If you want to make sales on Kindle, you need reviews. Period.

Because of the way that Amazon Kindle has been set up, you don’t get that much real estate to really sell your book.

You have your description – which gets cut off past a certain character count.

You have your book cover – which unless you are spending a lot probably isn’t as great as you think it is.

And then you have reviews.

Reviews are where the selling of your book happens.

I have been through about 20 different “How to Market on Kindle” courses and trainings and I have found that most of them are garbage, over-complicated and un-tested baloney.

This Is The Only One I Recommend (It Made Me A Bestseller)

You don’t need an overcomplicated system. You just need to understand why people buy.

I have created bestseller after bestseller by focusing on one simple action:

Getting more reviews.

 

Focus On Getting Reviews And Everything Else Falls Into Place

Social proofing.

That is what reviews are all about. Create enough of that social proofing and you will see an immediate increase in sales – even if your traffic levels stay the same.

Stop asking yourself, “How do I increase sales?”

And start asking yourself, “How do I increase reviews?”

“How do I build MORE social proofing?”

The rest will fall into place.

How To Get More Reviews (Ethically) For Your Kindle Book

Family And Friends

This might be the obvious first choice, but it really can be effective.

If you have spent any time on Facebook as a writer then you are probably already a member of one of these groups:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/543825505643770/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/writersandillustrators/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/691393687558746/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/apablog/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/177752362365639/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/nonfictionwriters/

Or maybe you are already a member of these places:

Kboards

Scribophile

10 Inspiring Social Networks For Writers

I imagine, you are a bit of a wallflower in these groups and you probably wouldn’t consider the fellow members “friends” but I am here to tell you that one of the fastest way to get AMAZING reviews is to become friends with the other authors of these sites.

 

If you do a lot of non-fiction writing like I do, then all you have to do is find relevant forums and Facebook groups within your niche and follow these same simple procedures for getting as many reviews as you possibly can stand.

When it comes time to launch your books, simply gift your fellow authors with a free copy. Ask them to leave a review and move on the to next one.

Don’t be shy, especially if you are asking fellow authors for reviews.

As an author myself, I LOVE reviewing other authors work. I love being a beta reader, I love offering proofreading and I love offering reviews.

Why? Because authors have to stick together!

But more importantly, from a business standpoint (and yes, fiction writers, you are running a business) whenever I do something nice for someone like leave a review for them – that builds social capital with that person that I can cash in on later down the road.

Keep this in mind – if you ask someone to review your book, be prepared to do the same for them. It is a cheap and easy way to get those hard to grab reviews.

Once you do this long enough (asking and exchanging reviews with other authors) you will have built up a large review exchange network of your own. You will be able to predict just how many reviews you will have come launch day. You will be able to get reviews on command.

When you have that kind of power you won’t be able to help but sell a ton of copies.

 

Publisher’s Review Accelerator

When I first saw this piece of software I almost wept.

If you buy nothing else (other than Scrivener of course) to build your writing career – you NEED to invest in this piece of software.

Publisher’s Review Accelerator saves you time, energy and is even better than begging your friends or family for reviews.

It essentially aggregates all of the reviews from certain books and allows you to filter through those reviews, extract the reviewers contact information and export it as an Excel file.

In other words…

It allows you to contact people who LOVE leaving reviews and it allows you to create HUGE lists of these people.

I use Publisher’s Review Accelerator everyday for about 20 – 30 minutes and I average 5 new reviews per day with that method.

 

Here is a video of how I use the software:

 

 

The key with Publisher’s Review Accelerator is to simply turn it on everyday, and send out emails to new people asking them for a review. This consistent effort will add up and before you know it you will start getting reviews without having to ask because your book will start selling a lot.

This would be an AMAZING task to outsource to someone in the Philippines for $3/hour. All you would have to do is write up a stock email like this one:

“Hello [Insert Name],

I really enjoyed your review for the book [insert book title]. It was very helpful and I loved your honesty.

I myself am an author and I have recently written a book that I think you might enjoy. I would like to gift you a copy of the book with the hopes that you might also be kind enough to leave me a review.

[Insert a little info about your book]

If you are interested, please let me know and I will send you the gifted copy right away!

Thanks,

[Your Name]

Author of [Insert book or series title]”

I highly recommend this as a tool for any Kindle author. Reviews are so critical to your success – whether fiction or non-fiction is your thing – and this piece of software makes review getting so easy.

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Wattpad

There has been a lot of controversy lately surrounding the Wattpad platform.

A lot of authors have put some of their works on the site for free, had millions of reads and were never able to see an increase in their sales.

The reason for this is quite obvious from a marketing standpoint:

Wattpad is full of freebie seekers.

Marketing to freebie seekers is the kiss of death for those unskilled in the dark arts of marketing and sales (which makes up the majority of the self-publishing demographic).

That being said, freebie seekers CAN be a powerful tool in your overall marketing plan and Wattpad CAN be used to increase sales, you just have to get a little creative.

The majority of Wattpad users are “underage” – they don’t even have a credit card to purchase if they wanted to. If you don’t write for this demographic – don’t waste your time here. Instead, buy Publisher’s Review Accelerator and start pumping out emails to get reviews.

If however, you do write for this demographic (or at least think this age group might enjoy your book) then lend your ear this way (or your eyes really) because I am going to show you a Wattpad hack that will change the way you see this online highschool nerdfest (as a real nerd myself, I take no offense to this statement and neither should you – embrace the fact that you want to try and make a career in a dying art form – reading and writing).

The key to leveraging freebie seekers of any kind is to implement them as a “street team”. Here is how you do that:

Step #1 – Use Wattpad To Build A List

The cool thing about Wattpad is that it allows you to put links in your work that point to wherever the heck you want to point people towards.

Additionally, the freebie seekers on Wattpad are PASSIONATE freebie seekers. These are readers that will nearly wet themselves if you say:

“Sign up to my email list and get free short stories!”

Just try it. Watch what happens.

Step #2 – Recruit Your Street Team

Once you have the list building in place, all you have to do now is simply ask and ye shall receive!

Do you need more fans to your Facebook page?

Send an email to your list asking nicely. Then consider it done.

Do you want a bunch of reviews for a new book?

Send out an email, tell them what they need to do, and watch it happen like magic right before your eyes.

As long as you keep providing your freebie seekers with free stuff (ie. stories etc.) then you can use freebie seekers in so many powerful ways, INCLUDING getting reviews.

Maybe someday I might put up a post about how to really utilize the power of freebie seekers.

 

Conclusion

Here is the deal.

Forget about everything you think you know about marketing for Kindle.

Unless you are an advanced marketer (and know how to set up funnels with high converting AR sequences) my recommendation is to KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Just work on getting as many reviews as you possibly can.

There is no point in sending loads of traffic to a book that ain’t got no reviews anyhow.