New authors need to find readers who will leave Amazon reviews, but if you’re a new author, how do you do that? Your friends may not understand why authors live and die by the quantity and quality of Amazon reviews. And, certainly, as a new author, you can’t be expected to have the name recognition of a Diana Gabaldon or an email list of rabid fans.

Authors who are brand new to publishing soon discover that the marketplace is flooded by new authors and new books. Readers are discerning. They want “social proof” that a book is worth their investment of time. Reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble lend this kind of social proof. That’s why it’s essential for authors to take an active part in getting reviews.

New authors struggle to find readers for their books. Six months ago, authors could enlist the help of friends and family, but Amazon recently changed its policy on who is allowed to leave a review. This makes it all the more important for authors to reach out to folks who are both avid readers and who are comfortable posting reviews.

The Friends-and-Family Approach to Amazon and Goodreads Reviews

Five years ago a new author could send out an email to friends and family and expect that a small percentage would buy the book. A smaller fraction would leave a review. Then, said author would be mystified as to why their supposed “supporters” didn’t follow through.

Friends and family members don’t follow through because writing a review sounds formal and kind of daunting. They’re scared and don’t know what to say. Or maybe they simply can’t figure out the mechanics of posting a review. A bigger problem is that Amazon recently changed its terms of use. Even if your friends and family members review your book, Amazon may not post the review. Here’s a YouTube video by Amy Collins explaining this change.

Amy Collins posts transcriptions of her Free Advice Friday sessions at https://amysadvice.com, and she is a terrific resource for authors. She’s generous with her advice and always up to date on what’s happening in the book industry. As you can see from her video, the old strategy of relying on friends to post Amazon reviews is not going to work as effectively as it once did. The key to success right now is to find reviewers who have no traceable connection to you.

Luckily, Amazon is not the only game in town. There are other places where the number and quality of reviews has the potential to help you find readers. Goodreads, the largest online book club in the world, is a community that offers a lot of potential to indie authors.

Of course, I wanted folks to leave reviews on Amazon, but even more, I wanted them to leave reviews on Goodreads. To make life easy for my erstwhile supporters, I created a step-by-step handout with screenshots to walk people through Goodreads’ posting procedure. If you’d like the handout, you can download it here.

Booksprout as a Tool to Get Goodreads and Amazon Reviews

If you are a new author without an email list, you may have to give away a certain number books in order to create that all important “social proof.” https://Booksprout.co is a free tool that allows you to upload your book to a database of avid readers. You must be able to upload an electronic file (.mobi, .pdf, or .epub). Ideally, this would all happen before your book goes live on Amazon, but if your book is already published, then Booksprout gives you the option of putting in links for Amazon, Goodreads, and the like.

Booksprout.co allows authors to upload their books to an audience of avid readers.

In my opinion, the best way to use Booksprout is to use their reader base to help you find typos in Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) of your book. You can also recruit your favorite reviewers to help with your next book launch.

Bookfunnel Can Help Authors Who Want to Sell Direct to Readers

Another site, https://Bookfunnel.com, can sidestep Amazon completely. Its signup portal has two options. One is for readers, and the other is for authors. The idea is that Bookfunnel will connect the two. If you intend to upload a book, make sure you enter through the “author” portal.

If you intend to join as an author, make sure you enter through the author portal.

Both Bookfunnel and Booksprout allow you to do cross promotions with other authors, and this is a great way to build up an email list. In a cross-promotion I ran with another author, I found a fifty percent success rate. In exchange for a downloadable copy of my chapbook, The Rug Bazaar, I collected 250 email addresses.

Readers’ Favorite Posts Reviews to Goodreads and Barnes and Noble

One of my favorite sites is Readers’ Favorite. Any author can submit a book and obtain one free review. The book can be a pdf or an ebook. I sent them a pdf of my forthcoming short story collection, Body Language, and was heartened by Erin Nicole Cochran’s review. While one review is always free, an author can obtain as many as five reviews. All of my reviews came back as five-star reviews, and this gave me confidence that there are people out there who will enjoy my books. After a book is published and the author uploads the ISBN number, Readers’ Favorite automatically posts the reviews to Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. Amazon’s terms of use prevent them from posting to Amazon, but authors can still use excerpts from the review on their book page.

A Readers’ Favorite review can give an author some indication of whether their book will be well received or not.

Following the first review, an author can also “gift” a book through Amazon by buying the book from Amazon and then uploading the “gift” link to Readers’ Favorite. That allows Amazon to see the review as a verified purchase, and those reviews will then be allowed by Amazon.

Choosy Bookworm’s Readers Post to Amazon and Goodreads

One more site that’s worth mentioning is Choosy Bookworm. I love this site and its companion Read and Review program.

Although Choosy Bookworm and Read and Review cost money, this service will net you readers and boost your review numbers. An additional benefit is that their procedures conform to Amazon’s terms of service.

For most authors the issue of “discoverability” is a hurdle. How is your book supposed to be “discoverable” in that vast Amazonia ocean? Choosy’s Read and Review program has found readers who are more than willing to read and review books by self-published authors or authors published by independent presses. Their posting policy conforms to Amazon’s terms of service, so you will get reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. In addition to these benefits, they also have a marketing service that, for a small fee, emails info about your book to potential readers.

In a previous post, I’ve written about getting reviews, but since then, the landscape has changed. Bookbub, which used to be easier to get into, is now more difficult, more expensive, and may not be cost-effective for authors in certain genres.

I’d love to know what’s working for you right now. Please share your info in the comments.