Once an author sends the work out into the world for others to read, purchase, and hopefully enjoy, there beloved story is in many ways at the mercy of the cold, cruel world out there.

To many authors, the worst thing that can happen is that nobody reads their stories. Some might say a bad review is the worst thing that can happen. I’d argue at least someone read your story and it evoked enough of an emotional response the reader felt compelled to write and post a review.

Why are reviews so important? I can promise you its not so the author gets their ego stroked. Nothing stings like a critical review of your defenseless baby and the positive ones, well, from the author’s perspective reviews should all be positive ones right?

Reviews are important because they are social proof!

Proof that somebody else:

• invested time in reading the story.
• enjoyed the story.
• paid money for the book.

Reviews are the only factor in a potential reader’s decision to buy a book or borrow it on KU, but they are important and authors crave reviews – even if they may not want to read them.

In the back of nearly every ebook you’ll find a request to leave a positive and honest review on a variety of platforms:

• Amazon (or your book retailer of choice)
• BookBub
• GoodReads

Periodically, I get comments from readers who tell me they loved one of my stories. I love these emails. The reader took the time to dig up my email address and send me a nice note. I always send a thank you and ask as politely as I know how if the reader would post a positive review.

Then comes the response. The reader informs me politely, they don’t know what to put in a review and that’s why they don’t leave reviews.

If you talk to even just a handful of authors, they will all tell a similar story.

If you’ve ever felt this way as a reader, you loved, or even just liked, a book and would write a review if you had a few pointers on how to do so, here are some suggestions and tips on how to leave a good (meaning a well constructed) review.

Use Keywords:

Keywords are terms used to help search engines find things. Use two or three key words, if possible in your review. For example, if writing a wonderful 5-star review of The Predator and The Prey, you would want to work in keywords like:

• crime fiction
• crime noir
• future crime thriller
• science fiction crime thriller

These descriptive terms help the reader know the genre or type of story they would be reading if they purchase or borrow the book.

Review Length:

Amazon, the king of ebook retailers, HATES short reviews. In fact, it is very suspicious of them and will often remove them, sometimes even penalizing the author and/or the publisher in some way. Amazon’s thinking is these are false reviews. One thing Amazon takes dead serious is reviews.

Everyone who takes the time to write and post a review wants the review to be approved and posted. I know I do.

Reviews need to be long enough to be helpful but not too long!

Reviews should be between 100 to 450 words in length. 100 words is long enough to make Amazon happy AND give a potential reader enough information for the review to be helpful. Anything over 450 words and the reader of the review might get bored or the reviewer might reveal too much of the plot.

Note: In the case of non-fiction, especially technical works, longer reviews are acceptable.

Don’t include spoilers!

If for some reason you, as the reviewer feel absolutely compelled to include a spoiler and give away the ending or a key plot twist, POST A SPOILER WARNING! This way, the reader of the review can decide whether or not to continue.

Some hints to get started:

• State what you liked about the book! (Sully is a cool dude!)
• What are some comparable books you’ve read.
• If you were given a copy of the book in the form of an ARC – Advanced Reading Copy

A word about Advanced Reading Copies – ARCs:
It is NOT okay to pay individuals for reviews. Amazon in particular and other ebook/book retailers frown on this practice.

It is OKAY to give readers copy of books for free prior to the book going on sale so the reader can write a review. Stating this makes Amazon in particular happy as well as the other retailers.

Besides, stating you got an ARC means you were cool enough for an author to give you a copy to read and review!

A final thought.

I love five-star reviews! I need them to sell my books. But I will settle for an honest review – so long as it’s fair.

One of my non-fiction books got a one-star review early in its retail life and it absolutely killed the sales momentum. It took me two months to get Amazon to remove it.

The book was on strategy and tactics for basketball coaches. In a previous life I was a very successful varsity basketball coach, winning nearly 500 games in 22 season, averaging 22 wins a year.

The author of the one-star review was a coach who had never beaten me in the years we were in the same district. The review was nothing more than sour grapes on his part and was patently untrue and unfair.

When posting a review with 1 or 2 stars, especially if the book has just been launched and doesn’t have many reviews, you will kill any momentum the book has.

So think about it before you hit submit. Is the book truly so bad you need to destroy any chance the author has of success? If the answer is yes, go ahead and hit submit.

Just be certain its a fair review.