How to Leave a Book Review on Amazon and Goodreads (and why you should)

Reviews help readers find good books and help authors find new readers, but there are other reasons why you should leave a review on a book that you enjoyed. This blog post is all about the why and how to leave book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Hrmm is this worth a read? Check the reviews!

Okay, firstly, let's talk about the WHY.

5 reasons why you should leave a book review:

1. Reviews help readers determine whether a book is worth spending time and money on - Some readers will decide to read a book based on a pretty cover, but MOST readers decide whether to read a book as a result of a recommendation or a book review. A reader is able to browse reviews to find out whether the book might be something that they will enjoy or whether it meets their needs.

2. Reviews help authors find new readers - Reviews help to promote books and spread the word about a good read. Authors love to write books, but many of us don't love marketing. Reviews help us market our work (which gives us more time to spend writing).

3. Reviews help to make sure that Amazon promotes the books worth promoting - Now, I don't claim to understand the 'Zon algorithms, but I do know that Amazon will help to actively promote books with higher numbers of positive reviews, which increases our book's visibility. Yay.

4. Reviews help to ensure that readers receive emails with better quality and more appropriate reading suggestions - Have you ever received an email with some really odd recommendations? Yeah, leaving a review might help to avoid that.

5. Reviews give authors helpful information to learn and grow - Not only is it super encouraging to know that people are actually reading and enjoying what we write, it is also helpful to find out what people liked best or didn't like at all, so that we can improve our writing in the future.

Now you understand why, let's talk get practical and talk about HOW you can leave a book review.

How to leave a book review on Amazon:

First up, to leave a review on Amazon, you need to meet 2 requirements:

1. You need to have an Amazon account (and be logged in), and

2. You need to have spent $50 on Amazon within the last 12 months

If that is you, then you are good to go.

Let me tell you something awesome:

** You can leave reviews for books that you did NOT purchase on Amazon **

The only difference this will make, is if you did purchase the book on Amazon, your review will have a little orange 'verified purchaser' label on it.

Now, if you really don't want to have to write any words for your book review, then you can just give the book a star rating out of 5.

To leave a star rating on Amazon:

• Log into your Amazon account

• Find the book that you want to leave a rating on

• Scroll down to where the customer reviews are

• Click on the button that says 'Write a customer review'

• Click the number of stars that you wish to give the book out of 5

• That's it. The star rating saves automatically and you will see a little green 'Submitted' message (see the picture below).
  

To leave a book review on Amazon

• Follow all of the same steps above, but continue to add more details:

• You can add a headline, photo or video, and a written review

• There are no requirements for what it needs to say or what you need to include. You can make general comments about what you thought of the story, how it flowed, and if you found it to be an easy read, or you can include more details about what you liked or didn't like, or whatever else you wish to share.

• Then, click the 'Submit' button.

• Done! The author and all other readers who find their next read by reading the reviews on Amazon all thank you for your time and efforts.
  

How to leave a book review on Goodreads:

To leave a review on Goodreads, you need to have a Goodreads account. If you don't already, I highly recommend that you set yourself up with one becase not only can you browse and leave reviews, but you can also set yourself reading goals, track your own reading, and save books that you hear about and want to read in the future. This will mean that you will never forget a book title again! Someone says "hey, have you read xyz? It was really good!", then you can open your Goodreads app, find the book, and click the 'Want to read' button. Honestly, this is a gamechanger.

Okay, so now you have your Goodreads account,

• Use the search function to find the book that you wish to leave a review for:

• The, when you have found it, you can click on 'Read' (to show that you have read this book. This will add it to your list of read books and you can add start and finish dates if you want)

• Give the book a star rating out of 5, just like on Amazon. And, if you wish you can also

• Click the button to 'Write a Review'

• Here, you will have the option to add more details:

• Then click the 'Post' button and you're all done! Awesome!

Now, there are lots of different ways that you could interpret the star ratings and I'm not going to tell you how many stars to leave. Some people freely give 5 stars for books they enjoyed reading, while others will only give 5 stars on rare occasions for a read they deem to be perfect. Some people say that 3 stars is a good read, while others say that 3 stars is pretty average. How you interpret that star rating and is up to you. As an author, I can says that a book with 5 stars has likely only been read and reviewed by friends and family members and a 3 star rating is a little bit disappointing to receive. That being said... now i'm going to say something a little controversial here...

I would rather receive an honest 'bad' review than no review at all.

Something to remember: You cannot stuff up a book review or get it wrong!

As long as:

• You have actually read the book, and

• Are not trashing the book or the author

Then what you write is up to you. Book reviews are subjective. What you loved might be what someone else hated! Your favourite character may have been someone elses least favourite. Write whatever you are moved to write.

Yes, Amazon and Goodreads are the top places to leave a review, but if you they don't work for you then I assure you that an author will be more than happy to receive your review in any way that you would like to give it! Send an email, post on social media and tag them, write a blog post, do a video review on TikTok or YouTube, whatever works for you.

Any questions? Please let me know and I can do a follow up post.

Hopefully this has motivated you to go out and reviewth thine books! Please do. It helps.

Much love,

Marley

P.S. If you wish to review any of my books on Amazon. You can click HERE if you're in Oz, or HERE if you're not. If you wish to review any of my books on Goodreads, click HERE. And remember, if you're not feeling wordy, clicking those stars helps a lot too! You rock xx