This post has been moved! The Indie How-To Index has become Boyce’s Guide to Writing, a separate blog dedicated to helping writers succeed. You can see the original post here and explore the site for other great tips and advice.
This post has been moved! The Indie How-To Index has become Boyce’s Guide to Writing, a separate blog dedicated to helping writers succeed. You can see the original post here and explore the site for other great tips and advice.
I’ve always noticed a bigger jump in sales after a negative review than from a positive review. So I spend as much time promoting the negative reviews as the positive ones. On the grammar issue, I think you still need to take things with a grain of salt. All new releases are going to have a grammar issue here and there. The problem is that a lot of people simply aren’t all that educated and they don’t even know what proper grammar is. My editor spends a huge amount of time meticulously editing our books. If people claim to find grammar errors, I’d like them to actually show the evidence. That way the “error” can be changed if it indeed exists, or ignored if the reviewer turns out to be an uneducated fool.
It’s really neat that you promote negative reviews. Do you pick ones that balance the good with the bad, and perhaps rated 3 stars? I’m curious to see which you pick.
Great post! Though, since some people lie, if they complain of grammar I’ll usually read a sample to see if that’s really the case LOL. All in all, reviews have little weight in what books I buy
Yeah, with books I don’t usually dwell long on the reviews. I tend to look at the average rating and compare that with the number of reviews total, but that’s about it. I let the sample speak for itself from there.