How to make someone's day in 5 minutes or less
Give the gift of a book review!
Do you want to make someone’s day—and bless other people at the same time—in the next 5 minutes?
Here’s how:
Go look at your bookshelf.
Pick a book that you LOVE or that has changed your life.
(Try to pick a book published in the last 20 years by an author who is not super famous. E.G. don’t pick Narnia or Harry Potter.)
Complete this sentence: “I loved this book because ______.” (or “This book changed my life because it taught me ______.”)
Open up Amazon.com on your computer or phone.
Find that book on Amazon.
Write that sentence as a review.
Post the review.
That’s it!
(For extra credit, copy and paste the review to Goodreads. For extra extra credit, take a selfie of you holding the book, then post the picture and your review on social media.)
DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS POST UNTIL YOU DID THOSE SEVEN STEPS ABOVE!!
Why did you just make someone’s day?
Authors need reviews.
Most people don’t realize this. They think a review is a nice little extra, some digital confetti that doesn’t make a difference.
Wrong.
For most new authors, getting Amazon reviews is one of their top marketing priorities. A priority that they fight tooth-and-claw for.
Because getting book reviews is vital—and it is hard.
Why are reviews important?
Legitimacy (social proof). Which book are you more likely to buy? A book with 1,324 reviews on Amazon? Or a book with 3 reviews on Amazon?
More buyer information. A book description only says so much. Many book buyers look at the reviews to get a better feel for if the book is for them. For nonfiction—do readers say that the book actually helped solve their problem? For fiction—why did reader like the book? What other books did readers compare it to? Did reviewers post any content warnings?
Algorithmic impact. For most authors, their best chance to get their book in front of new readers is for Amazon to suggest their book to its customers. But the books that Amazon favors (in search results, in “readers also bought” sections, etc.) is heavily dependent on a book’s number of reviews. Amazon knows that a book with 106 reviews is more likely to sell (so they will make more money) than a book with 14 reviews.
Even when an author pays for an Amazon ad, they are competing with dozens of other authors also running ads—and Amazon will favor the ads that it thinks will most likely lead to purchases. (For this reason, and also because of the social proof factor, most Amazon Ad experts agree that it’s a waste of money to run ads on a book with fewer than a hundred reviews.)
Authors have conversations—even classes and workshops—about the importance of reviews, the struggle to get reviews, the uphill battle to subtly remind even close friends and fans to leave reviews . . . it’s a big deal for authors.
STILL not convinced?
Perhaps you don’t care about making the author’s day. Why should you post a review?
Simple. If a book truly changed your life . . . don’t other people deserve to hear about it?
Your review will help other readers discover that book and get the same value that you got out of it. Perhaps your words will be the words that tip a potential buyer off the fence so that they click the purchase button—and perhaps the book will change their life, too.
So have fun making someone’s day!
I love this post so much and completely agree! I will definitely be doing this more often. Thank you for this :)