Advance reader copies are seed packets. You scatter a lot of them, and only a few come up. How many to plant, and whether the harvest is worth the work, comes down to the numbers.
A first-time author in an ARC group asked a question every new author eventually asks. What are your average numbers for ARC sign-ups, and how many of those readers follow through with a review?
The answers were sobering. One author had 109 readers sign up and 13 reviews after two weeks. Another had 150 and got about 70. Another sent 502 copies and got 45. One author with 15 books said she gave up on ARCs around book three because it’s like pulling teeth.
What percentage of ARC readers leave a review?
Fewer than you’d hope.
Two commenters guessed 10 percent and 20 percent as typical, and the actual numbers in the thread ran from there to about half.
My own numbers sit at the bottom of that chart. When Focus on LinkedIn first came out, I sent over a thousand ARC copies and got 78 reviews. For my book on selling on eBay, originally titled How to Sell on eBay, I sent 500 requests and got somewhere around 20 or 30 reviews.
The biggest difference between the top of the chart and the bottom is the relationship. Someone who runs ARCs for one author reported follow-through above 60 percent. That author is personable with followers on social media, and every ARC applicant gets vetted for a history of leaving reviews. A reader who already likes you, and who has reviewed books before, is a different reader from a stranger who grabbed a free download.
Cold lists are where most seeds fall on rock.
How do you get ARC readers to leave reviews?
Make it easy and make it clear. An ARC reader in the thread said her biggest problem is authors who never say when the book releases or when the review is due, so the book sinks to the bottom of her reading pile. Tell readers the release date, the review date and exactly where to post.
Give them more than one place to post. One author found that some of her ARC team doesn’t use Amazon at all, so she added a Goodreads link. Another set up email automations to remind readers at the right time, and said it helped.
Choose quality over quantity. Vetting applicants for a history of reviewing cuts your sign-up numbers and raises your follow-through. Ten thoughtful reviews do more than a pile of star ratings with no text.
And make sure the book is ready. One author said her best advice to her younger self would be to edit the book before sending ARCs. A rough ARC earns rough reviews, and those stay up after you fix the book.
Where do authors find ARC readers?
The common routes are your own newsletter list, ARC groups on Facebook, and services built for it. BookFunnel lets you deliver review copies and set up a sign-up page for your ARC team. Booksprout connects authors with readers who want advance copies and tracks who reviews. NetGalley is the big one traditional publishers use, and it costs more.
The other common route is the launch discount. You price the ebook at 99 cents, or whatever the minimum is, during the first days of the launch, get as many people as you can to buy it at that price, and ask them to leave a review.
Either way, it takes months.
ARC copies are seed packets. You scatter a lot of them and only a few come up. Plant in good soil, with readers who already know you. – Richard LoweShare on X
Can family and friends review your book on Amazon?
No. Amazon checks for it, and it considers reviews from family members, close friends and anyone with a financial interest in the book a violation. Business associates fall in the same category. Reviews that look connected to the author get removed, and repeat problems put the account at risk.
What are the rules for ARC reviews?
Amazon follows the FTC rules, and the FTC rules are simple. You can give a reader an ARC, a free copy or a discounted copy. You can’t demand a five-star review, or any particular number of stars. All you can say is that you’re giving them the book so they can write an honest review.
That’s the key. Send out copies and ask for honest reviews, and you’re fine. Send them out and tell people to leave five stars, and you’ve broken the rules. Anything beyond the book itself, like a gift card or a payment, also crosses the line. The FTC also expects reviewers to disclose that they received the book free, so remind your ARC readers to say so in the review.
One commenter warned that Amazon has been removing ARC reviews lately and flagging launches with a sudden flood of them as manipulation. Read the current guidelines before you launch, and tell your ARC readers what they can and can’t say. I covered the rules and the legitimate routes in how to get honest Amazon reviews.
Do book reviews increase sales?
Yes, and the research is fairly clear on that. How much they help is a different question.
The best-known study comes from Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center. It found that a product with five reviews is 270 percent more likely to be purchased than a product with none. The effect was bigger for more expensive products, a 380 percent increase in conversion, against 190 percent for cheaper ones. Then the curve flattens. The researchers found the marginal benefit of more reviews drops off quickly after the first five.
The same research found that perfect scores backfire. Purchase likelihood peaked for ratings between 4.0 and 4.7 stars and dropped as ratings approached 5.0, because shoppers don’t trust a perfect score.
For books, economists Judith Chevalier and Dina Mayzlin compared the same titles on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. When a book’s reviews improved on one site, its sales improved on that site relative to the other. Customer reviews had a real, causal effect on what people bought.
And one-star reviews hurt more than five-star reviews helped.
Even bad reviews aren’t all bad. A study by Jonah Berger, Alan Sorensen and Scott Rasmussen found that a negative review in the New York Times raised sales by about 45 percent for books by unknown authors, because it made people aware the book existed. For established authors, a bad review cut sales by about 15 percent. I wrote more about living through those in how to handle a bad book review.
Are reviews essential to sell a book?
I’ve never seen numbers that say so. I know reviews help. I don’t think they’re essential.
When I look at a book on Amazon with no reviews, I read the description and decide. Then I read a review or two. I think most buyers decide on the cover, the title and the description first, and reviews confirm a decision they’ve half made. The research above fits that. The jump from zero reviews to five is large, and after that each new review adds less.
The thread had good evidence on this too. One fantasy romance author has only 5 reviews on one book and 13 on another. Her sales come from book shows and comic cons, where readers meet her and pick up the book in person. Another author said early reviews helped some, but social media marketing did more. The reviews were just social proof when curious people clicked through from a post.
That matches my own experience. What has sold my books is talking to people directly, at events and on LinkedIn, and not the review count.
Two of my ghostwriting clients have done well with reviews. One book has 37 and the other has 24. I haven’t asked them how, but I suspect they asked people in their networks to read it and leave a review as a favor. It’s not that hard to get reviews. It’s a lot of work to get people to buy the book and then follow through.
How many reviews does a book need?
Get to five.
The research says the first five do most of the work, and a book with a handful of honest reviews no longer looks like nobody has read it.
After that, the next twenty matter less than the description, the cover and how you reach readers. A launch with 70 ARC reviews looks good. A book that sells steadily for two years because the author shows up where readers are looks better.
Plant your ARC seeds in good soil. Send copies to readers who know you or who have a track record of reviewing, tell them exactly what you need and when, and don’t let the review count become the measure of the book. The publishing and marketing hub has more on launches and promotion, and if you’d like help planning your launch, my self-published author service covers it. Scatter the seeds, water the ones that sprout, and keep writing the next book.
