Self Publishing. Reviews.

Self Publishing.  Reviews.

Good reviews.  Bad reviews.  Are reviews important?

 

            In the course of my self-published experience I learned a few things about this and that.  One thing that I learned to be very important are the reviews people write.  This is true for any industry, reviews can make or break a company.  Good reviews can really help, while bad reviews can destroy.  In a perfect world everyone would be honest about their reviews and wouldn’t do anything underhanded.  The reviewer would state their opinion, good or bad, and the person or company that was reviewed would take the constructive criticism and come away better for it.  I know I’ve written bad reviews (mainly travel reviews) and have had companies try and pressure me to take them down, so it’s not just the reviewer that does the underhanded…ness?   Yet, this is not a perfect world and the internet isn’t always a place that is full of honest, well-meaning people, so be prepared.  Here’s my story about reviews.

Quick Summary

1.  Reviews are important.
2. The time when you first publish is really important.  If you wait too long for the good reviews then your book may have missed its’ prime time in the spotlight.

 

Sales and Reviews

 

                  Dates                   Books sold

April 18^th to 24^th                 22 sold

(April 26^th my friend posted a 5 star review)

April 25^th to May 1^st         14 sold

May 2^nd to May 8^th           11 sold

(May 10^th my mother posted a 5 star review)

May 9^th to May 15^th         53 sold

May 16^th to May 22^nd      107 sold

(May 25^th a highly negative 1 star review posted)

May 23^rd to May 29^th      63 sold

May 30^th to Jun 5^th           65 sold

(Beginning of June, negative review was modified and became worse)

Jun 6^th to Jun 12^th             30 sold

Jun 13^th to Jun 19^th          26 sold

Jun 20^th to Jun 26^th          32 sold

Jun 27^th to Jul 3^rd               19 sold

July 4^th to July 10^th            13 sold

July 11^th to July 17^th         17 sold

July 18^th to July 24^th         15 sold

July 25^th to July 31^st         7 sold

Aug 1^st to Aug 7^th              7 sold

(Aug 7^th a negative two star review was posted because I didn’t pay a person for his services)

Aug 8^th to Aug 14^th           5 sold

Lost the motivation to keep keeping track.  Pretty much sold a few copies per week for a while.  Two years later and I’m selling about a book a month.  Tried KDP Select at one point and had a lot of pages being read and some more good reviews, but nothing really panned out.

 

My Review Experience

 

                When I decided to publish I also decided to be honest and straightforward about what I did.  I read articles about people paying for reviews, and it working well for them.  I also had friends and other people offer to gives me good ratings and reviews, but I told them no thanks, unless they had read my book and it was an honest review.  Did I make the right decision?  Money wise, probably not.  Would I do the same thing?  Yes, I think of myself as an honest person, and would do the same if given the chance. 

 

In the following I will talk about the two reviews I received that really made a difference, and one that was just annoying.  To everyone that wrote me a review, I appreciate the time you took to do so…well, almost everyone. 

 

                Before publishing I sent my book to some friends and family in the hopes of having some positive reviews right off the bat.  Yet, my book is rather long, and I don’t think everyone had the time to read it, so I didn’t have a lot of reviews at the beginning…or even now. 

 

                I published my book on April 18^th and, 8 days later, my good friend posted his review.  He was one of the people I sent my book to prior to publishing.  This first review didn’t seem to boost sales too greatly.  Between  April 18^th and May 8^th I sold 47 copies.

 

                Then, on May 10^th, my mother posted a review (using my father’s ID J).  Both my parents had been reading, and liking, my book, which had really helped me in the motivation department.  I think my mother was hesitant about posting (being my mother and all) but I told her if the review was honest, then go ahead.  I didn’t try to hide the fact that it was one of my parents reviewing because, like I said, I wanted to take the honest road.

 

                My mother’s review was good and it really helped sales.  From May 9^th to May 15^th I sold 53 copies, May 16^th to 22^nd 107 copies, May 23^rd to May 29^th 63 copies.  I was really excited and thought, “hey, I can do this.”  J

 

                Then came my first negative review, and it was bad.  The title said “Don’t read this book.”  Ouch.  Apparently the reviewer didn’t like what happened at the end of my book and thus gave me one star.  I hoped that people would see that the reviewer became so connected with my characters that he or she took what happened to them very personally…which means that the story was well written…up until the point that made the reviewer sad for not “coddling” him.  Yet, I don’t think that’s what people saw.

 

                Anyway, this bad review came on May 25^th, but it didn’t hurt sales too too much.  Like I said, I sold 107 copies between May 16^th and May 22^nd and 63 copies between May 23^rd and May 29^th.  So sales went down, but were still good.  The thing about this review was that, when it was first published, it had a reference to “Game of Thrones.”  The reviewer said that I killed a character and betrayed his trust by doing so.   Then said it was like Game of Thrones, and that’s why he didn’t like reading those books.  I think the Game of Thrones reference helped dull the blow of the bad review. 

 

                Then, the reviewer took down the review and sales went back up.  I thought the person had realized that they really liked my characters and were just upset that one had died and had thus rethought the negative review.  Yet, much to my chagrin, I was wrong.  The reviewer republished the review and this time it lacked the Game of Thrones reference.  After the republishing my sales went way down…Jun 6^th to Jun 12^th I sold 30 copies.  Jun 13^th to Jun 19^th I sold 26 copies.  

 

                Why did the reviewer change the review?  Maybe he rethought it and decided to get rid of the Game of Thrones reference because he/she didn’t like my book.  Maybe he/she was monitoring my book and saw that the ranking was still high after his/her review and thus changed it.  In my opinion, it’s the second option.  Personally, when I write a review I don’t go back and change things later on.  It seems like the only reason to do so is because you are trying to hurt the person or business, not because you’re being honest.  Yet, I had no proof, so just went with it.

 

                So, it was this review, after the modifications, that really brought down my sales.  I can’t say that it was the reason I failed because, if my book really was great, the many people that read it would have written good reviews or would have given me good ratings, but the reviews were not very plentiful.

 

                After a long stint of low sales I decided to put my book on a site where I offer it for free in exchange for some honest reviews.  I just wanted to know what people thought and get more information on how to improve.  I did get one really good review that really boosted my motivation, but I also got a bad review.  At this point sales were still low, and the reviews didn’t really change anything.  Yet, how the bad review panned out really made me annoyed.

 

                Like I said, I put my book on a site where people read it in exchange for an honest review.  One person that downloaded my book decided to contact me directly.  He started communications by posting a comment on my blog. 

 

                “Daniel Matuzas, before I post a review I'd like to discuss it with you privately please contact me **** at **** dot com, [convert at and dot com to appropriate entries] I don't think you want me posting this review publicly”

 

            The comment seemed very strange…who writes convert at and dot to appropriate entries?...but I decided to respond.  I wrote an email saying hi, and saying that I was new to writing and wasn’t sure what to say.  I then got an email which used many intimidating words/phrases.  The person called my book a disaster, said it had no polish or editing, said that my blog posts (beginning writer) made it sound like I knew what I was doing.  All this he got from reading the prologue and 1^st chapter.  In short, the person was politely trying to extort me. 

 

“Yours went from final draft to "Self-Publish", I feel it my duty to let
buyers know not to waste their money on such an item.

Before I do that, I would like to get your take on what I should do.

We offer proofreading and editing services at reasonable prices should you
be interested.

If you are not, we recommend you remove this from sale until it has been
edited by a professional, since you seem incapable of doing it yourself.”

 

                The person was saying, pay for my services or I will publish my negative review.  Yes, the message wasn’t so straight forward, but it was pretty clear to me. 

 

                Yet, I tried to give the person the benefit of the doubt…maybe he was a well-meaning individual but didn’t know how to communicate efficiently.  Thus I went and did some background research.  I found that the person was a self-published author but used a different name.  His books had failed to succeed and, reading the sample Amazon offered, I could see why.  I didn’t want to pay a person to edit my book when it seemed like he didn’t know a lot about writing.  Further research led me to a website the person had created.  The website gave the appearance of a successful business, but looking around on it you find that only two authors work with the business.  One author was the person that had written to me and the other author was that person’s wife.  Researching the wife showed that she was an unsuccessful self-published author as well.

 

                After my research I came to the conclusion that this was definitely not a person I wanted to pay any sort of money to.  My research led me to believe that he was just a person trying to scam me for money, or he was angry that he was unsuccessful and was trying to find different ways to earn money, ways that were not the most honest.  I decided to ignore him. 

 

                I emailed Amazon about this person, but I did it before he wrote the review.  I didn’t want to be an author that was just complaining about a bad review, and so I included my evidence.  I received a message back from Amazon saying that they couldn’t do anything because the person hadn’t put his review on Amazon.  I waited for the person to post his review, then I emailed Amazon again.  Amazon never got back to me…

 

                The review by this person didn’t really affect me so much.  Sales were already low, so he was pretty much kicking a dead horse.  Even so, it annoyed me greatly…it feels good to write about it now.  Other reviews were posted, most were good, but I think my book had already drifted to the realm of the unknown.

 

                I read that sales might go up when you publish your second book.  I published my second book, but I accidently did it under a different name.  1^st book: Daniel Glen Matuzas  2^nd book: Daniel Matuzas.  I think this caused problems because the website may have viewed the books as published by two different people and thus it didn’t contact those that bought the first book.  I changed the author, but sales never really happened…I think maybe six people bought my second book.  Maybe my first book wasn’t good and that is why, but I like to think that my story was compelling enough to have readers want for more.

 

                In conclusion, a good honest review really boosted sales.  Then a really negative review, that was altered to hurt more, destroyed sales.  Reviews are important.  Maybe if more people had written reviews the highly negative one would’ve been drowned out.  I am smart enough to understand that I might not have gotten many reviews because people didn’t think too much of my book…I hope I don’t come across as a kid crying over spilled milk.  As I said before, I’m happy that I tried and I’m happy knowing that I can walk away saying I was honest and gave it a good go.