I'm going to ask you to do something today.
I want you to go on to Amazon right now and search for your FAVOURITE book of all time.
Then I want you to leave a review.
You'd think that this one small act does nothing other than polish the already inflated ego of the author.
You'd be wrong.
Reviews Matter
On Amazon (and to a lesser extent on other online retail platforms) the humble book review takes on a whole new persona. Reviews have a significant impact on a book's ranking within Amazon. The more reviews a book has the higher its ranking is. The higher the ranking the more visible to customers the book becomes.
This happens because Amazon likes to promote popular books to their readers. They are a big company out to make as much money out of their punters as possible.
So if, for example, you are buying Running Light by Craig Williams (a book on the Marathon Des Sables), then Amazon are likely to recommend other popular books on that topic (including Running in the Shadows by Mark Roe and Heat by Ranulph Fiennes).
Amazon know that if someone is going to buy a book in a specific genre, they can eke more smackers out of them if they recommend other highly ranked books on that same topic.
If your book has a high ranking then it is very likely to be among the ‘Also boughts’ or ‘Frequently bought togethers’ or ‘Recommended based on…’.
Try it out with your favourite Adventure Book. What other books pop up when you type the title into the search bar?
Reviews also hold social validation among readers.
Readers read the reviews. They actually take into consideration the views of other people, including you! I bet you've read the reviews more than once yourself. Reviews give readers the peer validation that they are looking for. 'Other people like it so I might give it a try' thinking.
So you're little review may not mean a lot to you but it means a bundle to other readers and means so SO SO much more to the author of the book.
Trust me on this one.
Oh, and while we are here I'm going to ask another favour. If you really like a book and you think your friends would like it too, don't give them your copy of the book.
Buy a copy of the book for them!
You've just read an incredible book that an author has spend months, maybe years putting together. If the book is that good that you are recommending it to a friend, why not reward the talented author at the same time. Drop a couple of quid in their pocket by buying the book and gifting it to your bestie.
Now, I'm not saying that you should go and do that right now with my book (I mean, you could if you wanted to. I'm not going to stop you), but you definitely should do it with your favourite book. You know, the one that inspired you to change your life. The one that made you think about the world in a completely different way.
The one written by a human being somewhere who could do with your validation of a book review and might benefit from a handful of dollars dropping into their bank account for all their hard work.
Just saying.