When my first book was published in the dark ages – the 1990s – I didn’t have to think about online reader reviews.

Amazon was only starting to sell books when WHY CAN’T A MAN BE MORE LIKE A WOMAN? was released in the spring of 1995; Barnes and Noble was still a strictly bricks and mortar business.

That meant that reader reviews came in the form of good, old-fashioned, word-of-mouth  recommendations among friends. If you liked a book, you told someone: “You will love this book.”

It was a pretty simple process.

Reader reviews have power

In today’s publishing environment where the Internet lets us recommend books to anyone, online reader reviews have become powerful and influential. In fact, most readers rely on them to make purchasing decisions.

Whether they should or shouldn’t doesn’t matter. The fact is that they do.

This can be frustrating. Unless you’re at the same level as authors who are household names — think John Grisham, Jodi Piccoult, Carl Bernstein — you probably struggle to get reviews.

No matter what you do, and no matter how popular your book seems to be, getting reviews from fans can be a real challenge.

Is that your fault?

Are you doing something wrong?

Maybe.

But maybe not.

2 main reasons readers don’t write reviews

There can be so many reasons why people don’t review the books they read.

I wanted to know what they are, especially because even award-winning authors struggle to get readers to write reviews. So I did a little digging.

I asked readers why they don’t review books.

Here’s what they said:

1. The process is intimidating. They don’t know how or where to start, or what they should even share in a review.
2. They think writing a review will take too much time.

Can you blame them?

The “missing link” for reader reviews

It’s up to you as an author to help them get over those two significant obstacles to reviewing your book.

And now you can.

The “missing link” for reader reviews is a resource that helps them write something meaningful in just minutes — something that removes those barriers.

I’ve created that resource — well, make that two resources — one for fiction, another for nonfiction. Both use a simple process for writing a short, meaningful, and honest book review in just minutes. 

I’ve reader-tested them, and readers love them! They told me that they will review more books now because they know how to do it quickly and easily.

Get more reader reviews

Now I’m bringing my solution to you.

My unique new Reader Book Review Form for Fiction and Reader Book Review Form for Nonfiction, available for the first time this week, have the potential to significantly increase the number of reader reviews you receive.

Each is a fill-in-the-blanks PDF form that asks readers key questions about the book they just read (the questions for fiction and nonfiction differ so there’s a form for each category). The forms follow the steps used by Amazon, starting with the rating and ending with the review title.

The questions help readers focus on precisely what other book lovers want to know about the book they’re reviewing. 

Whether readers type their answers into the form or print it and hand write their thoughts and opinions, the result is a short, pithy review they can post on any site that accepts reader reviews. And it all happens in just minutes.

Help readers discover great books

Help yourself and help readers. You owe it to yourself to purchase one of these forms.

And, as you might expect if you’ve been hanging out here with me for awhile, I’m giving you more than a form with your low purchase price of just $29. You also get:

• A list of ways to use and distribute your groundbreaking form
• A social media image that encourages readers to write reviews plus suggested text to post when you share the image on Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks
• A sample blog post outline that educates readers on how their reviews help other book lovers

I hope you’ll join me in giving this form to readers. Buy it once for just $29 — share it as many times as you want!

It could be the one thing that finally gets you the online reviews your book deserves. 

CLICK HERE to buy now! 

Once you purchase your form, come back here and tell us how you’re using it! 

Tip of the Month

I like to share a “Tip of the Month,” a free resource or tool for authors, on the last Wednesday of the month.

In keeping with today’s post topic, reviews, this month’s tip is the Book Reviewers Yellow Pages.

Use the search box under the big blue image on the website to search 2,411 book bloggers by genre and category.

It definitely skews toward fiction — with the exception of memoir and biography — which makes sense. Nonfiction authors should be looking for bloggers that write about their topic.

As always, be sure to visit each site before requesting a review. You want to know as much as you can about the blogger you’re contacting.

Just 10 days ago, Amazon filed a lawsuit against more than 1,000 Fiverr vendors who Amazon says are writing fake product reviews on the retailer’s site.

The company says the bogus Amazon reviews could mislead consumers and give certain sellers an unfair advantage.

“Unfortunately, a very small minority of sellers and manufacturers sometimes tries to gain unfair competitive advantages for their products on Amazon.com. One such method is creating false, misleading, and inauthentic customer reviews,” Amazon wrote in the October 16, 2015, court filing. “While small in number, these reviews can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers place in Amazon, which in turn tarnishes Amazon’s brand.”

Amazon notes that it prohibits any attempt to manipulate customer reviews and doesn’t allow compensated reviews. Even so, the company says, an “unhealthy ecosystem” has developed to supply reviews in exchange for a fee.

Amazon Complaint

Fake reviews are a problem

Fake reviews are an issue for all types of products sold on Amazon, not just books, but I have been monitoring author reaction to this development in particular. Most of it seems to fall into one of four categories:

1. Haters: “Amazon is an evil entity trying to take over the world. Unite in an uprising, authors!”
2. Specialized haters: “This is a free speech issue! Amazon can’t stop us from saying what we want!”
3. Legal beagles: “What’s the legal standing for this suit?”
4. Consumerists: “It’s about time. I don’t even read the 5-star reviews because I doubt they’re honest.”

In the end, regardless of which of those categories best describes your reaction, what’s relevant to you is the fact that Amazon doesn’t tolerate reviews that aren’t honest. If you’re begging friends and family to “write something nice” about your book on Amazon, knock it off.

Is this actually a public relations campaign?

The other piece here for authors and other product sellers is that it’s likely that Amazon has another motive for this crackdown — improving its image.

Amazon is now positioning itself as a champion of the consumer underdog as it stands up in court to protect you from the evildoers trying to trick you into buying books, baubles, or boomerangs that won’t live up to the glowing reviews.

Other businesses that rely on user reviews have noticed. In an NBC News report, a spokesperson for Yelp told a reporter, “. . . we’re really heartened by it. Any message loud and clear that the industry can send that these types of misleading activities cannot be tolerated on platforms is an important message for consumers to hear.”

The suit was filed not long after a New York Times expose describing Amazon’s workplace as “bruising” made national news.

What’s more, just days after Amazon filed its “advocate for the consumer” lawsuit against phony reviewers, it published its response to The New York Times article on Medium.com.

I doubt the timing is coincidental. Amazon wants you to know that no matter what you read about it in the press, the retailer is working hard to protect its customers.

Author takeaways

But back to the author takeaway for this action: Don’t ask friends or family for book reviews, especially if they don’t read they types of books you write. Don’t do review swaps with other authors, either. Instead, learn how to get honest reviews (see “How to get reader reviews“).  Plus, in the article “Get reader reviews fast” on this site, author Michael Sunnarborg explains his simple six-step approach.

Finally, a member of the Build Book Buzz Facebook group commented recently that anything but a verified purchase review is useless on Amazon because Amazon gives verified purchase reviews the most weight. I asked Amazon about this and here’s the response I got:

“Anyone registered as an Amazon.com customer is entitled to write a product review. It doesn’t matter whether they bought the product from our website or not. Also, we encourage reviews on Amazon.com website, both positive and negative, verified or non verified as long as they adhere to our posted guidelines. Customer Reviews are meant to give customers unbiased product feedback from fellow shoppers, any reviews that could be viewed as advertising, promotional, or misleading will not be posted.”

There you have it.

How do you feel about Amazon’s campaign to “out” the phony reviews, reviewers, and review buyers? Tell us in a comment!

Tip of the Month

On the fourth Wednesday of the month, I’ll always share a “Tip of the Month,” a free resource or tool for authors.

File this one in the Cool Tools Department: The Kindle Sales Rank Calculator lets you take the current Amazon rank of any book and calculate how many books it is currently selling.

To get a book’s rank to enter into the calculator, go to the book’s Amazon sales page and scroll down to the “Product Details.” The number to enter into the calculator is the “Amazon Best Sellers Rank” — the first number, not the category sales ranks.

Key point: If there’s a comma (or two) in the sales rank number, remove it. The calculator won’t work if there’s a comma.

Comparing your estimated daily sales to those of books you compete with could help you formulate sales goals. Even if you don’t do that, though, it’s worth knowing what your rank actually means in terms of sales.