Readers Need to Review & Writers Need to Support Them.
Why is the internet full of places to post opinions but good indie authors struggle to get reviews and ratings?
Talking to readers who admit they don’t leave reviews, comments, or click a rating for the books they read shared several reasons. For some readers their relationship with the book is private and they just don’t want to share what they think. Some readers are too busy or don’t see the value but at the end of the conversations it really seemed to come down to three things.
- Readers say they don’t know what to say.
- Readers say they don’t think their blurb really matters.
- Readers say they don’t know where to post a review.
Talking to emerging authors who admit they want cyber attention but don’t know how to get readers to actually help them out the biggest frustration the familiar plethora of people near and dear who promise to post but never make the click. A continuing trend with writers and artists is not fully accepting that most of your friends are happy your happy but they are not going to buy your book. Sadly, most people don’t actually read and reality is that most people are going to pay $16.99 for John Grisham’s latest book before they pay $2.99 for yours. It’s not a rejection they just are not your target market.
Authors need reader response so that mystical and powerful algorithms will start recommending their wizarding book to the people who bought Harry Potter and their horror story to purchasers of Steven King’s latest masterpiece. The fantastic algorithm can’t make suggestions until it has enough data so the more data readers feed the internet about a book or an author the more attention Amazon and all the other on-line books stores pay to your favorite indie author.
Readers need to feed the algorithms.
So what should authors do?
- Celebrate your joy having published with friends and family but on’t waste your energy or their time trying to sell to them. Friends and family are friends and family if a few of them become customers and fans that’s great but this isn’t Amway so don’t exploit your natural list trying to build a down line.
- Carry business cards with the links to where people can buy your book, where they can follow your writing career and where they can rate your book (offer data to the all powerful algorithm).
- When readers ask what they can do to support you give them a simple task like share the book with a friend, recommend your book to their book club, post a word of praise on GoodReads etc. Simple and specific.
Readers, help authors learn! Post your response. Do you follow your favorite authors? Do you rate books? Do you share reviews? How do you feed the data monster or what stops you?
