Reviews: The Good, Bad, and Ugly.

Follow any indie authors online and eventually you’ll see a common refrain. Something along the lines of, “If you read my book, please leave a review!” Many writers spend a lot of time practically begging for reviews. Amazon, Goodreads, whatever. A lot of indies seem to live and die by reviews.

But how important are they really?

Let’s start with the good things about reviews. They mean someone read your book! And not only did they read it, they were moved by it enough to say something about it. That’s an amazing feeling, and it’s why we write (it certainly ain’t for the money).

There’s also some merit to the idea that getting feedback from your audience is valuable. If people loved it, was there something specific you did that you can carry forward into your next book? Likewise, if people didn’t like it, what should you avoid doing next time? What do you need to learn more about? I think this is a reasonable argument, although there are other ways to get that information.

But there are some common assumptions about reviews that I think are, at best, nebulous:

“This book got so many 4 and 5 star reviews. It must be great!”

Ehh…I am very hesitant to say that reviews are any kind of indication of quality. First of all, there isn’t some universal set of metrics that every reader uses when evaluating a book. Maybe person A loved the protagonist and person B hated them. Writing, like any art, is very subjective. What resonates with one person won’t resonate with another. So, a bunch of strangers liked a book. Does that mean that I will, too? Maybe, maybe not. Sensibilities and tastes vary widely (and wildly).

How many times have you loved a movie or TV show that critics absolutely hated? I’ve read extremely popular books that I thought were five alarm dumpster fires and didn’t finish. I’ve also read obscure books with no reviews that I fell in love with.

“Reviews will help me get readers!”

In my opinion, the jury is out on this, but my gut instinct is that they really don’t, at least not appreciably. I’m sure that if, given a choice between a book with a thousand reviews and a book with one review, some people might be more inclined to at least check out the first book. Maybe that’s helpful, maybe not. There are a lot of other things that attract and pique the interest of a reader beyond the number of reviews.

I have personally never used a review to guide my choice of reading. Literally not once in decades. The first things I notice about a book are the cover and title. Then I read the synopsis. If I’m still intrigued, I’ll flip through a few pages. Then I’ll either buy it or move on. I will not, under any circumstances, read reviews. They’re too subjective and can be quite disingenuous (more of this later). I suspect that I am not unique in how I go about finding something to read.

I think some people might put the cart before the horse with reviews in this regard. Books with a lot of reviews didn’t sell well because they got a bunch of reviews; they sold well, which is why there is a large pool of people available to provide reviews.

And now, we move on to the downright ugly part.

I am increasingly of the opinion that reviews are not meant to guide readers, but are instead meant to provide data to algorithms. This is especially true of a place like Amazon. Your review is just data that can be fed into their algorithms. “Oh, Bob gave this book five stars. Let’s suggest similar books to him.” It’s a marketing gimmick to sell more books.

People can be paid to review. Not surprisingly, there are folks out there preying on indies and offering paid reviews. How can you trust which ones are real?

…

At the end of the day, where does that leave an indie author? I can’t speak for everyone, but I can offer my own feelings about the matter. All in all, reviews are nice, but that’s it. I don’t think they need to be part of a marketing strategy, I don’t think you need to beg for people to leave them, and I don’t think they make or break a book.

I think indie authors are largely an insecure bunch (myself included!), and reviews are one way they can receive validation. I understand wanting validation. Humans love to be told they did well. So, if you need that feeling, chase it, I guess.

If you want the feedback, do a critique swap with another writer. Or find a writing group in your area. You don’t have to rely on reviews to improve your craft.

Remember that you wrote the story that you wanted to tell. That was the goal, and once you’ve published, you’ve achieved it. Of course, you want lots of people to read it so that you can feel like a great writer (and maybe make a little coin). But getting your book in front of eyeballs has nothing to do with reviews. I can almost promise you that.