pinging people each month to leave a review, eventually they will. It seems like a lot of work, but compared to the effort you put into writing the book it might just be worth it. Using a Book Agreement Seal, you won’t need to follow up as much with text or emails… the reviews will come. ♥
Sincerely,
Andrew Noske
PS: See the longer article here.