I just saw another author on social media who insists that Amazon gives a book "extra visibility" once it receives more than 50 reviews. A second author chimed in and thought it was 25 reviews. I've always heard that this was an urban legend - see [here] (https://kdp.amazon.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=1011862) and [here] (http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=221303.0).
Any thoughts?
Posted Dec 17, 2016, 3:59 PM UTC
During my research into best sellers in the various niches (in erotica only) I've noticed many listings in the top results have no reviews. (But it could be that very specific searches bypass Amazon's general algorithms and ranking factors.)
Erotica rarely has reviews associated with it. As a genre, it's going to be more about the niche and kink and the book looking like something the reader will want to read.
Extra visibility where?
A rule that allows people to game the system easily does not last. If there is a simple rule like 50 reviews gets you more visibility, then there are people out there who know how to get 50 fake reviews very quickly. They'll exploit it to the max and flood the market with crappy books with loads of reviews. So Amazon will never allow people to take advantage of its site like that for any length of time.
I remember reading somewhere that Amazon doesn't include books in some manner of email that have less than 50 reviews, but I have no idea what emails the person was referring to, or if there was any veracity to the statement. Essentially, I'm not saying anything.
Amazon gives more visibility to products that make Amazon more money, whether they have 1 review or 2,001. There might be some correlation to getting a sales boost once one reaches a certain review threshold, since there are a lot of people who use reviews to mitigate risk before making a purchase, but it's the actual sales that are translating to a boost in the rankings—not the reviews themselves.
Just adding...
It's likely where reviews help is in search results. But that assumes readers organically search for books (my very very informal surveys says that's not the case - although I think some readers do, most seem to rely on other ways of finding books, however my sample of the population is biased because I am talking with readers who aren't likely to find books via organic search).
Want to know what sells books, which gets books up in the rankings, which gives books more visibility to readers? Sales/Borrows. Reviews can help readers decide whether they will buy/borrow, but reviews don't increase rankings directly.
I totally agree. I think far, far fewer people find books via an organic search than those who find it through direct marketing, word of mouth, or ABs.
I can't say if it was my decision to stop worrying about keywords for anything but subcats and tropes that pushed me to this opinion, or if the opinion helped ease my concern about keywords.
Seriously, I can't say this enough, and because someone newish might be reading this. Cover > Title > Blurb. Those are what sells books. Keywords help with erotica in that readers will likely search for their kinks, but they won't help any if you don't have the Cover > Title > Blurb.
I think the blurb carries more weight than the title, personally. I've seen some books with absolutely ridiculous titles, but the cover and blurb twisted my arm and made me give them a shot anyway. My fave are the cringe-worthy pun titles. Those are like crack to me.
So that means that quantity of reviews doesn't increase visibility, right? Because, on Amazon, visibility = ranking.
There are several different areas of visibility on Amazon. Ranking is just one of them.
Search results, chance of being tossed in front of potential readers via organic means, Ads, the list goes on.
You guys are missing a big piece of pie. There's a ton of readers that use search to find books. That's pretty much all of the sales I've ever made talking. I don't do a lot of promotion (mostly just at launch) but my shorts are still selling 3 years later completely on organic amazon search.
I agree keywords are incredibly important to shorts because that is usually how readers find erotic shorts, though keywords.
When it comes to Romance though, and novels, I don't think as many readers rely on keywords as they did for shorts. Or let me clarify further, most of the readers I target (I am going after a very specific demographic) don't search. For them it's all about seeing it mentioned somewhere else.
Basically, I was just saying that I used to think the secret sauce was the keywords. It's not.
This exactly.
People buy books with lots of good reviews at a higher rate than books without.
Amazon promotes books that people have bought at a high rate, because they want people to buy more books.
Amazon doesn't give a crap how many reviews you have; they care if people are buying your books.
So you feel that - in some slight way - review quantities might actually contribute overall?
Also, I'm sending you a private message right now if that's okay. I'm to nervous to post this new question in the group.
I think that their effect is very indirect at best—any evidence to the contrary is purely anecdotal.
Okay, thanks. I also just sent you a private message.