How to get 100 book reviews in 10 days (without sleazy begging)

Getting reviews is NOT hard.

Jun 18, 2024

I learned this method in Publishing.com’s Audiobook Impact Academy, a program I highly recommend.

Howdy folks,

You may have already heard me say this, but it’s time for you to hear it again:

If you invest in a Facebook or LinkedIn profile for your business, then consider your book’s Amazon “profile” online to be of similar, if not higher, branding value.

Your business’s book, and its appearance online, is your stamp of authority on the Internet.

Period.

Anyone can make a Youtube channel, podcast, or Instagram Live. But to create a really good book is rare. To get more than 100 reviews on a self-published book can be even more rare.

But to get 100 reviews within 10 days of release? Those are gems, folks. And you could be one of them.

😰 “B-b-but Renee… getting reviews on books is hard!”

For some people, yes. Especially if they keep telling themselves it’s hard. Then it will be hard.

But for you, it will be easy. Not “easy” in that it won’t take some hard work to get the wheel turning, but easy in that you will understand how simple it can be, and why you hadn’t thought of this before.

First, consider the positive or negative feedback loop of life.

Do you choose to grind or do you choose to flow?

Over a certain threshold of reviews, people will believe that your book has enough social proof that, if they were already looking for a book like yours, they will no longer think twice about purchasing it.

I was taught, and I am now a firm believer, that that magic number is 100 reviews.

Once my book got to 100 reviews, I stopped asking for reviews, and the reviews just started coming in on their own (which also had to do with Amazon asking its customers to review their purchases and my consistent marketing of the book to buyers through Amazon ads).

Through consistent purchases, this book now has over 400 reviews. This is what authority looks like.

Can you establish authority with less than 100 reviews? I don’t know for certain. I don’t personally know many thought-leaders today who have less than 100 reviews for something as important to their brand as their book. How important is your authority to you? How much are you willing to risk it?

🤓 “Ok, fine, Renee. Just tell me what to do!”

The best way to get set up for success are the months leading up to your book launch, per usual. In the 3-5 months before your self-published book’s release date (and this can be longer if you are publishing through a publishing house),

Email your list and get the social media posts ready
Set up your book website, landing pages, and book-to-funnel lead magnet
Prepare your Amazon listing for SEO, including graphics, categories, and descriptions
Pitch to, get booked on, and record podcasts
Pick your book’s price
Finalize all your files
Start sending out digital advance-reader copies (ARCs) to 500-1,000 early readers in your audience

That last step is the crucial one to getting 100 reviews quickly. All of these people are getting an advance copy of your book so that when it’s time, you can send them a link to leave a review of your book on Amazon when it goes live.

As you can see, the follow-through rate of this method is about 10%-20%. Not bad!

The only rules for leaving a review on Amazon are that you cannot bribe or force anyone to leave a review, and direct friends and family should not leave a review (audience members are ok).

First, create a spreadsheet of who you’re sending copies to, where you found them, and their contact info. You will need to keep detailed records of this, because when it’s time to follow-up with people, you will save yourself hours of heartache if you stay organized (trust me on this). 😅
The second thing to do is to find a pool of 1,000 advance readers. If you already have an email list of 5,000 people, that might be sufficient. If you don’t, then go to Facebook or Reddit.

Facebook Groups and subReddits are amazing aggregators of interest on the Internet. No matter what your topic, whether it’s roadtripping, rainwater harvesting, or marketing on a budget, it is highly likely that you can find 1,000 people there just waiting to read a book like yours.

Join 20-25 groups, engage in there beforehand, then ask the admins for permission to make a post and post in the group that you have a free book to share. (The more groups you join, the better. Some groups will be duds and having engaged ones on the backburner will be great.)

Make a fun graphic on Canva that explains the benefits of your book to grab the group’s attention.

Then send the digital PDF to them via Facebook Messenger, making sure to tell them to check their spam box in case it gets sent there.

Bear in mind that Facebook doesn’t like it if you spam people, so if you have a lot of copies to send out when your Facebook post goes viral, send out 10 DMs in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, and 10 in the evening to keep off the Facebook police’s radar.

The thing to keep in mind here is momentum. I started handing these ARCs out 30ish days before I actually went live, and all the while, I kept tabs with them to let them know what to do, when, and how their review would be helpful.

A lil’ bit of friendship building first. Then I sent the PDF file straight to them and it was received very well. Some people thought I was a spammer, but that was only 3 out of 800 people. Funny thing is, I actually ended up visiting this wonderful lady and her family in France. Tons of fun.

In addition to contacting people on Messenger, my client Beth sent her users a landing page in order to grow her email list, which worked well.

Keep in mind that this can also create friction between you and the person you need to give clear instructions to later on, which can reduce the likelihood of them following through with a review, which can slow you down and cause frustration. However, if you only do Facebook Messenger, those people may never join your email list. The best of both worlds is having them join your email list for the ARC file and then follow up with them over Messenger.

Send out at least 500 copies. Aim for 1,000.

Then, when it’s time to hit the Amazon “Publish” button, it’s time to follow up with each individual, letting them know that it’s time to leave a review.

Momentum, momentum, momentum.

Give them the exact link to leave a review, leaving no friction:

https://amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=[Your Book’s Amazon ASIN number, which you will have when your book is published]

Your book’s ASIN is in your Product details (or on your KDP dashboard homepage) when you scroll down. An example review link for this book is `https://amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=B0B2K8RW7P`

You can maximize your Verified Reviews (which are reviews that came from an Amazon purchase, and show up across all Amazon marketplaces globally) with your ARC readers by starting a Free Book Promotion campaign on Amazon the day your book goes live, then telling everyone to “purchase” the book for free before leaving their review (enroll your eBook in KDP Select beforehand).

This is located under the Marketing tab in the KDP portal.

Expect that you will need to follow up with people 5-6 times before giving up on them.

Expect some people to leave a grateful review right away.
Expect some people to tell you to fu*k off.
Expect some people to spend more time justifying why they can’t leave you a review than they could have just leaving a damn review.

All part of the process. :)

Allow yourself to kinda feel like an asshole. People are busy and need reminding, and you may feel like you’re “bothering” them, but you are not. If you gave them a copy, they agreed to leave you a review, and silence never means no. They’re busy and overwhelmed. Help them out. Hold them to their agreement.

Ask longtime audience members and closer colleagues to leave a picture review or video review. These will give your Amazon listing credibility. A picture review is worth almost 10 written reviews, and I deem a video review worth almost 25 written reviews.

Look at all of these pretty reviews for Beth’s book There’s Wonder Around the Bend!

If you really keep the gas on the pedal, you can get 100 reviews within the first 30 days of your Amazon book launch period.

For my book, it took 10 days. For Beth, 100 reviews will probably take her 60 days; a lesson learned from working with her was that keeping momentum with strangers is very important. Otherwise they will forget about you and leave you in the dust.

Technically, this process can work with fiction and children’s books too. If you write in those genres and try this method, I’d love to know how it goes! Leave a comment below to share with the community what you learned!

Once you reach 100 reviews, you can take the gas off the pedal. As you continue to market your book with ads, podcasts, and social media, expect the reviews to come in as you make more sales.

When people see that 100 people have already left a review, they are much more likely to purchase your book when they go to your link in the podcast shownotes or on your Instagram Stories.

What’s amazing about this method is that you can apply it to anywhere along your book marketing journey. Even if you’re past your “initial” book launch period, you can still revive reviews and sales by going out and getting reviews with this exact method.

As you can see, getting book reviews does take some upfront labor. It can take some organization, following up, and canvassing, but guess what?

You now know that getting reviews isn’t hard…it just takes planning, intention, and upfront strategy. For all those authors that complain that getting 20 reviews was super hard and you should think it’s hard too…

Just smile and wave, boys.

👋🏽 Smile and wave.