Many authors wanted to get five-star reviews from their self-published books on Amazon. But how are you going to get reviews? check this out, let me tell you about some tips regarding this Ethically get reviews for your books self-publishing.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around. Because the third point is a secret as to the absolute most important thing to know when it comes to getting reviews for your books. We're going to discuss ethically get reviews for your books in self-publishing.
And how exactly to go about doing that so by the end of this article you're going to know the difference between ethical and unethical reviews. You're going to have a plan to go about getting reviews for your books.
You're going to feel wonderful knowing you're on the right path for what it takes to get your books to sell. Grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. To make sure that you're not skipping any of the secrets necessary to put your book together and self-publish it and get selling.
Let's get into it from my own story when I first got started I tried getting my family and friends to review my books for me. The problem was, whenever the reviews would go live on amazon they would quickly disappear. Then, I would ask well can you repost the review for some reason?
It was up for a little bit but then now it's completely gone and I couldn't figure out what the problem was. The answer was I discovered was that amazon themselves were taking a close look at what exactly is happening. They were trying to get unbiased reviews but then I was thinking.
But how exactly am I supposed to get reviews are the people I know don't do it and didn't have a reader base. At the time of my avid readers who wanted to read my books and so how was I supposed to get reviews? then one day when I was posting my books in Facebook groups.
I would not recommend but back in the day that was a common practice the thing was is I was contacted by another author who said: "Look if you review my book I'll review your book." That was the first time I had been exposed to review swapping which did not at the time.
At any rate, violating the Amazon policies but this also was not what they wanted. They wanted an organic review they didn't want another author doing reviews on your books. Because there would be an expectation that if you gave a low review then they would give you a lower view.
And which would cause both of the reviews actually to be much higher than they would be. Generally speaking, other authors would tend to get five-star reviews very positive glowing reviews. Because they wish to get that in exchange for their book and that's where it starts to get a little bit tricky there.
So what happened was I did complete my very first swap. I found other authors who also were doing book review swapping or review swaps as they're commonly called. And it seemed it was working just fine.
Later on, amazon started sending warning messages out to authors who were doing this particular practice. As well as authors who were using virtual assistants. And the way the virtual assistant method works is that you have a virtual assistant who would go about finding other virtual assistants.
Then the two would exchange one would agree to read your book and then this virtual assistant would read their book. They would leave a review but there was a huge problem with this which is that it was confusing. The algorithm so you might have a book you have on puppy training.
The next day, it's Harry Potter and the algorithm is getting very confused and this also created a problem. Even though if you at the time I don't know if they have it since but at the time there was nothing. That said you can't do this what was illegal was to pay somebody to review your book.
That was one of both the review swapping with authors and also with the virtual assistants who would do it. You're not directly paying somebody to do it, then the question would be are you violating their policies, or are you violating the law?
In other words is there an ethical violation going on here. It was a little bit of a gray zone and there's a lot of areas where you find gray zones. But Amazon began sending warnings out and that was the thing with regarding the reviewing issue.
Build An Email List
It was that you would start getting warnings from amazon and some people had their accounts taken down. As a result, even though they had not violated per se a specific policy it would be a gray zone. And amazon can very well take down accounts for doing that.
But doesn't it make sense that if you've written a book you have a friend who's written a book you might want to just swap reviews? This can get you into some serious trouble so it would be recommended not to go about doing this particular practice.
But instead, I discovered that doing email marketing is a lot more effective way of getting reviews where you get your readers onto your email list. That is a method that I would still say is probably the most successful effective method of doing this.
So, ethically get reviews for your books and self-publishing, the first tip today is to build an email list and ask your readers to review your book. These are people who've already taken the time to buy and to read your book so why don't we just ask them to help us out?
At the end when they finish reading the book to leave us a review. If they like the book now you can't tell them to leave a five-star review that would violate amazon's policy. And we cross over the ethical zone at this point however we can say, "If you like the book please do leave a review"
You'll notice in many apps you download on your iPhone and in other places. They'll say, "hey if did you like this app" and if you say "yes" they will take you right to the review page where you can then leave a review.
If you say "no, I did not like the app" they then take you to their comments page where you can send them to submit a ticket telling them what you didn't like. So they can improve upon it but they are not sending people who hate the book to the review page.
And people who like the book to the review page but in the book itself, you can have a link there to say "if you like this book please do leave help me and leave a review here" because it will help increase my sales and help more people find the content.
It's not a small impact we're talking about with reviews it is a massive amount of money that flows through here. It could be anywhere on my books from five times to 15-20 times the amount of sales. As a result of some reviews that you get on the book so you must do.
Check out this related article: Top 3 Book Marketing Strategies
Use time and invest time to get an email list going. As one of your most important things when you're getting started with your books, you're going to need to get these readers on there earlier. You can in exchange for an advanced copy of your book.
You can say, "Will you please leave a review and we've discussed before a number of those tactics". But this is by far the most effective way of doing it and virtually every author would agree with this. It also doesn't violate the ethical side.
The second one does not ask anyone who uses the same internet connection to review your book. They want to have the reviews be as organic as possible. Though at the end of the day they are still getting compensated like if you're giving people advanced review books.
You're still compensating people so is it completely neutral not exactly. Then again trolls the negative people they tend to dominate when it comes to giving reviews. That's why many books will get much harder reviews much more negative reviews than a person who liked the book.
If they like the book they generally won't do anything unless you specifically ask them. But then it's not so much organic at that point and the other as I mentioned before is that in the book itself. You should always include a page asking, "if you like this book please leave a review"
Don't Use Same IP Address
That's just another key one but if it's in the same household as you. They're going to see it's the same IP address and then that's going to create problems for you. That's also something you're going to want to stay away from when it comes to getting reviews for your book.
So don't do that but let's get to the secret answer for today it is that you should stay away from anyone offering five-star reviews for a price. Plus anyone already reviewing random book genres so there are two separate issues. This is important.
First of all, if you pay somebody to leave a five-star review you can get permanently banned from Amazon. In addition, you can find yourself being turned over to the police since it is illegal to do this particular practice.
You cannot pay to get false reviews this will get you in serious trouble and amazon will even go after you. This is not what you want to do this is not how you want to do your business. Instead is a lot better to go the email route for your books.
It's a gray zone with some of this virtual assistant-type stuff. Also with author review swapping but you're going to confuse the algorithms. And amazon will probably send you a warning message seeing that you're getting reviews. They can see it.
There's a review, this five-star review on your page, and a five-star review on somebody else's page. But at least do yourself a favor and don't ask for how many stars. It needs to be if anyone ever came to me and said "I can get a five-star review for your book".
I would immediately turn them down because that would be an unethical review. I do not wish to risk all of the money that's coming through Amazon on a regular daily basis. To simply get one more five-star review I don't need the help. I'd rather do it other routes.
This is not a route you want to do. I know an awful lot of people who have and got themselves in trouble by taking some of these gray area solutions. As we'd call it gray hat black would be violating an ethical rule.
A white hat would be done in practice that is completely everybody's happy about amazon. The government everyone is happy about it and grey hat would be something for which it is not illegal. In the country that you live to do these activities.
But it might not be completely in alignment with the company that you're doing these activities. I would like for you to do kind of find a loophole but loopholes can be very risky on your primary account.
I even heard some self-publishers comment that you should never test out a loophole on your main account. You'll find yourself getting banned and I've seen several authors have this exact problem. As opposed to trying to stick to the standard methods that I teach here.
That will ensure that your accounts are not getting banned on Amazon for anything. This review issue is the biggest head pain in the head for anything and that we're dealing with on the amazon front. There's nothing more painful than this review issue trying to get these reviews is very tricky.
It's difficult it can be frustrating even your legitimate reviews will regularly be taken down off Amazon. This is something you're not going to want to overlook when you're getting started. So what have you found to work for getting your books reviewed?
I'd like to know please let me know below in the comments I can better serve you and make better videos in the future. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.