I’ve shared how important leaving reviews for books and audiobooks are beginning here. Recently after offering free audiobook codes to new listeners I was impressed and blown away by one listener’s message:

Thank you so much for the code! I have listened and reviewed on Audible, Goodreads, Bookbub, fb pages, Essential Romance Book Club, Audiobook Fascination and Audiobook Addiction and Instagram. For some reason, facebook is not letting me tag you. I will stop back and try again, but it is being a pain.

Thanks so much!

Avid Reader

Wow, what an awesome reviewer who takes the time to leave multiple reviews.  Kudos to her!  I’m sure a lot of authors are sending free books and audio books her way based on her enthusiastic attitude!

I decided to embark on becoming a super reviewer myself…paying it forward to others and also to learn what’s involved to get set up on the platforms mentioned.

Amazon is easy, maybe too easy. You can leave a review on their site whether you purchased a book through them or not.  If you did buy the book from them, they’ll email you asking for a review shortly after they think you would have finished it.  When I haven’t finished a book yet, I simply leave that email in my in box until I’ve completed reading so I can easily know what reviews I need to leave on their site.

Audible begins requesting reviews without knowing if you’ve even finished.  An automatic message pops up a few minutes before the end requesting your feedback. Super simple.  Of course you can always review it later as well.

I’m faster typing reviews on a computer keyboard than on a phone.  And after learning this Avid Reader cuts and pastes the same review on all platforms, I am convinced that reviewing from  my computer is the most efficient use of my time overall. (I’m not the most sophisticated, but if you don’t know how to cut and paste, send me a message and I’ll send you my quick tips on easy shortcuts.

Goodreads – The book you are reading or listening to may not be on Goodreads. Savvy authors can post their books here for free as soon as the book is released. If the author has the book on Goodreads, here’s a nice video by Shelley Hitz of Books, Faith & Coffee demonstrating how to leave a review   Like she says: “Reviews are gold to authors.”  And can be “gold” for you…posting lots of reviews gets you noticed and might get you more free codes.

If the book you want to review isn’t on Goodreads, you’ll need to post it yourself.  Here’s a WikiHow on doing that.

Note that on Goodreads, Bookbub and others where the author may not have posted the audiobook version separately, the Avid Reader suggested beginning the review of an audio book with the name of the author AND the narrator’s name so there’s no mistaking that it’s a review for the audio book. What a great suggestion.

Bookbub is an interesting animal. Apparently, many authors do not post their books on this site. It’s understandable because doing so costs $500 or more, depending upon the genre of the book (and thus the reach of the Bookbub emails).  Posting to the site also means offering the book at a minimum 50% discount.  The reach with Amazon’s emails list can be in the millions thus the price.  Booksprout offers this article on leaving a review on Bookbub: https://help.booksprout.co/article/41-how-to-review-on-bookbub

Avid Reviewer says when she doesn’t find the book on Bookbub, she immediately goes to iTunes and Kobo to leave reviews. It sounds like she has a “routine” for her process.  That’s so smart.  iTunes is very difficult to use according to Avid Reviewer. This article might help. Here’s another tutorial about leaving reviews on Kobo

Facebook – Obviously if you are a member of a FB book group or FB audio book groups, you definitely want to leave reviews there.  I had never thought about tagging the narrator before. More free books for reviewers who do that!

Avid Reviewer has a personal Instagram page specifically for book reviews.  It’s really impressive to authors/narrators wanting to see what her review history and style are.  It’s free to set up an Instagram account.  If you want to gain attention authors and narrators, it’s a great way to do so.

I learned that like Amazon you can leave a review on Barnes and Nobles’ website whether you purchased the book through them or not.   Just search for the book and scroll down to “Leave A Review”. Personally this makes me more skeptical about the Non Verified Purchase reviews on these sites.

Hopefully some of the tools listed in this blog inspire you to aim for the fences – become a super reviewer.  Check out the many places you can read feedback and leave some of your own.  I encourage everyone to share their thoughts with others to help authors, other readers and narrators learn from the reviews.  And you may well reap some benefits of your own (more free codes and books).

Since some readers have asked me how to write good reviews,  a future blog will be about the framework for a review whether for a written book or audio book.