They say the best way to thank an author is to write a review of his books. The book is purchased, that is a business transaction. If you like the book or even if you don’t, a review is a way of saying thank you to the author for taking the time and massive effort to write the book.
Reviews, even poor reviews, generate sales. Amazon promotes your books when they achieve a certain level of reviews. For example, when you are looking for a new book you may see a section that says “Customers who bought this item also bought this…” Or you may see “You might also like this…” They usually list several books in this section.
Amazon selects these books based not only on sales but also on the number of reviews a title has. The big threshold is twenty reviews followed by another step at fifty. So, you see a review as simple as “I liked the book.” makes a huge difference if there are enough of them.
If you purchased your copy at a book signing and not through Amazon you can still leave a review. In that case, it is not marked as a verified purchase. One word of caution, Amazon will not accept a review where you show a relationship with the author. If you say the author is a friend or family it won’t be accepted.
While I will always love a review, this applies to any book. If you spent a couple hours with a story and enjoyed it, leave a review. In my case, you can go to Amazon, enter either my name or the book title in the search bar, and once you get to the books page scroll down to the reviews. Follow the simple instructions and you gave the author a great big thank you, a reason to live and incentive to keep writing.
Thank you,
Bob Weisskopf
