Over the weekend, I lost all the reviews from a single reviewer. That means one less review for about a half dozen of my books.
Since I have so few reviews, I know exactly which reviewer it was. The name associated with all of the reviews was Linda. I have no clue who Linda is. So, she's not a friend or an associate or anything. She was just someone who read my books and reviewed them. And now her precious reviews are gone.
I don't call them precious because they were all glorious 5-stars praising the awesomeness of my writing. In fact, she kinda hated In Deep Wish. (Or rather, hated Jo in that particular book. She didn't wait around to see how the character arc worked out. :shrug:) I called them precious, because when you only have single digits in the reviews, every one of them is crucial. Hell, less than a hundred or so reviews* makes them all precious.
Reviews are harder to get than a winning lottery ticket. (If you figure in the low-dollar winners.) And I earned the reviews. It wasn't luck that dropped them in my lap, that's for sure. Oh, I could probably shell out some money to have my book distributed as freebies to reviewers. (Not paying for reviews, but paying for the opportunity to get reviews. Or something.) Except I can't bring myself to do that.
I'm not sure, and I have no way of knowing, what happened. They were there on Friday. Saturday, they were gone. I lost some reviews earlier in the year, too. DE dropped from 30 reviews to 29 reviews. AD dropped from 10 to 9. Now, they have 28 and 8. Poor IDW had 6 and now it has 5. Even if the star average went up a little, I can't be happy about that.
Whether it's Amazon policing fake reviews, or for some reason the person just deleted them, or somehow the person lost their Amazon account... :deep sigh: They're gone. Probably forever. Which makes me sad.
Poor little lost reviews. =o(
Anyway, if you've read any of my books, please review them. If you've already reviewed them, thank you thank you thank you! If you haven't read them, give them a try and then review them. (Do not leave a review, ever, for a book you haven't read. That's just wrong.) Every honest, organic review helps*.
-B.E.
*I'm assuming that once you get more than a hundred reviews, you lose track of them and missing one won't crumple your sales. I could be wrong, but I have no way of knowing at the moment.
**Okay, even bad reviews. Because it's the number of reviews, in addition to the star average, that helps with marketing. And marketing sells books. And book sales are how writers keep writing more books.
I tend to leave reviews on Goodreads and on B&N (especially if the book doesn't have many), but not usually on Amazon, because I just don't buy my books from them. However, I copied my Goodreads review and put it on Amazon for Wish in One Hand today, because I'm thinking the review I left on B&N disappeared when the book disappeared. And I had read the e-book, so it must have been on B&N at one time.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks when reviews go missing. Fortunately, I haven't noticed that happening with my books, but then I haven't really been paying that much attention.
Thank you very much, Stacy! Now, let's see if Amazon lets it stay. :fingers crossed:
DeleteI read the first bit and immediately went to check. Mine are still there. You never know with the 'zon, even though I'm a verified purchaser. Grrr. And yes, reviews are like gold when it comes to marketing. I wish I knew how to get them. It's a vicious circle--need reviews to get advertising to get sales, need advertising to get sales to get reviews. *head explodes purple smoke*
ReplyDeleteI don't have a solution either. I'll surely share it if/when I come up with one. Like you, I'll just keep writing and hoping. And drinking coffee. Because coffee makes all things better. :)
Yep. Yours and Deb's are still there. Verified Purchaser helps, but I'm a Verified Purchaser of your books and they won't let me review them. (In case you wondered why I hadn't reviewed any of the newer ones yet... and why the reviews of your older ones are gone.) Which sucks because your books being awesome has nothing to do with our friendship. :insert expletives: =o\
DeleteB.E. - I've "heard" that if you use the same e-mail account for Amazon that you do for social media (or even link the two), that that may be why they won't let you review. Don't know how true that is, but my social media e-mail is different (and I definitely don't link them with Amazon) and I've never had an issue with reviewing another author's work.
Delete