Support for Indie Authors discussion

I'm seven month into the launch of my first book as an indie author and self publisher. I have spent a lot on marketing and advertising with successes and failures experimenting as I learned. My one major conclusion I've come to is that book reviews are the most powerful marketing tool you can ever have for promoting and selling your book. In fact, advertising without reviews is a waste of time and money (in my opinion). And if you get enough reviews, you won't have to spend as much on advertising.

So here is what I learned about reviews if anyone finds this helpful.

There are basically four kind of reviews: Professional Free, Professional Paid, Reader reviews, ARC reviews.

Professional Free and Paid reviews: it is very difficult for indie authors, especially on your first book to convince the mainstream media to review your book. And the top Bookbloggers are usually backed up with request a year long. So the quickest route is to pay for a Professional review. This does not guarantee a good review. You are basically just paying for access to the reviewer and brand name of the publication. There are many of these services and they vary in cost. I looked at Kirkus, IndieReader, ReedsyDiscovery, BookLife, and Forward Clarion. I chose Kirkus because they are the most well known (also one of the most expensive), IndieReader because I liked their approach in helping Indie Authors and ReedsyDiscovery because I used the platform for my book cover and editing. I was happy with all three services, but what I learned was that professional reviews are great for marketing blurbs and on your Amazon product page for credibility, but you won't see a huge spike in sales when these reviews are published. So I believe you really only need one or two professional reviews. Some authors go for all of them. But I didn't have the time or money and I found out I didn't need anymore than the three I got. One other benefit of pro reviews is that they will give you visibility with book publishing professionals. That is a small world, so again, you don't need to over do pro reviews in my opinion. But they are very helpful with building credibility in your marketing.

Bookblogger reviews are hugely influential with book buyers and getting harder and harder to get their attention. I would definitely focus a lot of effort on finding the ones who are most influential with your target audience and just try to reach out. Also, it is a good idea to give the new bookbloggers a go. Their audience might be small today, but social media is famous for good content providers gaining thousands of followers very quickly. And with BookBloggers you rarely have to pay. In fact I wouldn't ever pay. But you will need to give a free version of your book and accept a very honest review. No guarantees. I like BookSirens and Netgalley for promoting my book ARC to bloggers and reviewers. Netgalley is expensive and you will have to do a lot of work to get attention on it. BookSirens is affordable and helpful.

Reader reviews are in my opinion the most powerful marketing tool you can spend time and effort on. Getting people leave reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N, Kobo, Apple will make or break a book. I heard the magic number for buyer confidence is 10 reviews (at least). There is also a requirement by many book promotion sites like BookBub that you have a certain number of reviews before they will let you advertise. If you don't have the big budgets to launch advertising campaigns, I would spend your time getting your reader reviews up. This also increases your Amazon score for their promotion of your book, which is like free advertising!

Anyways, I wanted to briefly share what I have learned hoping it would help other new authors. In summary. I would focus on Reader reviews on Amazon as your first and most important marketing plan. Then BookBloggers and if you have the budget get one or two professional reviews.

I would love to hear what other authors have found regarding the marketing effectiveness of reviews.

Thank you for sharing. I haven't made an effort to solicit reviews, but I'll need to do so in my next launch coming up in a few months.

This is TREMENDOUSLY helpful, Daniel! I really appreciate you taking the time to walk us through your experience. I have been racking my brain trying to figure out the best way to go about getting reviews, and your suggestions are exactly what I needed to hear. I wish you continued success with your books (which I just added to my Goodreads "want to read" list)! Thank You!!

Happy to help. I’ve got tons more stories about learnings when it comes to services and strategies to get to 1,000 copies sold (without BookBub! Lol). Just let me know what your thinking about. Maybe i have tried it.

That is SO kind of you to offer. Thank you! Maybe you could expand on some of your paid advertising efforts? I'd love to know if you've found Amazon ads, Facebook ads, etc. at all helpful. Thanks, Daniel!

Daniel, interesting post. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you did some "learning as you go" much like I am experiencing right now. After launching my book last month I had no idea if it was a decent one so I started with an IndieReader review. My mother was the only one who initially read my book and she was like, "meh...". I was devastated. But IndieReader disagreed with her and now I rub it in her face. I wanted more validation so I got an SPR editorial review and their opinion echoed the IR one. I got 4 stars with both. I did find that both of these professional reviews led to customer reviews on amazon so people are following. I also have opted for a Kirkus review. I really think that if you can get them to say anything good about your novel, stick that excerpt on the back of your book or the editorial review section of your Amazon page. Kirkus is well known (and yes, pricey).
My biggest issue right now is trying to swim through all of the romances and "smut" on Facebook pages that they tell indie authors to join. I think it's a complete waste of time to randomly stick posts up on Facebook hoping someone will give it the time of day. Seems to me it's just a bunch of indie authors viewing the same sites anyway. It's all about finding your niche and targeting them strategically.

Thanks for sharing your experience too, Cam. I'm so sorry about your Mom. I would find that devastating too. Glad you were able to prove her wrong!

Lol Cam, My partner hasn't even read my books. I learned early on, don't rely on family and friends, get a pro review of your book through a development editor who knows your market segment. The ugly truth of writing in the modern world is that consumers have styles they like and formulas that work. If you break the rules, you will not be well received. If you break the rule in an exceptional way, you may, just might, by the hair of your Chiny chin chin, create new ones. That is rare. Risk is the difference. Do you want to sell right out of the gate, or change the world.

Lisa, paid advertising. Where to start. Let me start with what I am doing now, after learning.

I run Facebook ads every day. but I have a set budget. After six months of ads I have learned who buys my books, from what country and when (time of day and weekday). this is huge in my learning but cost a lot of money. I can detail how I experimented with ad creative, target audience, etc. but nut sum of it is, Facebook, for me, is the only social media channel that actually results in sales. Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, etc... they help spread the word, raise visibility, but mostly they are just other authors and industry people talking to each other. My readers (aka, people who will buy my book) are on Facebook and Amazon.

So Facebook ads: Amazon unfortunately won't let you track source of sale. So tracking your Facebook links to Amazon sale is impossible. But after seven months I can say confidently my Facebook ads sell more books than Amazon ads on site. Probably because I send around 200 people a day to my amazon book page through Facebook ads. Even if they don't buy first time, Amazon will then retarget them with email ads asking if they want to buy my book. This is advertising I don't pay for. So it is a secondary perk to getting Facebook ads right. Cavet. Facebook ads are creative sensitive..get the creative wrong and you won't get clicks. I tried five different creative approaches and my last one is netting .07cents per click... this is good. Average Cost Per Click is .25pence.

But Amazon ads do work when you really experiment and hone. So in short, I would definitely focus your efforts on learning how to advertise on Facebook and Amazon. And spend time on Facebook interacting with readers. That's seems to be working for me and my genre anyways.

For me, all other social media sites are good for visibility, but not great for sales.

Outstanding information, Daniel! Thank you. I would love to hear about your experiences in paid book promotion sites. I can't thank you enough for sharing what you've discovered!

Great info Daniel re: facebook. I have heard some indie authors only spend money on facebook ads and it pays off well. And you're spot on about not using family and friends as a good barometer for how your book might be received within the public domain. There seems to be a market for almost anything. I might decide to pick your brain (if you don't mind) on some other marketing strategies. I will befriend you at once!

More great nuggets, Daniel! You have given me so much to begin implementing, and I can't thank you enough!

Do you have any tips on how to find readers who'd review your books?

Hi Tom,
There are free options and paid options. One thing that is easy is to make sure you put a very nice request to leave a review at the end of your ebooks so that your readers know their opinions are important to you and others thinking about buying the book. I'm not sure this really does convince people to leave a review, but it can't hurt.

Amazon does a fairly thorough job of checking reviews to stop family and friends from leaving reviews and will remove those if they find them. So look up their T&Cs for exact rules.

I have found BookSirens and Netgalley are helpful for getting reviews. Both cost money to host your book and access their readers. There are many more platforms where you can give away free ARC versions of your book in exchange for honest reviews on Amazon or other e-commerce sites. And there are other paid platforms that help you find readers who are willing to leave honest reviews. Be careful though that you find legitimate sites which follow Amazon rules. Also, check their reader profiles. Don't put a crime thriller book up on a platform with mostly Fantasy readers. You will likely end up with frustrated readers and bad reviews. ReedsyDiscovery has people willing to read and review books as well if you sign up and launch your book on their platform. I use Reedsy for a lot of stuff. Also check Kindlepreneur's blog. Loads of good advice on this site for where to get legitimate reviews. Few other sites worth checking: IndieReader, Booksgosocial.

The best piece of advice I can give based on my experience though is - plan for the long game. Everyone will tell you the first week and then the first three months of your book launch are the most important. This wasn't true for me. My sales have steadily grown month on month as my reviews go up and people start sharing my book on Amazon Lender Library. For new authors with no name yet, it just takes time. I heard the rule of thumb is 10% of readers leave reviews. So as your sales go up, so should your reviews. I know, chicken and egg.

Hi Daniel

Thanks for your post - it's so interesting! I love BookSirens and they have worked well for me - 46 readers and 36 reviews average 4*. I did Netgally through Booksgosocial as it was cheaper and had 27 reviews average 4*. One reviewer placed my book in Barnes and Noble and one placed it in their library - happy dance!
I have trouble setting up Facebook ads and they seem to cost me too much. My main issue is book price. Price too low = £1.99 and you sell but don't make profit, price higher £3.99 and the chance of selling lowers for an unknown indie author. Has anyone here had success with a certain pricing point?

Thanks and have a great day everyone!

Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth,
I've had the same issue on price point as a new indie author. $4.99 was to high. I found $2.99 is my goldilocks for book one. I can still claim 70% royalties from amazon and the sales just cover my FB ads which works for me as I use book one to help build interest I book two. I do run .99C promotions about once a month for three days. I don't make money on these, but they do get my book units up. Which helps me sell book two in the series.

Hi Daniel

Yes $2.99 is a good price. Just lowered my price to this amount and sold 2 books today. I'm using Amazon Ads atm. I run countdown deals every 90 days but the cost of ads outstrips any profit. My problem is that I only have one book - must finish book 2!

At least the reviews help with sales. I have an award and last week uploaded my new cover with the award logo on it. I'm hoping that will help as well.

Elizabeth

Appreciate all the helpful info shared in the thread. I just started the learning by doing process myself thanks to a launch at the end of last year. It’s early on but what I’m seeing aligns nicely with the findings cited so far.

I also like the reinforcement that this Go To Market effort is a long game to be played. There just aren’t many quick and easy options to hurry it along to a spectacular result. Sure, lightning might strike but I wouldn’t want to count on it. So far the best tool I’ve found in my writerly marketing toolkit is, quite frankly, patience.

In any event, good writing and good marketing to everyone.

Good luck on the climb Todd!

Lisa, I noticed the moderator removed my comments on book promotion sites (it was because I included web links. Opps. Sorry moderator!)

Here is a recap if it helps anyone (this time without web links).

There are many websites that have huge subscribers who are looking for book price promotion deals. This is the bulk of book promotion sites (discount offers). Some also run book launch promotions, but my experience has been that the only marketing programs on these sites which equal sales (and covers the cost of advertising) is the price discount promotion programs. That is my experience anyways. I am sure a well known Author coming out with a new book would have a far better result on Launch announcements than I would.

I've run .99cent price promotions of my ebook for limited time on the following book promotion sites:
BargainBooksy, eradernewstoday, robinreads, earlybirdbooks, bookdelio, mybookcave, newinbooks, the portalist, book barbarian, the fussy librarian, bookdoggy, riffle, manybooks.

Cost to run the promotion can vary from $25 up to $900. So you'll need to set your budget. Interestingly, the less expensive sites performed better for me. And only three or four sites actually generated enough sales to cover their cost. So price promotions for me are more an exercise in getting unit sales up and hopefully reviews on my book page. Not about profit. Not yet anyways.

Also, I didn't get many, if any sales, from my book posted on their websites. All my conversion seems to have come from the day their email goes out with the offers. So I saw a one day spike in sales from each promotion site with little to nothing after that. So stack your promotions together and spread them out. I suggest running a site on Friday, another on Saturday and Sunday, etc. in a row. That way you see a strong weekend of sales and Amazon ranking likes it when you have more than one day of sales spike.

My main word of advice is to really explore the audience profile of the site you are advertising on. The four sites that performed best for me have a high number of SciFi books and readers. So this makes sense. In the future, I will likely only focus my promotions on them.

ReedsyDiscovery blog has a great article detailing all the book promotion sites, what their audience focus is and how many subscribers they claim to have.

In conclusion, are they worth the money? For me yes. But not all of them. Only the ones which have a high volume of SciFi readers. And only as a means of increasing units, not profit.

Daniel wrote: "So stack your promotions together and spread them out. I suggest running a site on Friday, another on Saturday and Sunday, etc. in a row. That way you see a strong weekend of sales and Amazon ranking likes it when you have more than one day of sales spike."

This is recommended, and David Gaughran has a few more analyses on why that matters. Anyway, just mentioning this so people know that spreading the promos may be the better way.

The tough issue for me (and I guess for anyone else) is that most of the promotion sites require a set amount of ratings/reviews, and those are the first obstacle for most people. I have exactly... 0, and no idea where to get any. I doubt that running a promotion while having no reviews would do any good, because I don't think people would buy a book without review even on a discount, unless it seems like it's right for their tastes.

Either way, thanks for all you've shared, Daniel. I'll try some of what you mentioned sooner or later.

Hi Tomas, it is a chicken and egg situation when it comes to reviews and promotion. Promo sites like Bookbub and BookSirens want to know your book is credible before marketing to their readers so I would suggest you start with editorial reviews if you haven't done so already.

After I obtained an IndieReader review two weeks ago, 5 customer reviews are now showing for me on Amazon. I haven't done any marketing or promo yet. Once I've built up enough reviews (and credibility), that's when I'll go back to these promo sites. I applied to BookSirens this past week and was declined likely because there are too many books right now in my genre (I can't wait to prove BS wrong in a few months!)

Like others have said, marketing and promo is a long game. A snowball starts with one flake.

Thanks so much for more terrific information, Daniel (and for re-posting so we could all benefit from it)! I'm definitely going to check out the ReedsyDiscovery blog you suggested. And thank you all for the reminder that patience is so necessary when marketing a book!

Thanks for this, Daniel. Your enthusiasm is catchy! :)

Hi Cam, just a quick note about Booksirens that I just discovered. It is a tough site to get into because of exactly what you said, they decline many books due to too many submitted in the same genre. It took me awhile, but they finally accepted two of my books.

I received several reviews, but a few of them were from reviewers who admittedly didn't usually read my genre, and their complaints didn't make any sense (i.e. two complained about people getting killed - both books are murder-mysteries without any blood or anything gruesome; another complained about the romance - I am a historical romance author).

I just spoke to the site rep about it and according to him, there are reviewers who just like getting free books and review any genre, which has caused issues in the past. Therefore, they have the option for authors to approve the reviewer prior to sending the book to them. They will send you the 'stats' on the reviewer to make sure the genre of your book is one they like to read, plus other info.

Just something to keep in mind when you or anyone uses them.

Thanks for the advice Gail, especially since I'm having a tough time pinning down my genre. Mine is a murder mystery without any explicit sex or violence. Some even think it's cozy, but I do have 240 swear words in it. I'm finding that some cozy mystery readers have an issue with just one swear word so I preface all of my requests now accordingly. I wouldn't mind some advice from anyone out there on what the "industry standard" is on swearing and whether to categorize my novel as mystery/thriller and steer away from the "cozy" category. Thanks in advance. Cheers, Cam.

Tomas wrote: "The tough issue for me (and I guess for anyone else) is that most of the promotion sites require a set amount of ratings/reviews, and those are the first obstacle for most people. I have exactly... 0, and no idea where to get any. I doubt that running a promotion while having no reviews would do any good, because I don't think people would buy a book without review even on a discount, unless it seems like it's right for their tastes."

Good point. For this reason I've mostly stuck to the free promo sites that don't require a set number of reviews so far. I ended up coming to the conclusion that it was a lot of effort with very little to gain (occasionally, maybe, getting one or two sales and often just not getting anything from them). I also found that the free promo sites that worked best for me personally and were easiest to get into were the ones that would suddenly disappear just when I got used to them. Haha.

Recently, I've come to the conclusion that the most effective kind of sale/promo is one where ALOT of authors are involved and they're all promoting it to their audience through social media, mailing lists, etc. So if you watch out for opportunities like that within your genre those can be pretty useful. So far they haven't resulted in reviews for me, but I've made a significant (for me) amount of sales from them.

And I think this is where social media is important. Not for directly making sales or getting reviews, but for connecting with authors who are doing things like this and getting into these group events :)

Good points, Noor, though... how does one find those places without being told about them? And how many of them are somewhere reputable instead of FakeNewsBook?

I've heard that cross-promotions work, but it doesn't seem like I would make my way to be a part of one while having nothing to offer myself.

The ones I've found have been through self-pub authors that I follow, mostly on twitter. I've been in a few that I applied for through storyorigin. The one that worked the best for me was advertised on reddit's fantasy group (r/Fantasy) by an indie press and they opened it to all fantasy authors who wanted to participate . It worked really well because you had some more established/well-known self-pub authors mixed in with newbies like me and the sheer number of books being offered for free or 99cents made people really pay attention to it. Also, r/fantasy has a huge reader base. (I sold more books in that one day sale than I had sold throughout the past year - double the amount in fact.)

So all of these I've found through being on those platforms and seeing who posts most regularly, what posts get the most traction, and jumping on the opportunity to participate in something when it comes up.

When it comes to those huge sales you do have something to offer, because the more books in it the more attractive it is for potential readers. And even if you don't have a huge following sharing it on your own social media - while it may have a small effect - will add up together with those small efforts of all the other authors to make a bigger impression on readers and give it a wider reach.

Cam wrote: "Thanks for the advice Gail, especially since I'm having a tough time pinning down my genre. Mine is a murder mystery without any explicit sex or violence. Some even think it's cozy, but I do have 2..."

Yes, that was another issue with one reviewer - "gratuitous violence and language"...it has no blood, no violent murders, hero does physically fight with the bad guy, but it wasn't graphic at all! And the worst language was "he.." "da.." (not sure I can write them here). I flipped thru a book recently and the f-word was all over the place...a contemporary murder mystery. I am unsure about this 'rule' also. My books are all very low on the scale, including sex, but if I put a warning on them, you lose readers who don't mind a bit of not-so-bad language and a murder or two in a murder-mystery. I don't know...

Regarding genre...I re-entered one book and tweaked the categories, then it was accepted. I tried looking back to see what I changed it to, but I couldn't. The new category did fit the genre, but was different than what I first used.

Noor, I have to admit I am a novice at Reddit. I'll go look at what is happening there now for my genre. GREAT ADVICE and thanks for sharing.

Noor wrote: "Recently, I've come to the conclusion that the most effective kind of sale/promo is one where ALOT of authors are involved and they're all promoting it to their audience through social media, mailing lists, etc. So if you watch out for opportunities like that within your genre those can be pretty useful. So far they haven't resulted in reviews for me, but I've made a significant (for me) amount of sales from them...."

Thank you, Noor, for this reminder! Lots of authors participating, lots of books. It's super effective. I don't know how many of you were here when this group SIA had their book sale (books were free and .99) but it was awesome! It happened several times a year. On Twitter if you use the hashtag #SIAFBB you will see some of the group promos.

Also, and this is always important to me--maybe the most important--it was fun. I don't know if it will ever come back (it was lots of work for the moderators) but promos like it are a great way to get your work in front of readers.

Thank you for sharing, Daniel!
As a former book blogger, I can say that smaller blogs are definitely worth reaching out to: they're not as swamped as the bigger ones, and are happy to write more reviews. Some bloggers also do interviews, but that's up them, really.

The best reviews are those that your readers who buy you books leave. It's the reason you put at the ending of your book that if they liked the book to please leave a review. Every platform who allows reviews is the same...those who actually buy and read the book have more weight.

Yes, it's a catch 22 in that you need to find readers who are willing to leave that review. Unless you are very lucky, that means that you need to work hard for them and encourage you email list or followers on social media to read and review all your books, even if it isn't a 5 star review.

Editorial reviews are good if they are from a reputable reviewer. I'll that that 3 star from Kirkus and use the best parts in the book description. Also, carefully read that poorer review. It will tell you were you are lacking. Look at the reviews for books you like. What do those people say about the book and what is wrong with it? Learn from it to make your books better.

There is a lot of good things in this thread, but the bottom line is, you need to have verified buyers leaving review. The rest are seen a questionable by Amazon. The editorial reviews can be put below your book description, but most people won't see or read them. so take a good line and put it with your description.

To get people to find your book, look at your meta data and make sure your SEO is the best it can be.

All good comments, B.A.

Initially, I'm getting a lot of editorial reviews for my book simply because it has substantive subject matter. If I was writing erotica, I wouldn't bother (and I don't think anyone would buy if I tried).

The only thing I will say about customer reviews is that your friends and family will only help you so much. They might all leave 5 stars but I get leery when I see a book on Amazon with no critical reviews (those 2, 3 and even 4 stars). My best review so far is the 3 star one I received. My book clearly went over this reviewers head (he/she admitted as much) and I think it will actually help spur people to read it. I don't get nor do I want any of my friends or family to leave a review for me. Not criticizing those who use this route, but it does nothing for me.

I was reviewing most of the bestsellers: those famous authors who get 20,000+ amazon reviews. Most of these books sit at about 4.1 - 4.3. If your book is at 4.9, there's probably a good reason for that.

At the end of the day, if you want complete strangers to buy your book, it has to be a good one. Period.

Hi everyone, good to read this topic! I have been wondering if these third-party book review sites (i.e., Booksprout, BookSirens, Litsy, etc.) are worth it to harvest more book reviews for my work. I've gone the free route with Booksprout but haven't really pursued the other sites yet. I look forward to hearing other people's experience with these sites and whether they felt the extra effort helped meet their marketing objectives. Thanks for this thread!

Andrea wrote: "I got an ARC from this author..."

Okay. What a mess. I just deleted five comments on this post, all seeming to target one of our members. I am not clear what your beef is with her, but this isn't the place to vent your frustrations. All of your profiles are set to private and all of you joined our group today, apparently to attack this member for reasons that are not clear. If you have an issue with this member, whether real or imagined, take it up with her directly. This isn't the place for such nonsense. Thanks.

Someone ages ago mentioned Voracious Readers on a forum on Goodreads. I've noticed that not everyone seems to give a review after reading your book, but you do get enough reviews and they tend to put them on Goodreads as well - if you look at your profile page, and click on your book, you'll find them there, although you may get one or two people put a review of your book on Amazon