Free books and reviews

I don't use Netgalley, but I do use Amazon to find free reads here and there. If I didn't enjoy/finish a book I tend not to leave a review unless it was just completely different from what I was lead to believe. I do try my best to leave reviews every other time though.

Speaking from what I've seen and had happen, getting reviews are hard with books. Even if you do offer a free copy there is a good chance there won't be a review. I really think it's a cross your fingers, wait and see kind of thing. Good luck and may the force be with you.

The question is how many of these reviewers leave reviews. I don't know about Netgalley but for Story Cartel it is more like 1 out of 4 or 5. For Netgalley I suspect it would be a bit better, For Goodreads a bit worse. Amazon giveaway used to be about 1/10 but recently seem to be dividing towards 1/50. this is just based on what I see authors saying on various forums.

I don't use NetGalley as a blogger, but I did use it as an author. I don't think I would do it again. I used a co-op (I recommend that method!). The co-op portion worked well, but the co-op people warned me that sometimes reviewers on NetGalley seem to ge excited about free books and don't bother to take the time to read the blurb about what the book is about. But NetGalley keeps track of whether or not reviewers write reviews, and authors have the option not to give free books to people that don't follow through with reviews. So then you get reviews with few stars that say, "I didn't read the blurb, but I didn't like this book because I don't really like this genre."

I haven't done the free amazon thing yet, but I did do a giveaway on Library Thing. The ratio of free books to reviews is not great, but to me still worth it. I consider every review to be gold! And plus having your book listed gives it some exposure.

My next book will have a hard copy, so I will do a Goodreads giveaway too. There is also a new site that bares watching--BookLikes.

My publisher uses Netgalley, and my understanding is that users who request books from Netgalley are obligated to do a public review somewhere.

I don't know if there's any way to make that kind of requirement when doing free books on Amazon.

You could also contact some review sites directly to submit your book for review (most review sites I know of include a submission form that also asks whether the book is available on Netgalley Eidelweiss...so I assume they'd contact you if interested in getting a copy to review).

Even Netgalley can't make anyone do anything--but they have a record of whether you did.

I had a good response using Goodreads' free e-book giveaway through their author connections program.

My publisher sent me a Netgalley widget to help inspire reviews and so far it's been a big fat zero. I received a few replies from people who seemed interested in doing a review, they even offered to do a brief interview and still nothing. It's been like two months since I've had contact with them so I'm thinking they either haven't gotten to it yet, or they hated it and don't want to promote something they hate.

Offering free ebooks on Amazon from what I've heard tends to lead to serial downloading, and many of those are from people who may never even read your book much less comment on it.

Sorry. I know I'm just a little ray of sunshine today.

Recently with one of our authors, we gave away a free version of an eBook to get reviews.

Over 4K downloaded the eBook for free, we have 36 reviews currently.

Not a great conversion rate for reviews from Amazon for us.

Maybe you will have better luck...

chickenma said:

What? Nobody reads free ebooks?

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Actually I don't. I'm very picky what I read, and being free won't make me want to read it more or read it just because it is free.

I don't read free books. No real reason why though.

For my books I've tried everything to get reviews. I had the most luck with Goodreads. Library Thing didn't work for me. Gave away 25 copies and got 0 reviews in return.

chickenma said:

Wow. Well, thanks everybody - I guess that helped.

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What do you mean by "I guess that helped"? People responded to your question honestly. You may have not received the answer you were seeking, but people took the time to respond. I think that is valuable and helpful.

I accept and sometimes seek out review copies. But I do not think of them as "free books". I am fairly quick to buy a book that there is even a small chance I might like because I can afford them fairly easily and if the first few pages suck, I can stop reading. I am very careful about the review copies I accept because I am committing a chunk of time to reading and reviewing the book and I don't do it lightly.

Has anyone ever tried a book give away to fan's something like handing a book to a fan with a business card and saying "you can have this book" if you promise to write a review on amazon or any other public site?

I know the object is to reach fans that you can't meet in person, but if every review is gold and it's free to write a review than wouldn't it be worth it?

Thanks
Micah

FREE Short Story
http://micahcakerman.weebly.com/short-stories.html

Wormwood said:

Has anyone ever tried a book give away to fan's something like handing a book to a fan with a business card and saying "you can have this book" if you promise to write a review on amazon or any other public site?

I know the object is to reach fans that you can't meet in person, but if every review is gold and it's free to write a review than wouldn't it be worth it?

Thanks
Micah

FREE Short Story
http://micahcakerman.weebly.com/short-stories.html

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Reviews should be requested, not demanded. No reader should feel obligated to review a book, only invited to do so. The review (whether good, bad or indifferent), benefits the author, not the reader.

As far as giving books away goes, I think too many authors view it as lost sales. Most people who download a book for free or request a review copy had no intention of buying it, so you've lost nothing even if they don't review it (as long as you're handing out ebooks anyway). But they might review it and it might mean sales, so there's potentially something to gain.

I do read free books, and I will sometimes review them, but I only get them through Amazon or direct downloads on the author's site. If there's any hassle involved in getting the book, or any strings attached, I won't download it.

I'm experimenting with a free short story at the moment. I haven't had a ton of downloads, but I haven't found too many sites that will publicize free short stories, for free.