Why You Shouldn't Get Reviews For Your Book (My Approach To KDP Publishing in 2021)

About this video

Sean argues against advice to chase 100 to 1,000 reviews per book, or to get more reviews than a competitor, at least after the initial launch. He presents this as his opinion from his own publishing experience and observing top publishers over, he says, the past five years. His core claim is that reviews follow sales rather than sales following reviews: if a book is good and sells, reviews arrive organically. He says he personally gets only 20 to 40 reviews during launch — elsewhere in the video 10 to 20, or 20 to 30 initially — and then focuses only on marketing and sales, and that he has books with hundreds of reviews, one with almost 700 reviews, built mostly organically. He cites examples where books with 11,000 reviews had only around 97,000 BSR and a book with 10,000 reviews had 143,000 BSR, while books with 20 reviews reached 19,000 BSR and 14 reviews reached 14,000 BSR. He concludes publishers should get a modest number of reviews at launch, then stop wasting time on review chasing and sell a good book with a good cover, title and unique angle.

Key takeaways

• Reviews follow sales: a good, in-demand book that sells will accumulate reviews organically
• Get only a minimum launch base — he variously describes it as roughly 10 to 40 reviews — then shift focus to sales
• A huge review count does not guarantee sales if there is no demand or the book is poor
• Top publishers he observes can launch with zero or very few reviews and still sell strongly
• Post-launch, prioritise cover, title, unique proposition, marketing and ads over review-chasing services and groups

Episode details: published July 19, 2021 · 9:22 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Sean Dollwet’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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