This is a common question from first-time authors. It’s understandable: they have just got one or four or more positive reviews on their first book, their first reviews from strangers. Their parents raised them to say thank you, so they want to thank the reviewers. But they’ve heard it’s not appropriate to respond to reviews. So should they respond, or should they ignore the review?
As with many questions in publishing, it depends.
In this case, whether to respond or not depends on where the review was published:
- Amazon or Other retail site.
- Bookbub or another promotion site.
- Goodreads or another booklover site.
- The reviewer’s own website or blog.
Amazon or Other Retail Site
It is generally agreed that authors shouldn’t respond to reviews on Amazon or other retail sites, even if the review is positive. Responding to the first review is setting a precedent: are you going to respond to every review, even when you get hundreds, or thousands? No–because spending time responding to reviews means you’re not spending time writing the next book. And that’s what your fans really want–the next book.
Responding to a negative or critical review is even worse.
What are you going to say? Most authors respond by defending themselves or their book. That isn’t a positive response, and it will discourage people from reviewing your book … which will discourage people from buying your book. And defending your book won’t change the reviewer’s mind. You had 50,000 or 90,000 words in the book to convince them. If your book didn’t convince them, a 100-word rebuttal on Amazon won’t.
Either way, responding to reviews tells people you read your reviews and take them to heart. Is that a good idea? Instead, thank them by writing your next book.
The one possible exception is if a reviewer asks a direct question.
Even then, it’s probably best to ignore the question—answering shows you read your reviews. If the reader really wanted the answer, they could contact you through your website (because your Amazon Author Central page has your website link, doesn’t it?).
I’d also caution authors against “Liking” positive reviews or asking fans to Like positive reviews. There are two reasons for this advice:
- It’s against Amazon’s Reviewing Guidelines for authors to attempt to “drown out other people’s opinions” by coordinating with others (especially if that is an attempt to upvote positive reviews to hide critical reviews).
- When a book has only a few reviews and all the five-star reviews have one Like, but none of the critical reviews have been voted helpful, customers might suspect the author (or their spouse or BFF) is the only voter. As with commenting on positive review, this doesn’t give a good impression.
Promotional Site
I’m not as familiar with promotional sites. I use Bookbub, which now allows readers to add reviews and follow authors. Authors can Like reviews, and comment on them. However, I couldn’t find any guidelines for authors. My suggestion would be to join the site as a reader and see how other authors behave.
Booklover Site
Goodreads has a simple view on whether authors should respond to reviews: don’t.
Don’t engage with people who negatively rate or review your books. We cannot stress this enough.
Blog or Website
But don’t feel obliged to comment if they didn’t enjoy the book, especially if they got the book via a blog tour or a service like NetGalley.
If a reader has taken the time to email you (and that email isn’t anonymous), then it’s worth sending a quick “thank you” in reply. I suggest developing three brief email response templates, and cutting and pasting:
- Thank you for people who tell you they enjoyed the book, and a suggestion they review your book on Amazon or Goodreads, or sign up for your reader newsletter.
- Thank you, and I’ll fix them in the next update for people who email you about real or imagined typos.
- I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the book to people who didn’t enjoy the book. Or nothing at all.
If you do choose to reply, keep it brief. After all, your fans want the next book, and you don’t want to give the haters more time or brain space than necessary.
Thanks for that clarification, Iola. A while ago, I gave a positive review of someone’s book on Goodreads and they thanked me for the review. Although it was positive, it did make me feel a little strange. I hadn’t expected that the author would be reading and commenting, though I do read all my reviews – LOL. I think it would have been different if it was someone I knew personally, but it felt a bit weird coming from a stranger.
Though I hadn’t thought about potential problems with liking reviews. I’ve done that with my own. Mmm .. maybe it’s best to ignore it. If it’s someone you know well, you can always thank them in an email or message, but not on a public forum.
Yes, you can definitely thank reviewers you know privately. I also think it’s okay to thank them if you sent them a review copy and they’ve reviewed it on their blog … but not on Goodreads or Amazon.
I have noticed a few authors liking my reviews on BookBub. That doesn’t have a comment or discussion feature, which means authors can’t enter into a conversation.
P.S. Whoops – I just thought of something else regards ‘liking’ reviews. I’ve only done that on Goodreads where they have a ‘like’ button. On Amazon, it’s a ‘helpful’ button, which I think is different. If you click that button, you’re not saying you like the review but that you found it helpful. While an author might genuinely find a review helpful (e.g. if it gave some constructive feedback), I think it’s really meant for readers. So authors should steer clear of that one.
Yes, authors should definitely steer clear of Amazon’s “helpful” button (and from asking followers to “upvote” Amazon reviews), as this can be considered content manipulation:
“Don’t attempt to drown out other people’s opinions, including by posting from multiple accounts or coordinating with others.”
– https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730
I want to engage my readers and appreciate they took the time to share their thoughts on my book which encourages others to seek out my book. Not everyone will love your voice and you have to take the good with the bad when you are a writer. Until I have thousands of reviews and hoping I won’t have time to respond to my audience, I will continue to show my readers I appreciate them…because I am nothing without my readers. Some writers set themselves on a pedestal to be adorned and held in a special consideration because the are a writer. I humble myself to my readers and want them to be able to approach me knowing I do care what they think. As for the reviewer who is seeking their own kind of stardom by bringing attention to themselves by giving your work a one star review….I have news for them. That one star review I will turn into one hundred five star reviews and just realize you have arrived ….that one star review just put you on the page. Negativity can breed positivity in the end game.