In your experience, how many readers write amazon reviews for your books? One in a hundred? One in a thousand? Less?

Firefly Island has sold 1700 copies and has 23 reviews.

Flaming Dove has sold 400 copies and has 20 reviews -- definitely a higher ratio.

 

For Have Gun, Will Play, it's one in ten (on and off Amazon, not including solicited reviews). For other books, it's hard to tell, because I haven't sold a lot and I think most of their reviews came from solicitations.

I'm assuming that HGWP is highly unusual. Part of it is probably because it hasn't sold a lot yet, so it doesn't take much to throw off the total, but I also think it's because it's really hard to get people to read it, and when they do the surprise makes them want to review it.

I suspect, though, that every book is different. Each appeals to a slight different demographic. And your marketing exposes the book to different groups of people. Plus some reviewers are kind of a culture on Amazon, so if you hit a pocket of people who all like to review, and they tell each other about your book, they'll probably all review it.

Camille

 

I am both excited and afraid of receiving my first review. Looking on this page looks like I could be waiting a while as my sales are still in single figures

 

About 1% for my books, on a sale-to-review ratio