Three Crazy Ways to Get Amazon Book Reviews Without Spending Money
Because some crazy things may just be worth your time
As a self-published author of more than ten books at Amazon, I know how hard it is to get those needed reviews for your book. Even if your book is currently selling, many readers won’t necessarily give a rating even if they like your books. As a result, some authors even resort to buying book reviews which could only lead to Amazon banning their accounts.
What should an author do? If you’re an indie author like me, you may have tried to search the web for all those articles giving you tips on how to get your book reviewed. You could also gather a group of readers that would willingly read and review your book.
While it is indeed helpful to have an e-mail list to send a review copy of your book, not all authors could produce such a list, especially if they are just starting to publish on their own.
Other means would call for you to spend money so you could have your book listed on their website for a pool of book reviewers to see.
If you do not wish to spend so much money at the start, you may want to check these crazy ideas to get Amazon customer reviews for your book:
1. Offer your book for free
Yes, sometimes in order to earn something, you have to give away something first. And for this occasion, you may need to give away your book for free.
If you want to gather more readers for your book, you may need to lower your price to zero at first. And for this, you can do two things:
a. Join Amazon’s KDP Select program
When you enroll at Amazon’s KDP Select program, you agree for 90 days that your book will be exclusively sold on Amazon. In exchange, you will have certain privileges like offering your book for free for 5 days during that period of time.
During those five days, you can inform your social media followers that your book can be read for free. You can also submit your book link to various free book promotion websites to gain more readers for your book.
b. Request for your book to be Permafree at Amazon
This is a crazy idea, but it may just work for you. Unlike enrolling at Amazon KDP Select where you will have 5 days to offer your book for free, you can have your book priced at zero through price matching.
Amazon usually adjusts the price of your book based on the price of competitive sites like Apple, Kobo and Google Play. You can then submit your book to Draft2digital.com and Publishdrive.com and set your book price to zero there. After achieving this, you can send an e-mail to Amazon requesting for price matching of your book. Send your message through this link https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/contact-us
2. Include your book at Librarything in its Member Giveaway and Early Reviewers feature
I have found this method to be quite effective for some of my books. Although I have read some articles that ratings received through Librarything are usually lower, I was quite happy with the reviews I have received for my book from there.
But here’s the crazy part: before you can join the above features, you must first list 50 books at your virtual library there! Yes, it sounds crazy but sometimes crazy works.
3. Ask Goodreads readers who have reviewed a similar book
Is your book a self-help one for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one? Then find a similar book on Goodreads, a book with many reviewers. But watch your next step! You shouldn’t find yourself sending direct messages to these Goodreads members or you may just be tagged as spamming the website.
You should instead look at their profiles and see the information you need to contact them elsewhere. Some have links to their websites where you can find their e-mails or where you can see a page to contact them. Some have links to their social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. Follow them there and request for that book review!
Final words
There you have it. Three crazy ways to get that Amazon customer review for your book without spending money. It may need you to exert quite an effort, but if you do it well, it may just be worth it. I know I’ve done it, and it worked for me.
Jocelyn Soriano works full-time as a Catholic writer to share the word of God and invite everyone to take refuge in God’s truth and love.
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