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Why Stars Matter
How to get reviews as a self-published author
This article is a follow-up to How To (Self)Publish Books On a Budget. I am not an experienced author or an expert in getting reviews. This article is written by a two-week-old debutant. And therein lies its value. Seeing it from a debutant's eyes. I will update the post as I learn and figure things out, so if you would like to follow my journey to reviews, I recommend you bookmark this post.
One of the biggest problems I am facing right now is getting reviews for my book.
Starting this process, I didn’t know how important reviews are. I should have, though. As an avid reader, I always look at how many stars a book has before I decide to one-click buy it (I have one-click bought way too many books).
Reviews are important to get books into readers’ hands. But as a debut author, it’s difficult to get reviews.
I didn’t know how difficult it was until I published my first book. I was in the mindset that “I have enough friends, family, and fans that can give me a review boost.” That was before I read Amazon’s review policy.
Amazon has very strict rules for reviews to make sure no-one “games” the system. And even though I really like this, like really really like it, it makes it hard for new writers to get the stars…