Book Reviews: Understanding the Psychology Behind Them and How to Get Readers to Leave a Review: (A Perspective from a Former Reviewer)

By Kelly Santana-Banks

Book reviews are an essential tool to increase your visibility, validate your work, engage more readers, and boost online sales. This is especially true if you are an indie author. In a digital world where consumers depend on reviews to make purchasing decisions, book reviews can give you an edge over competitors. Book Reviews: Understanding the Psychology Behind Them and How to Get Readers to Leave a Review gives you the knowledge and tools to do just that. 

 

This book will help you to:

 

• Understand the history and psychology of book reviews to recognize their impact on consumers
• Learn the many ways that book reviews can benefit reviewers, readers, and authors
• Uncover the system of Amazon algorithms to take your book to the top
• Learn the types of book reviews and how to get them
• Discover the dos and don'ts of reaching out to reviewers
• Know what to do with your book reviews once you have them

 

As an added bonus, this book includes a PDF of over 200+ websites where you can get book reviews. 

 

Kelly Santana Banks is an author and former book reviewer who shares her experience and expertise to teach you how to succeed in marketing your self-published books. Her extensive research and straightforward instruction make it easy to tackle the task of book promotion. 

 

Read the book to start turning your readers into reviewers today!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Santana-Banks
• Release date: May 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9780997753097

Kelly Santana-Banks

Kelly Santana-Banks is a writer of nonfiction and children's books, and a former early childhood teacher and caregiver. When she was young, she loved to play teacher with her sister, cousins, and neighbors. As a young adult, she never considered teaching as a career, but little did she know that her childhood make-believe would pave the way to what would become her passion. With more than ten years of experience working with children-five of those years were dedicated to research in the area of child development as well as implementing best practices inside and outside of the classroom and a strong background in child development, she is an advocate for education, diversity, and inclusion. She writes fun, educational stories to entertain and teach children as well as help parents find simple solutions for their little ones' lives and make their world a better place.You can find more about her or connect on her site www.kidpressroom.com.

Book preview

Introduction

Have you ever thought about the real reason people read reviews? Perhaps, why do people write reviews?

My first serious encounter with providing reviews started when I became an official book reviewer for Readers’ Favorite: Book Reviews and Award Contest almost eight years ago. At the time, my goal was to get access to as many books as I could while also providing feedback to authors and helping them to improve their craft. Like many people who start reviewing books, I was simply a book lover. So, I didn’t give much thought to the meaning behind their rating system. While still a rookie, one aspect that caught my attention was how the website chose to publicize its ratings. If you are not familiar with Readers’ Favorite, in a nutshell, this editorial review service only posts reviews on established sites with ratings upwards of four stars. If reviewers have issues with the book or feel the book is worth less than that, they are encouraged to send a private message to the author providing feedback on how to improve their material.

Fast forward, I left book reviews behind (aside from writing them sporadically at my leisure), and I went on to write books myself. But do you know that lingering feeling of something missing? Have you felt like you want to move on from a chapter in your life, but find that you must turn back to it one way or another? That was the way I felt about reviews. No matter what I did, the saga of reviews, as you will find out later in the chapters, always followed me. Perhaps, by moving to the other side of the fence, I was able to see things from a full-circle perspective. Before, as a book reviewer, my view was limited to that of a reader only. Nonetheless, the rationale behind the Readers’ Favorite policy was my first real awakening to how important reviews are for an author’s book marketing strategy!

The aim of helping writers, especially indies, enhance their search for book reviews is how this material came to be. The purpose of this guide is to help you understand the consumer’s psychology when it comes to reviews. What is the reason some people leave reviews and others do not (either positive or negative)? What do reviews trigger in people’s minds? What steps can you take to improve your chance to get a review?

Find out in the next pages. I sincerely hope that the views in this material shed light on the dynamics of reviews, how they influence people and their habits, and how you can use this information to your advantage. As a bonus, you will also find a plethora of places to get book reviews. Let’s dive in.

Part I:

The Issue Unfolded

1.

The History of Book Reviews

In order for you to understand the real meaning of reviews, it is important to take a look at how reviews came about.

Writing book reviews always had a positive academic, social, political, and ethical effect. Book reviewing dates back to Athens in 140 BC, later being institutionalized in Paris, 1665, with the Journal des Scavans. At that time, book reviews were done to call attention from scholars about the literary world and current academic issues.¹

In 1802, The Edinburgh publication made book reviewing what it is today—picking and choosing what to review. However, the books that did receive reviews were regarded with distinction. That is because the new publication allowed scholarly material to be judged for quality with post-publication reviews.¹

With the growing number of books, the demand for guidance about the quality of those manuscripts started to increase as well. Scholars wanted