- Imagine this, you've spent months writing your book,
maybe even more than a year.
You invested thousands of dollars into editing.
You hired a great cover designer, a layout person,
you had beta readers review your book.
Basically you put your heart and your soul
into creating an amazing book, and then,
someone writes a nothing new and gives you
a one-star review on Amazon.
What do you do?
Stick around.
(upbeat music)
Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad,
award-winning author and founder of Book Launchers,
a professional self-publishing team that will help you
write, publish, and promote
a business-building nonfiction book.
You got your first one-star book review.
Do you know what I'm going to say to you?
I bet you don't.
- Chin up, buttercup.
- Nope, not that.
- Find that one-star reviewer and burn their computer.
- Not that either.
- Well at least you got one star.
- Nope, here's what I'm going to say.
Congratulations. (laughing)
If nobody cared about your message or nobody had heard
about your book, then you would not have got
a one-star review.
It's true, and frankly, if every book review of a book
is five stars, I don't know about you,
but I'm kind of skeptical.
There's always that person
like my high school English teacher who just has
to dock you a star for something idiotic.
I'm kidding sort of, no I'm not.
No book is worthy of five stars to every single reader.
Because the most beautiful thing about the human race
is that no two of us are exactly the same.
This means there's always going to be people
who don't resonate with some of what you're saying,
and that is cool.
That's why we spend so much time talking
about who your ideal reader is.
Because you aren't writing the book for everyone.
You're writing your book for your ideal reader.
And if a few people give you less than five stars
because a few parts of your book
just didn't fly for them, that's cool.
It just means they were unlikely to be your ideal reader.
But let's go back to that one-star review.
First, I am dead serious when I say celebrate it.
It truly means you've done a lot of things right
with your book.
Second, 99% of one-star reviewers, okay maybe that's high,
but a lot of one-star reviewers have never even
read the book.
I don't have scientific basis for you,
but if you spend spare time reading Amazon reviews
like I might do, wish I was kidding,
but I do find myself reading a lot of reviews
of books I know nothing about. (laughing)
But seriously, let me give you an example
of why I say the majority of one-star reviewers
never read the book.
Todd Tresidder came out with an excellent book
called The Leverage Equation.
It is truly a great book for anybody who cares
about maximizing their time and wealth.
My team of editors, cover designer, layout,
his project manager, was entirely female.
I believe in total there were eight different women
who worked on his book at different stages
providing input and work.
Every single person working on his book commented
on its excellence.
And here's his one-star hater.
They say, "Way to start your book on successful planning,
"a quote from Hugh Hefner.
"Really?
"Way to leverage your female audience."
Not a single one of us remembered that quote
or were even offended by it.
So William L. didn't read the book and gave it
a one-star review based on a single quote
and then also defended the entire female population
that doesn't even want his help.
Additionally, many one-star reviewers
didn't even buy the book.
They don't have a verified purchase on there,
and the reviews are very short.
They aren't people that are reading the books.
They're just haters.
So see point one, celebrate your haters
because that means you're standing out
in a sea of voices out there.
People can't hate what they can't hear.
I think that's a pretty good quote I just made up.
People can't hate what they can't hear.
And finally, listen, I'm going to look you straight in the eye
and get super real with you right now.
Why the fudge are you giving so much attention
to the one person who gave you a one-star review
when there's 20, 30, or 50 people
giving your four- or five-star reviews?
If I were you, I'd post every single four-
or five-star review on social media and thank the reviewer,
whoever they might be, for taking the time
to read and review your book.
Celebrate the positive, draw attention to it,
be grateful for it, and focus on it.
Hope you're picking up what I'm putting down.
(playful music)
You wrote a book, you invested time, money, and energy
into writing a book that's going to help people,
and you've busted your butt getting people to know
about your book, and they do.
You should be doing a whole lot of celebrating
at this point, not whining.
I think you're pretty badass and awesome for doing that,
and my opinion matters a lot more than that
one-star giving jerk.
So there, like this video, smash that thumbs up button.
It's the opposite of giving crappy one-star reviews,
so do that.
And subscribe to the channel, turn the notifications on
so you get notified when a new video comes out.
That's super important because when you comment
the day a video comes out, you get entered to win prizes.
(bells chiming)
It's definitely worth checking out this video
on how to get Amazon reviews because you may not have
very many reviews right now, and it's still
very important to get them.
This one is about who to ask,
and this one is about how to ask.
Go ahead, check those out.
I'm waiting for you over there.
(upbeat music)