How to add editorial reviews to your book’s amazon page

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How to add editorial reviews to your book’s amazon page


Are you missing out on an opportunity to sell your books? Did you know that Amazon gives you a free promotion opportunity right in the middle of your sales page? In this article we will take you through the simple process to add editorial reviews to your book sales page.

 

Few things lead to book sales like great reviews. Word-of-mouth is critical success in the self-publishing, indie author scene. On Amazon, we all cross our fingers and toes, make the best book possible, and hope hundreds of people will jump on and add their weight to your book's sales potential. However, it rarely works out like that. It's a grind acquiring reviews or getting enough people to buy and comment on your book for it to look impressive. As such, it can be disheartening when a great review appears from a reader, blogger or journalist on a location not on Amazon. Thankfully, you can add that review to Amazon yourself so it can play its part in promoting your book. Here's how:

What is the Editorial Reviews Section?

The Editorial Review section allows you to add reviews from publications, blogs, customers and others. It sits just above the Product Details section of your page.

  • You can add the following information in this section:
  • About the Author
  • From the Author
  • From the Inside Flap
  • From the Back Cover
  • Reviews

Why Should I add my Reviews to the Editorial Reviews Section?

This section is another sales tool on your book page. As you can see by the range of information you can provide, it really does give you a great opportunity to further persuade readers to click the buy button. One more good review could be all it takes to set your book sales trending upwards.

Many authors have had their books reviewed by a blog, book review site or reader's website. These sites are often not able to post a customer review, but you can include a snippet of their review in this section. These reviews can often hold more sway than a customer review. This is especially true if you can include a few in the section, or if you've been reviewed on a known, relevant website.

Steps for Adding Your Editorial Review to Amazon

  1. Log in to Author Central
  2. Click on the Books tab at the top of the page
  3. Go to your Books Page
  4. Click on the title of the book you want to edit
  5. Choose Under Editorial Reviews and click “add” review
  6. Add in some book reviews. I’d suggest choosing a section that highlights the best part of your book. Make sure to attribute the review to the source.
  7. Click Preview and see how your entry looks.
  8. When you're satisfied, click Save to add the review.

What are the Restrictions on Editorial Reviews

Amazon does not allow the following to appear in this section:

  • Phone numbers, addresses or URLs
  • Time-sensitive statements or statements specific to one edition or listing
  • Advertisements or promotional material
  • Availability, price or alternative ordering/shipping information
  • Profanity or spiteful remarks
  • Obscene or distasteful content

There are also character limits as follows:

  • Review — 20000 characters. For hardcover and paperback books, the character counts for the text box is limited to 4000 characters and you can add up to five reviews.
  • For Kindle books, you can add all of your reviews at once in the box.
  • Product Description — 2400 characters
  • From the author, From the Inside Flap and From the Back Cover — 8000 characters
  • About the Author — 2000 characters

How do you Format Editorial Reviews?

Amazon only accepts a limited set of HMTL tags, so you don't have a lot of leeway to create anything visually spectacular. However, with a little creativity you can help the content stand out. Key code that is recognised includes:

  • Italics = <i>text goes here</i>
  • Bold = <b>text goes here</b>
  • Line break = <br />
  • Unordered (bulleted) list = <ul><li>List item 1</li><li>list item 2</li><li>And so on</li></ul>
  • Ordered (numbered) list = <ol><li>List item 1</li><li>list item 2</li><li>And so on</li></ol>

Using these tags shown above and pasting from a plain text document will prevent errors. Notepad is a good program for ensuring you are writing plain text and is installed on most computers. Microsoft Word is not a good program. Tip: Write your coded text in Microsoft Word for convenience, then copy it into Notepad, then copy it again before entering it into Amazon. This will ensure the text is plain. If you struggle with using html tags, you can use the free html converter at Kindlepreneur to help you out.

What if I Don’t Have any Editorial Reviews?

If you haven’t managed to get any blog reviews yet for your book this is where you can think a little creatively about who will add a touch of credibility to this section. At the most simple level, you could ask another children’s author to provide a quote to use.

But going beyond that, why not ask a teacher friend, or someone that works in a field that’s related to your book. For example, one of our authors Danny Blitz sourced quotes from vets to support her book Much To Do Before a Dog. It's a book about pet ownership.

Old Mate Media offers a book review service for indie authors. So please do reach out for a review after reading our submission guidelines. And if we have already reviewed your book, don’t hesitate to ask for a Amazon friendly snippet to use on your book page.

Where to Next?

We hope this has been a helpful guide for you in improving your Amazon sales page. Stay tuned for the iTunes version of this article, coming soon. This is just one of the free guides we have for indie authors, so please look through the full list here. Did you know, for example, How to Create a Kindle Book Series Bundle on Amazon in Five Steps? Also make sure to sign up to our newsletter to keep in touch with future guides.

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