How To Get Reviews as a Self-Published Author

We all know how important reviews are - in fact, a study conducted by Brightlocal revealed that up to 98% of customers will read a review online before making a buying choice. For an author, it's no different - having reviews can help build credibility and encourage people to buy your books. But how do you acquire reviews for a self-published book? Son of Man was published by Troubador in 2025, and in less than six months author Chris May has already secured 150+ reviews on Amazon US, nearly 100 reviews in the UK, as well as 44 reviews on GoodReads. Delightfully, these reviews are mainly 5* (averaging at 4.8 on all sites). In this article, he's going to explore how he set out his marketing strategy. 

The Importance of Marketing

When I launched my first novel, Silent Light, back in 2000, I made a big mistake. I allocated all the funds I had to publishing (cover design, typesetting, printing) and had little budget left for marketing. No matter, I thought. Once readers start to recognise the brilliance of the work (and, therefore, the author), there would be no stopping it. Copies would fly off the shelves. All I had to do was get it out there, and momentum would do the rest. Unfortunately, as I discovered, novels do not sell themselves, no matter how brilliant they are.

For my second novel, The Son of Man (Troubador, August 2025), I decided I would need to spend at least the same amount on launch marketing as on publishing. Whatever I allocated for Troubador to edit, typeset, design, publish and print, I would then double it.

Where Should I Focus my Marketing Efforts?

There are so many ways you can lose money marketing a book, but the first thing I realised was that books with no social proof do not tend to sell so well. I needed reviews, and preferably good ones. More than that, I needed reviews on Amazon. Even when a purchaser intends to buy in a bookshop or from another outlet, they will still look at Amazon reviews. Serious readers will also check out Goodreads.

How Many Reviews Do I Need for Credibility?

I’ve read so many articles that put numbers to this, and they are all different. However, a vague consistency started to emerge as follows:

• 5 is the minimum number to have any credibility at all
• 10 is better (obviously) as there is something psychologically positive about getting into double figures
• 25+ gets you out of the friends and family zone and indicates that you do have other readers besides people you know.
• 150+ I discovered from a chart in a YouTube video is an inflection point where Amazon’s algorithms begin to support your momentum rather than hold you back.
• 1000+ reviews on that same chart shows the algorithm plateauing, and as far as Amazon is concerned it will treat a book with 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 reviews pretty much the same.

I was also contacted by a book marketeer claiming the following book visibility thresholds:

• 0–50 reviews: Limited discovery
• 50–100 reviews: Algorithm recognition
• 100–200 reviews: Strong “Customers Also Bought” placement
• 200+ reviews: Recognised as a must-read title

And apparently, “books with 100+ reviews sell up to 10x more than those below the threshold.” I wasn’t sure this last claim was true but, these numbers were reasonably consistent with my own research, though I’ve learned that the phrases “book marketeer” and “spammer” are pretty much interchangeable. You have been warned.

What I Did Around the Publication

When the book launched back in August, I set each of the first set of thresholds as initial targets and pestered everyone I knew to buy, read and review the book. I set the Kindle price at 99p for a few weeks and found that most people (with Kindles) were happy to buy a copy at that price. Gradually, I discovered that a number of friends and acquaintances were indeed reading it, and I encouraged them to leave a review. Most did (but not all), but I quickly managed to amass 17 five star reviews on Amazon UK from a mixture of paper and Kindle sales.

And then nothing happened. It just stuck at 17 for what seemed like a lifetime. I really wanted to get to 25, my next threshold, but momentum seemed to have stalled.

Holding a Book Launch 

In early October, on my birthday, I had a formal book launch in a local venue and invited a wider circle of friends, resulting in further sales of the paperback edition. I made it clear that the canapes and wine were the price I was paying for reviews and, over the following weeks, managed to push the reviews up to the 25 threshold. 

In all, about 50 copies were gifted or bought by friends and family, with around half leaving reviews (so far). It was a painful process - and these were my friends!

Because 18 of the 25 reviews were verified Amazon purchases, they also appeared on Amazon platforms around the world. I never intended my novel to be sold just in the UK so it was equally important to get reviews elsewhere. Verified reviews achieve this automatically but they are more difficult to obtain.

Wider Marketing Efforts 

I had no idea how to get to the next threshold (150+), so I embarked on a number of different approaches. 

KDP Select 

I enrolled the novel in KDP Select for three months and as part of the programme I was able to offer the eBook for free for a maximum of five days. A week after my book launch I decided to do just that and use up all my free days in one go. I posted on every Facebook group I could find, offering my novel for free but making it clear I was looking for reviews. In all, this generated 89 downloads.

Quite surprisingly, in one weekend, I reached number one in the free Amazon UK Kindle charts for Literary Fiction, number 3 for Mystery & Suspense, and number 9 for Thrillers. In the US, I also made it into the Top 10 in all three categories.

Amazon Ads 

Coming out of KDP Select, I then reset the price back to RRP and launched campaigns on Amazon Ads. This has been more successful in the UK than the US for me. Amazon ads are very much a case of trial and error, and there's no guarantee you'll make your money back. 

BookReverb

There are a number of book review sites to choose from and, after investigating them all, I decided to give BookReverb a go. Here you simply join an auction and offer a fee for someone to read your book and provide an honest review. The minimum fee is $6 but I found you don’t need to pay more than $7 for your bid to be competitive. Other sites work more on an exchange basis where you buy and review books from others and use the resulting credits to gain reviews for your own book. I didn’t want to read lots of other books to get reviews, and the general consensus (on Trustpilot etc) was these sites were not so great. BookReverb, on the other hand, receives much more positive feedback. The only problem is that it is very US-centric and reviews aren’t verified so don’t appear on international Amazon sites. I’m hoping they will add a feature to obtain verified reviews at some point.

Troubador's Targeted Online Advertising  

I’ve also paid for a four month digital marketing campaign with Troubador which is currently mid-way through. The Targeted Online Advertising Service is designed to place your book in front of a highly targeted audience of potential readers through Google, Facebook and Instagram advertising channels. It uses eye-catching ads that drive traffic to key retailer sites, increasing the exposure and sales potential of your book. As I am mid-way through the campaign, I also get reports on statistics and clicks, and I will get the opportunity to renew the campaign when the current four-month run ends.

Author Pages

I have also created author pages on Facebook and Goodreads.

Summary 

Today, as I write this, I have just tipped over the 150 review threshold on Amazon US, with 87 reviews on Amazon UK, and 50+ reviews on Amazon in Canada and Australia. Maybe around 20 verified reviews are from people I know and have replicated around the world. I have no relationship with the rest and don’t really know which of my various marketing activities have generated the reviews (apart from BookReverb). They are still trickling in and I’m determined to get to 150+ in all markets, though from now on it will be down to organic and ad sales. My Goodreads reviews currently number 44 and they are generally from different readers to those on Amazon.

Almost all my reviews on the Troubador bookshop have been copied across from Amazon and Goodreads. I went a bit over the top here as I wanted it to be an honest reflection of reviews elsewhere, good or bad, and not to just post the best. But the truth is, no one will look beyond the first two pages so the rest will probably never be seen.

The most pleasing thing is that they are mainly 5 stars (4.8 average on all sites) and many of the comments are truly uplifting. My aim was always to be read, so it’s great to have the encouragement to keep going.

There has been another positive, though unintended, consequence of all this activity. Sales of my first novel, Silent Light, have taken off in the US. It was a novel I thought was outdated and obsolete, but from a standing start, it now has 35 reviews, almost all 5 stars. So maybe there is life in it after all.

I have used a combination of different tactics, including social media, Whatsapp, a physical book launch, a five day free promotion, two periods with the book discounted to 99p (I’m about to do a third), BookReverb, Troubador's Digital Marketing Services, Bookbub ads and Amazon Ads. 

Three-quarters of the reviews I’ve received originate from people and sources unknown. It has been a slog and taken up more time than I would have liked, but I’m fairly pleased with where I’ve got to after five months.

It seems that different approaches work for different books. I know if I was publishing non-fiction I would be taking a different route, but I think the lesson learned is to try lots of things and run with what works. That said, I regularly see books that have been published in the last year that already have thousands of reviews, so I clearly still have a lot to learn. I have no idea how they do it. So if anyone knows of a less painful way of getting reviews, I would love to hear from you.