You need book reviews otherwise people won’t buy. But you also don’t want to chase down all your friends and beg for book reviews! Finding book reviews can be a hair-pulling experience but there are ways to get your book reviewed in an ethical way.
I’ve seen some authors say reviews aren’t important. That people will buy anyway.
I think this all depends. If you are writing in a very popular genre, let’s say steamy romance, and your book has a low price tag, yes, people will certainly check out a brand new author with no reviews. But what if you wrote a women’s fiction novel which has a more select audience? Or you are a new author starting out or are still looking to build a brand because readers don’t know you?
Overall, book reviews help and the more legit ones you can get the better.
Now, having said that, with Ghost Talker, I doubled my reviews from 275 to over 700 because I sold over 20,000 books with a Bookbub Featured Deal and that certainly gained me a lot of ratings! The lesson is that when you sell a lot of books you will get more reviews.
The BIG problem is that Amazon ads are based upon if your book is selling. While Amazon is happy to take your ad money they restrict the number of times the ad is shown based upon how well the book is selling.
This can be very frustrating as the ad needs to be seen to sell the books, but if they aren’t showing the ad, you aren’t selling books! This is a whole ‘nother problem, but just realize that selling a lot of books can help get reviews and boost the Amazon algorithm so your budget should include money for advertising (but your Amazon ads won’t do as well until you sell more books! urgh!).
Understand the different types of book reviews and how to use them.
There are reviews from customers and then there are editorial reviews. Each plays a role in getting noticed, but are used in very different ways.
General readers can leave your book review on any platform where they have an account. Some of those platforms might require that they have bought the book through their platform before doing so, but many won’t.
I often seen internet comments that you “can’t pay for a review, as that is against Amazon policies.” That’s true and not true at the same time. You can pay to be listed with a matchmaking service which I will go into below.
NOTE: Editorial reviews are those done by the trade and they do incur a fee. I’ll go into Editorial Reviews in a different blog post.
Book related platforms that post reviews
Amazon. Amazon requires reviewers to have bought $50 on their platform each year or they cannot review. They also are very punitive and will remove any reviews they consider scammy (even if the review was legit). I also had a long time reader get her reviews pulled because she reviewed A LOT of stuff on Amazon and they thought she was a scammer (luckily she got her reviews returned but that isn’t always the case).
Because of Amazon’s policies, some readers don’t want to review there any longer so always encourage your readers to leave reviews at other platforms.
Goodreads. Owned by Amazon, Goodreads has more lax rules. All the person needs is an account so many reviewers that aren’t willing to do Amazon will do Goodreads.
Now that Amazon is showing Goodreads reviews on your book listing, I think authors need to be aware of how to use Goodreads to their advantage so check out my earlier blog post about how you can leverage Goodreads.
Bookbub. This a very author friendly platform as it only allows three stars and up on reviews. If you don’t have an account there, you need one. Here’s an article about how to use Bookbub to build your brand.
Don’t underestimate the power of reviews on Goodreads, Bookbub, Kobo, Apple, or Barnes and Noble. These places all get less book reviews and so comments can stand out to users of those platforms.
There are some book reading apps like The Storygraph that are also gaining traction with readers who don’t want to be involved with Amazon or Goodreads.
One thing to keep in mind is that Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub now have an option to follow the author.
Sell a lot of books, and see more book reviews
With Amazon encouraging readers to leave a star-rating with no comment (something I’m rather ambivalent about), I have seen an increase in my ratings. However, I’ve seen comments on author boards that to get a lot of reviews, sell a lot of books! And I thought, hm. Sure. Well, it’s true!
But if your book doesn’t appeal, that won’t work.
CASE STUDY Never Date a Siren
I have gifted at least 200,000 copies Never Date a Siren. For two years I promoted it heavily with newsletter ads, special deals, and letting it be free. Still the reviews stagnated and they have remained about the same for the last three years. The buy-through for the series has also been poor and is nothing to write home about.
My opinion is that the book doesn’t fit the genre people want to put it in: Academy. It was meant to be YA coming-of-age story, but adult readers want a love triangle. So gaining the right readership for it has been hard.
CASE STUDY Ghost Talker
Let’s fast forward to today. Ghost Talker just went through a round of heavy promotion where I listed the book for free. Before I started the reviews were sitting at around 278. Those reviews came from NetGalley, Booksirens, ItsyBitsy and my newsletter subscribers. From my sales dashboard, I knew that the buy-through on the series was solidly good.
My marketing campaign was pretty much the same as I did for Never Date a Siren: a Bookbub Featured Deal, and promo stack of newsletter. During those 14 days I had over 22,000 downloads.
In the last three weeks, reviews have jumped to 552 and kept climbing to 700! Be aware about 95% of these new scores are only RATINGS, something that Amazon put into the mix about a year ago. But why this big difference between these two books??
I think one reason is that Amazon is now allowing ratings to be used in the numbers of reviews. At the end of each book read on a Kindle it immediately pops up a window to leave a rating. People can leave stars by just touching a button so yes, it is a LOT EASIER to leave a rating.
Also, Siren just didn’t have the mass appeal that Ghost Talker did. People who read Ghost Talker are excited to share their opinion about. It also started out with a higher number of solid reviews so I do think the more reviews a book has, the more people are likely to leave a review. I don’t understand the logic on this, but I’ve seen this by observing my Goodreads feed.
I saw a comment in an author’s group that science-fiction-fantasy readers are more likely to leave a review or rating than romance readers. Personally, I don’t know-know but my guess is unless your book EXCITES YOUR READER they will not leave a review regardless of what type of genre they read.
So before marketing your book, make sure it checks off all of these factors.
✅Readers are excited to read this genre.
✅Nice professional cover.
✅Well-researched book description that appeals.
✅ If part of a series, are you already seeing readers buying through?
✅ A well thought out marketing campaign that distributes/sells your books to a lot of readers.
Building an audience of book reviewers
Asking your newsletter subscribers to review is the number one way to get reviews, especially when a book is just launched. The more time you spend on growing your email list with fans who want your books, the more reviews you will get.
This is something you can do with a minimum amount of investment. Building an email list is generally done through one of three major software apps: Bookfunnel, StoryOrigin, or Booksprout. And if your list is small, maintenance could be free using newsletter platforms like Substack or Mailerlite.
Building a newsletter list is a big topic so I’ll go into that another time, but for now realize you need a mailing list to build a team of fans who will be willing to review. Those that get advanced reviews from you are either Beta Readers or ARC readers. You can find more details about what type of readers you want at which stage on this blog post.
As an Indie author getting a solid team of reviewers should be your number one marketing priority after writing a great book with a fantastic book cover and solid book description that ticks all the genre boxes.
I generally use a Google form to help people sign up to be a reviewer through ARCS (advanced reader copies) that are given out prior to a book going live. Here’s a sample of one:
This form goes into information that the potential ARC reader needs to fill out such as name, email, and questions I have about where they will review and what social media they use. You will need the last to verify if they ever reviewed. If they don’t, you remove them from your ARC and/or Street Team.
I end the form with some sign off information I need like this:
Authors love to reach out to their friends and family for reviews and in the end are disappointed when they don’t review. Reality? Your book simply might not be to their taste. Asking once is fine, but twice? That starts to get into dodgy territory and it can be so disheartening! Been there, done that.
So finding new readers who are excited to read your latest book is the key here to getting a review team together.
Matchmaking services that presents books to readers who review
Other than managing your personal fan team how can you get reviews? There are services that act as a matchmaker, exposing your book to potential review/readers. This is NOT buying reviews. They agree to post your book on their platform and readers have the choice of accepting or declining your book so it complies with Amazon’s review policies.
This is something that seems to confuse authors. If you paid Joe to review your book that is against Amazon’s policies. If you put your book on a review platform and reviewers (who you never will be able to contact) can pick and choose from a selection that is okay. You are paying to be listed, not for the reviews.
These services can really help the beginner author, however they can be very costly. So remember, that in the end your goal should be to grow your reviews organically.
While I do try to present only reputable companies, always check reviews of any service and look at Writer Beware to see if the company is listed as legit.
Before you submit your book, is it any good?
Don’t even think of using a matchmaking service unless your book is good (good cover, was edited by a pro, etc…). While these services are generally well-disposed to the books they review, they do not guarantee a star rating and you will have no contact with the reviewer or any influence over them (as it should be).
So these reviewers, if they see a lot of typos will point it out. If your book cover sucks, yeah, they’ll say that. If your story doesn’t appeal to readers, they won’t pick it up. Paying for a matchmaking service only guarantees you exposure, not five star reviews.
NetGalley
Probably the most well-known professional service to expose yourself to potential readers but it is expensive! You have no control over who sees your book, what they rate it, and where they post the review, but I’ve really enjoyed my time at NetGalley.
This service has gained me loyal followers, and while expensive it can help you grow your brand. Personally, NetGalley gave me the most reviews and that was with a newsletter list to pull from. If you are an IBPA member, you get a discount. You an also go through an author co-op like Victory Editing or Xpresso Book tours which gives you a lower price for a NetGalley listing.
See this blog about NetGalley for more information.
ItsyBitsy
ItsyBitsy is a book marketing group I’ve used successfully in the past. While I appreciate their marketing attempts, I’ve not seen an increase in sales or followers, but I have seen a big increase in reviews when the book appeals to their audience.
This is a great one for the contemporary romance writers as I’ve seen a lot of posts in that genre on their Facebook page. Remember, your book has to appeal to the audience you are marketing it to or they won’t pick you for dodge ball.
Booksprout
In the beginning I passed on their service as they didn’t have good controls in place. However, they’ve made some major updates and I’m considering using them again so they are worth checking out.
BookSirens
I no longer recommend as they promote AI written books and AI written reviews.
Services that guarantee book reviews, but not ratings
While you do pay for these matchmaking services, and they DO say they will provide X amount of reviews, you will NOT have contact with the reviewer. They promote your book to their readers and, like the ones above, you won’t be able to control what they say or the star rating.
However, they do guarantee the number of book reviews you chose and where they will be posted on the outlet of your choice, usually Amazon or Goodreads, maybe both.
Literary Titan
Literary Titan is probably one of my favorites. They are very supportive of new authors and give highly detailed reviews which acts as valuable feedback. This is a great service if you don’t want to pay for an editorial review, but want that in-depth summary.
Reedsy
I felt the service was pricey for one review, and that review is not posted anywhere but at Reedsy. I also felt the judging was unduly harsh. Their website does list blogs that review so it might be worth checking out that list.
Book services that I no longer use
Authors XP
I’ve had some limited success with Authors XP but they probably works best for genres that are very popular, like romance. My biggest problem with them is there is a lot of record keeping and emailing follow-up the author has to do with the review service which just clutters up my day. I prefer services like NetGalley, and ItsyBitsy which takes it out of my hands. Always remember your time is valuable!
Hidden Gems
I found their process confusing with not much accountability. They now support writing books by AI – so this pretty much tells me they are fine with stealing authors works. I have seen Goodread reviewers mention Hidden Gems and some authors seem to love them, but it’s a big NO from me.
Reading Deals
The reviews were very slow to happen and I felt the reviewers didn’t really give much feedback on the book that was original in content (mostly a repeat of the book description).
Dog-eared Review
Very expensive and the reviews are often just a repeat of what the book description says. I no longer use them. I also had readers who double-dipped (they reviewed at Dog-eared and did the same review for Literary Titan!).
If you like to write book reviews yourself
If you write book reviews, there are places where you can use your love of books to help your own book get reviewed. Be aware I have NOT used either of these services so cannot vouch for them.
Get Books Reviewed
This is a reader community where you get a group of books to select from to review. They have a system where you can’t review an author who reviewed you so there is no “swapping.” I actually like how upfront they were on answering these question at their website.
BookRoar
Is a reader/review swap service. I’m not sure how they conform to Amazon’s rules on this as I haven’t tried it. It is only listed here as a possibility so do your due diligence.
Book Bounty
TOS does not state how it will prevent book review swapping so unless they have a method to do this, they have the same ethical issues as BookRoar.
Places that don’t pass the sniff test
If you’ve had good success with the following let me know but for now they are on my no list.
Self Publishing Review promises too much. This sounds very much like buying reviews and not a matchmaking service. Also very expensive. You could use that money towards ads.
Bigfoot Reviews cost twice as much+ as BookSirens! But supplies no accountability! You can’t block reviewers, you get no dashboard, there is no page you can manage for your books. I went through the author names that recommended their service which are on their website and those writers have very few reviews (sus).
Non stop reviews never responded to my questions on how they keep their business ethical. Definite no.
Try doing some Book Tours
I have some ambivalent feelings about book tours, but there are a way to get seen and sometimes the people on the tour will actually review (ask if that will happen before booking).
What is a book tour? You sign up and pay a service to schedule a round of promotions for your book by a hand-picked group of influencer social media accounts. Generally, the social media account will show an image of your book, and give a synopsis. Some do reviews, others don’t. Some give buy links or links back to your website. So do ask what you will be getting before signing up.
Here are some to check out (remember, this is not a blind endorsement and I have no control over these services):
Itsy Bitsy – I’ve mentioned above. They also do blog tours which can give your website backlinks.
Kate Rock the Book – has a lot of different options to publicize your book, and some of them seem really interesting.
Xpresso Book Tours – they have several different price points to fit any budget.
Love Book Tours – I’ve used. Low results, though I did gain a big fan.
RABT Tours and Promotions – I’ve used. Low results but that was over 3 years back.
I have not found these tours very beneficial in terms of selling books, but they can get eyes on your book. Google looks at links back to your website to rank it, so if the service offers links back to your website during the tour that can help with your website traffic over time.
My personal opinion is that most of the PR book tour services don’t really pay back, but they are worth experimenting with especially if you are very active on social media. You may have better luck with them if your book is in the romance genre because that seems really popular with the participants on these book tours.
What if the book reviews you get are low or bad?
If you only have a few reviews and most are low-starred, it’s time to really take a step back and think over what you are doing. Is your writing ready to be seen by the public? Did you put it through any sort of peer-review like a writer’s critique group or beta readers (who were not friends)?
If people complain about typos, get them fixed. If they hate the cover, get it changed. If they are confused by the book description, re-write it. Only you can answer this but if a new book by a new author has less than 20 reviews and half are 3 stars or less, there is a problem here you need to get sorted before publishing again.
However, realize as you gain a bigger audience the harsher the reviews will become. Prepare yourself for one stars. This should actually make you happy. No one expects all 5 stars with a super popular book. A mix of star reviews means your book is reaching a lot of readers and is getting more “legit.” It also looks more legit to those shopping for books IMO.
Don’t take it personally. Your book won’t please everyone and be for everyone.
I have noticed that in 2025 reviews have gotten far more harsh. Where I used to get 5 stars, now I get 4 or maybe even 3. I do think the political climate is having an effect on this. People are worried and on edge; that is coming out in their reviews even if you have nothing to do with what is happening on the world stage.
I suggest you stop reading reviews. Let a friend, partner, or PA (personal assistant) do it for you. For example, I needed 5 star reviews to put together a marketing campaign. Husband collected those high reviews and put them in a doc. One for Bookbub, Goodreads, Amazon, and NetGalley. I went through and highlighted the passages I wanted to use (see my website homepage and the book pages for an example of how I used them) without ever having to look at one stars!
What you can do with your book reviews?
Once your book gets some book reviews how can you maximize them?
Put them on your social media. I have quoted reviews both in photo posts on Instagram and Facebook, and in animated videos (like the one above, designed using Canva).
Use them on your Amazon listing under the “From the Publisher” area or in your A+ Content (I go into what that is and how to make it on this blog post).
Pull some of the quotes you see many reviewers saying and put it on your book listing description at the bookseller or at Goodreads.
Put a book review in your author newsletter to share with your fans, especially if the review was done by one of your followers.
A warning about complaining about book reviews
On Amazon, never complain to The Man about your reviews. I complained about two reviews that happened because of something Amazon did (not me!) and they slapped me down by going through ALL my reviews and removing any they thought were suspicious. NEVER EVER complain to Amazon about your reviews. They will punish you. I learned my lesson.
Also, expect to see some reviews disappear (I had 2 vanish over the weekend). Most likely this is because Amazon viewed the account as suspicious or maybe the person removed the review themselves. The best defense against this is to keep seeking more reviews.
I’ve also seen authors go after reviewers online and this NEVER EVER ends well for the author. Usually, your text or social media posts blasting the reviewer gets handed around all over the internet making other reviewers give you a wide pass. DON’T DO IT.
Why is everything so hard right now?
I’ve really seen a lot of fall off on reviews in 2025. I had the lowest number at NetGalley for any book even though I had over 150 sign ups to review Breathings of the Moon. My ARC team numbers and their responses have been dismal.
Everything seems sad and worrisome in the world right now and this has filtered into the book world also.
I wish I had a magic wand to make all of this better but I don’t. Just take this into account as you release your books. Finding reviewers, and support readers may be very hard, but all we can do is keep trying and adjusting to the marketplace as best as we can.
I hope you found this helpful. If you did, or have another service you’d recommend leave a comment below.
Need more advice for writing, publishing, or marketing your book? Check out my Writer’s Life blog posts. You can also subscribe to the blog to know when I publish another one in the Writer-help series.
