GOTTA have them Reviews.... By JD Shipton

 

I know I've been harping on the lot of you this past month about this, but I'd really like to drive home how incredibly important it is if you want to sell books in today's online marketplace.  Writing, covering, and editing a good piece are really half the battle if you can't make it rise above the flood tide of books pouring onto the market each and every day.  

Barnes and Noble themselves admit that the more reviews you have on your book, the more "discoverable" it's going to be on their algorithm.  Can we all admit to ourselves that we've all been shopping online for something and completely eschew every product- no matter the price point, shipping cost, or practical viability- that is listed without a single review?  Why is that?  Perhaps, herd animals that we are, we subconsciously suspect a scam when there are no others who seem to have gone before us?  

Forte Labs published a cool article here, where they use a bunch of data on book sales to break down the predictive elements.  Essentially the number of reviews has a direct correlation (88%) to the amount of sales, and, get this, the rating of the book has only a 30% correlation! It really doesn't matter how good/bad they are, just that there are as many of them as possible.  

Now, Barnes and Noble is much less fussy than Amazon- they accept reviews from third parties, and as long as you have a Personal Reader Account, you can essentially cut/paste those reviews from wherever, as long as the name of the reviewer (and not your own) is attached.  Amazon, however, will stomp you hard if they find you tried to review your own product, or your sister posts a glowing review where she specifies that she is, in fact, your sister.   

So get out there, my aspiring artists, and do your work justice by garnering as many reviews as you possibly can for each of your hard-written creations, lest they languor on the e-shelf, unappreciated, unread, and unpurchased.

JD