The growing importance of amateur book reviews

Successful books have lots of positive reviews on Amazon, and it’s no coincidence. It’s another point in the positive feedback loop: Good books garner good reviews, which encourages more sales. Good reviews on Amazon are particularly crucial for books by new authors and niche books.

Good reviews on Amazon boost your book sales not only on Amazon, but everywhere people are buying books. What percentage of buyers at brick-and-mortar bookstores make their choice by reading a review on Amazon? It’s hard to say, and the only way we will ever find out is if someone like Barnes & Noble begins asking the question at their cash registers, and send us a report. Don’t hold your breath.

One of the reasons Amazon’s reviews are so effective is that they’re written by people who are passionate about a book and its topic. They’re seen as objective advice from someone with no ax to grind. In the case of a niche book, an amateur reviewer with the right expertise in the topic can provide a better critique than any professional reviewer.

You should encourage enthusiastic readers of your book to write a review on Amazon. Each time you see a new positive review for your title, "vote" on it by checking the "Yes" box under each review in response to the question, "Was this review helpful to you?"

But don’t ask for book reviews from people who haven’t actually read your book, not even your mother. The result will be an unconvincing review that will detract from your book’s credibility rather than bolster it.

Negative reviews

As much as good online reviews can help your book, negative reviews can hurt your book even more, according to a study published by the Yale School of Management. Multiple glowing reviews for a book can be dismissed by shoppers as "hype" generated by the author or publisher. But online book buyers pay close attention to negative reviews, because they tend to believe it’s honest criticism by a disappointed reader, the study found.

Buyers understand that no book pleases everyone, and that any book with lots of reviews will have its share of bad ones. Negative reviews hurt some types of books worse than others. Buyers often overlook occasional negative reviews of fiction, religious and political works, assuming that personal taste was involved. However, a detailed negative review of a nonfiction how-to book on Amazon can devastate its sales.

The study, The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews examined random titles from Global Books in Print and bestsellers from Publishers Weekly. The study found that Amazon tends to have many more reviews than Barnes & Noble’s Web site. Read the study in its entirety here.