I Got A Negative Review On Amazon!

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Never argue with a negative review. If it breaks Amazon’s rules, report it, and for every other review the best answer is more honest reviews from real readers: ask for them inside your book, and build an email list so you can offer early copies to people who like your books. Here is what I did when I got my first negative review.

Why do reviews matter so much?

I was excited about my first book, and then I realized how important reviews are. From my experience, a book with 3 to 5 stars gets at least about 10 times the sales of a book with no reviews. That is my own observation, not an Amazon figure. We need social proof, and that is why reviews matter.

People often tell me they don’t want to spend years making a book perfect before they put it out, because there is so much garbage on Amazon. My answer: get your book on the market as long as it is a three to five-star book, one that readers will be at least satisfied with. See If You’re Able to Write, You Can Self-Publish a Best Seller.

What kinds of negative reviews will you get?

My first negative review wasn’t that they hated my book or thought it was a scam. They complained that Amazon failed to put the book properly on their device. They were using my review section to complain about Amazon. Another review, on a different book of mine, said they hated the storyline. It was a non-fiction book. There wasn’t even a story.

I also noticed reviewers giving five stars to similar books and then suddenly one star to mine. In the past some people paid others to bomb competitors’ books. That is sleazy and it fails: such reviews keep getting taken down. These reviewers never read the book.

The most toxic reviews are the detailed ones explaining why the book is awful, which show the person did read it. Other common complaints are that the book is too short, even though the page count is listed.

Our goal is to deliver the value we promise. If you say “an exciting fantasy novel for young adults”, a young adult should find it exciting. For a non-fiction book on puppy training, the question is whether it helps with puppy training. If so, you’ve succeeded, even if it’s a three-star book with some grammar errors. I call that “good enough”, and it is the goal.

Isn’t the market already full of garbage books?

A viewer wrote that there are millions of garbage books on Amazon and I’m contributing to one more. I’m not talking about garbage. I’m talking about books that get three to five-star reviews. Even if you put out a garbage book, it won’t sell, so improve it until it meets readers’ needs.

How do you know the quality of your book unless you put it on the market? The same goes for ads: put one up, see the impressions and clicks, then fix it. That is why I don’t want things to be perfect. I want them on the market and then improved. The difference between me and the fake gurus who throw out garbage and promise millions is that I say: do the best you can in a reasonable amount of time, and let the market tell you. The hardest thing is getting anyone to read the book. See Your Price is Too Low! for another test you can run.

When I first made YouTube videos, they were grainy, I was a tiny picture at the bottom of the screen, and the audio was out of sync. People told me, and I bought better lighting, audio and cameras as money came in. I’m still working on it. Let your audience tell you what to fix and improve slowly.

How do you get reviews from people who like your book?

Don’t tell everybody to leave a review. Tell people who like the book. And don’t leave it to chance: I started building an email list and asking readers for reviews, and giving advance copies.

Know the rules. Amazon’s KDP guidance says you may give away copies “as long as you do not require a review in exchange,” and that “offering anything other than a free or discounted copy of the book, including gift cards, will invalidate a review” (KDP Customer Reviews). Reviews posted in exchange for compensation are not allowed. Before you ask friends or family for a review, read Amazon’s current Community Guidelines, which set the rules on who may review a book. Don’t tell anyone what to write or ask for only positive reviews.

If you have zero reviews, you won’t get many sales, and nobody will even see your call to action. So you have to seed it. Put a short request at the end of the book (and possibly at the start): “If this book helped you, please leave an honest review.” People won’t do things unless you ask them. The same goes for your book description: end it with a call to action like “Buy now.” If yours doesn’t, add it today.

You are not after a thousand reviews at first, just the first few honest ones from real readers whose problem you solved. See How To Find Success In Self Publishing.

What should you do about a negative review?

1. Counteract it with positive reviews. The way to counter a negative review is to make sure your overall average stays at three stars or better, by asking for reviews inside the book.
2. Never argue or attack the reviewer. The same goes on Goodreads, where the site’s own author guidelines say not to reply to bad ratings: see what to do on Goodreads. You can’t delete a review yourself. If it is about Amazon’s delivery, pricing or something that is not your fault, or is clearly about a different book, click the Report link under the review. Amazon decides, and it doesn’t share the outcome with you (KDP Customer Reviews). It probably does nothing, but it’s worth a try. If it is a real criticism of the book, take it seriously, the way a good hotel treats its Tripadvisor reviews, and update the book if the comment is fair.
3. Build an email list. I recommend MailerLite. It is easy to use and works with a website, and you can use a landing page even without one. Its free plan covers up to 250 subscribers (MailerLite pricing, October 2026). Once people are on the list, you can offer early copies and make them your advance review team. This is by far the most effective way to deal with negative reviews: more positive reviews from people who know, like and trust you.

A review says my book has spelling mistakes, but the words are right. What do I do?

First check the word, because sometimes the reader is right. Look it up in a dictionary or ask your editor. If you are right, whether it is UK spelling, a metric unit or a real foreign word, don’t reply to the review. The point above about never arguing applies here too.

A reader can also report the same thing to KDP. KDP’s Quality Notifications Dashboard says that if a customer reports a quality item in your ebook, KDP emails you and sends you to the dashboard. You choose a button for each item. For an intentional misspelling, such as a character who speaks in dialect or uses non-standard grammar, the page says to click Not an issue.

My advice: answer a KDP report with Not an issue when the word is correct. If your book uses UK spelling or metric units, add a one-line note at the front. It can save readers the doubt before they leave a review.

Does Amazon punish books with reviews under 5 stars, and can I get a troll review removed?

I found no Amazon or KDP page that says low reviews are punished or that reviews change where a book ranks. KDP’s customer reviews page says only that a star rating is worked out with “machine-learned models instead of a simple average”, so one low review does not simply drag your average down by a fixed amount. What I do know is that you can report a review, but you cannot demand its removal.

Amazon’s Community Guidelines say a review can be negative and still stay up: reviews should “reflect your sincere and unbiased opinion regardless of whether it’s positive or negative”. A review can be removed when it breaks the rules. The ones that matter most to authors are reviews that only talk about sellers, ordering, shipping or the condition of the item, and reviews with profanity, harassment, threats or defamation. The guidelines also cover compensated reviews and spam.

A one-star review from someone who plainly did not read the book is not on that list by itself. If it breaks a rule above, use the Report link under it. KDP says the Community team will “investigate and take appropriate action” and, for privacy reasons, will not share the outcome. If it does not break a rule, it stays, and more honest reviews from real readers are the answer.

If you want help building the list and a review plan around your book, book a free 25-minute discovery call. Tell me in the comments how you have handled a negative review.

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