Week 9 – in which I try to figure out whether anyone actually reads books any more
As we approach September, today feels like the first properly autumnal day: blustery, overcast, with the threat of rain. Not that I mind that – all seasons have their virtues – but it does require a change in mindset. A time for gathering up the fruits of your labours, and – I don’t know – making jam or something? (Sorry, I buy mine from Sainsbury’s.) A time for reflection, then, for seeing which crops have yielded, and which have failed.
Anyway, enough of the metaphor. For most of the year, I’ve been trying to find a reliable way to get reviews, so that when the press starts up in earnest, I have a slickly-oiled blurb machine ready to kick into gear. And it’s bloody hard. I knew this already from marketing my previous books, but it seems to have gotten much harder of late. Why? AI! you scream. Well, yes, maybe, but I suspect you’re just pandering to my well-known antipathy for all things LLM (thank you). In truth, I don’t really know; all I do know is that of the people who have bought or been gifted copies of my books, very few have felt the need to put virtual pen to virtual paper, or even just to leave a star rating. And of those who have, a few notable exceptions aside, let’s just say that I wish they hadn’t. But this isn’t an authorial lament about how the world misunderstands my genius; it is a practical analysis of what went well, and what didn’t, so that those of you who are also in the business of soliciting the opinions of the masses might learn something that is of use to you.
Let’s – as people were once wont to say – dive in!
For most of this year I have been promoting Ghosts and Monsters, the first part in the Tidelands series. These are four novella-length instalments (about 25k to 30k words each) that were originally intended together to form book 1 of the series, but I thought it would be a good idea to release them as separate parts. I priced the first cheaply, my thinking being that this would entice the wallet-conscious reader into taking a chance on a lesser-known author, and maybe draw them into reading on. The problem is, of course, that even cheap books need reviews, which introduces that old chicken-and-egg circular chestnut: you need reviews to sell books, and you need to sell books to get reviews.1
So how to get them? The first port of call was my newsletter subscribers. These are a disparate bunch of some 500 people that I’ve amassed over the years, and who take it in turns to ignore my emails. They’re a bit like the congregation at a sermon (I should imagine): the priest is droning on about the sinner, and how he should really do something about the state of his soul, and they sit there, thinking to themselves, “Wow. I’m glad I’m not that guy!” So when you say to them, “Will you please leave an honest review”, they naturally assume that you’re talking to someone else!
(Meteorological note: the rain is now following though on its threat. Where did I park my ark?)
The next step was to reach out to book bloggers. This is something I had done in the past, too, and I didn’t have high hopes – but it turned out I didn’t have high hopes enough! I sent out 42 requests, 34 of which never responded. Of those who did, one said they weren’t interested (fair enough), three tried to up-sell me to a paid review, and five asked for details. Of these five, two said they’d review it, and one eventually did – which turned out to be not much more than a recap of the blurb. This isn’t a great response rate – and note that these were all hand picked by genre; I approached no one that didn’t like SFF.
Next up were the paid review sites. Note: you’re not paying for reviews (which Amazon considers naughty, generally speaking), but merely for the privilege of the site putting your book in front of potential reviewers.
The first of these was Book Sirens, which is very professional, and the support staff were friendly and helpful. You upload your book, and wait to see if there are any takers. You then have the option to accept or decline requests based on the reviewer’s reputation and interests. The book is promoted by the site for three months, but after that it can stay up there for people to stumble across until you take it down. 1,566 people saw my book cover, 57 clicked to read more about it, and I had three people ask to read it (one of which came through my newsletter – Book Sirens has a handy link that you can send out to promote the review opportunity). This resulted in two reviews, one very brief but positive, the other from the aforementioned book blogger I’d already contacted directly, who was also a member of Book Sirens.
I then tried NetGalley. This is a well-known review site that is used a lot by mainstream publishers. It is usually very expensive, something like $550 for a 6 months listing, but various services run co-ops, which means that you can get a month listing for a much cheaper price by chipping in with other authors. I used Victory Editing, whose fees run from $63 a month, and who were very professional and helpful, and I have absolutely no problems with them at all. What I do have problems with were the quality of the reviews. And before you put this down to an “author complains world has hurt his feelings” situation, note that I said “quality” of reviews. Negative or critical reviews are par for the course, but I think a paid review service at least has the duty to ensure that reviews are professional and competent.
OK, the stats. In the month for which my book was listed, I had 450 views, 57 requests, 38 of which I accepted. Victory Editing recommends that you filter your requests according to the average review rating (no less than 3 or 4 stars), and an 80% review rate (the percentage of reviews left vs requests made). However, in practice, it was very hard to stick to these criteria, as very few reviewers had stats that high. Most had low review rates, which meant that they accepted lots of books and didn’t review them. Or else they didn’t read the right genres, or their reviews were poor quality. I ended up just trying to find people who looked half sensible. The result was that of the 38 people I approved, seven eventually downloaded a copy of the ebook, five of which ended up actually responding. Of these, one was a bookseller, who indicated that they wouldn’t stock it, and the rest were book bloggers/reviewers. One of these was a decent review, the other three were negative, two of which were poorly written hatchet jobs that spent most of the time complaining that they there weren’t getting the undersea adventure they were promised because they’d confused “flooded” with “submerged”. Again, I repeat: this is not sour grapes. Negative reviews are par for the authorial course, and you can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. What’s unacceptable is a professional, paid review service (NetGalley) making money from poor quality reviewing.
On the plus side, 27 people gave the cover a thumbs up, and no one gave it a thumbs down, which I guess is some small consolation.
(Weather update: it’s now sunny again, but there are clouds still lurking.)
The next thing I tried was an editorial review that was part of an advertising package offered by Dr Who Online, a respected and well established fan site for the aforementioned Time Lord. I had been approached by them to take out some advertising, which I decided to give a go, as there was a money-back guarantee if I didn’t make the fee back in sales and affiliate income (I didn’t). But they were nice people and I’ve no complaints, and the review was part of the package. This turned out to be a considered, positive review from someone who had obviously read the book. Was it worth the money? Editorial reviews are a weird breed. The bigger providers (magazines, newspapers) just accept a comp copy as payment, but it’s not unknown (e.g. Kirkus) for them to charge. I guess this gets around Amazon’s “no paid reviews” policy because the reviews are then listed on the provider’s own site, and must be entered on the Amazon book description page in special boxes by the author. There is also the question of integrity: an editorial review is classed as such because the reviewing entity is well known or established. Anyway, Dr Who Online seemed to qualify as this. Would I pay for editorial reviews in the future? I think not, as I don’t think a single quality review is going to shift the needle on a book’s sales. Nice to have, but not really worth paying for.
The last thing I tried was a StoryGraph giveaway. This is a newish site that is similar to Goodreads, where readers can leave reviews. The difference is that they can categorise books according to moods, themes, etc, which then makes it easier to find similar books of that sort – which is neat. The Giveaway feature is still in beta at time of writing, so was 50% cheaper (£49) than it will be. So, since the Goodreads Giveaway is not available in the UK (and I’ve heard not great things about it), I thought I’d give it a go. It was easy to set up, and I had a lot of reader interest. Giveaways run for a month, and you can specify what to give away (paperback, ebook, audiobook), how many copies, and which countries it’s open to. I decided on giving away 250 ebooks (the maximum allowed) to all English speaking countries, and 5 paperbacks to UK entrants only. In this time, I had approximately 57,300 people view the giveaway ad, 6,920 of which clicked to read the book description, and 4,480 of these entered one or both competitions (3,400 unique people). 271 people added the book to their to-be-read pile. That’s a pretty good return. When the giveaway closed, I was given a list of everyone who had won (these are randomly chosen by StoryGraph themselves), and winners are then given a week to claim their prize. If they don’t, their spot is given over to another random entrant, and this process is repeated two more times. At the end of three weeks, all entries are final, but you can start contacting winners as soon as they claim their prize (an updated spreadsheet with email addresses is available as soon as the contest closes). Overall, it was an easy thing to set up, and the only issue was working out how to send out 250 emails (you can’t subscribe them to your newsletter and do it that way, for GDPR reasons, so I ended up just sending out batches of 50 from my own email address – which is what StoryGraph recommended).
The results: it’s still only a month since the competition closed, but so far I’ve had 206 of the 250 winners download the ebook, and 5 reviews/ratings (mostly on StoryGraph, but a couple on Goodreads as well). These were mostly positive, but included one critical DNF. So again, not a wonderful return on investment, but not horrible – especially if some of those readers go on to read books later in the series and share on StoryGraph. Would I do it again? Not sure. Giving away free books is not the best way to get readers who will connect with your book, I think, because you value more what you invest in, and free almost always attracts the wrong sort of reader.
OK, in summary, I think that most of the above methods were not really worth it. There seems to be a general fatigue infesting the book reviewing and reading populace, which I think comes down to the sheer numbers of books out there. The notorious apathy of internet users in general is well known (look at the typical response rates for surveys or newsletters, for example, or the number of social media followers who convert into people who actually put their hand in their pocket to support a Kickstarter).
The other issue is visibility. The reason that most indie publishing pundits recommend that you write to market, pick a popular genre, release often, etc, is because that is the best way to get Amazon’s algorithm to notice you. Sure, you can have a viral breakout – your book may be snatched from obscurity to become a word of mouth bestseller, such as happened to Andy Weir’s The Martian – but you can’t plan for that. So – wisdom has it – if you want to be successful, you have to play the game.
But what if you don’t want to? What if you write is weird, or stylistically different? Remember that Amazon is not a genuine retailer, but rather an advertising space. 93% of the things it sells are from third party sellers, which means that it can have a “long tail” of products that it has no ultimate responsibility for, and doesn’t cost it anything to stock (in fact, they’re paid by sellers to do so). This means that they are not invested in the success of any individual seller, but in the long tail as a whole. You might only sell one book a month, but if there are millions selling at the same rate, then that adds up to a decent income – for Amazon. And given this situation, should authors and publishers really spend their time and money trying to … what? Tickle the algorithm? Whisper to it? Shouldn’t we really be trying to break out of its death-strangle and reach readers directly and authentically?
That’s all very well, Southwell Sensei, you say, but how do we do that? And what has this to do with reviews? Good questions. To answer the last first, reviews are “social proof”, evidence that people other-than-your-mum have read and like your book, and would recommend it to others. But they have to be the right readers, not just any. And this is where most of the above methods for gaining reviews fall down, as they do not emerge organically from people who have discovered your book in the right way. And how do they do that? That is indeed the bazillion dollar question. I suspect – and my thoughts are still at an early stage on this – it is to do with craft and attitude. You create something that embodies your most important creative and ethical values, and then you share it with people in a way that allows them to see that. This is what WoodPig Press is trying to do, for myself and other authors (eventually). How do you share it? Well, that’s more of a marketing thing, and a topic for another day.
As a little side note, I came across a nice review of Tidelands yesterday which lifted my spirits – until I got to the point where the reviewer quoted “a line that lingered with me long after I closed the book”. Which turned out to be one I’d never written. It was (I suspect) an AI “hallucination”, and the reviewer was using ChatGPT (or whatever) to help with reviews, which are then linked to the book on Amazon by an affiliate link. The other reviews on the site, which recycle the same language and phrasing, seem to support this interpretation. It’s all about the money. So maybe the death of online reviewing will turn out to be the fault of AI after all. But its demise will have been long coming.
(It has now officially stopped raining, and there are snatches of blue through the dispersing clouds – for now.)
- Some might argue that reviews don’t sell books, or at least that they have a negligible effect, and what matters is writing to market, a good cover that reinforces genre expectations, and a strong sample. Maybe. But I suspect that this is only true for those who are writing in the “churn them out” genres. I mean no disrespect. ↩︎