I’ve blogged about this before, but the resistance to writing reviews continues and I’m not sure why. Reviews are not book reports. They can be one or two sentences that say what you liked or didn’t like about a book.

My most successful book to date has been a historical romance called Scandal’s Child. It did reasonably well when it was published by Soul Mate Publishing in July. It was my first historical and my fan base to that point was in contemporary romance. It stayed in the top ten per cent of kindle books for months. Soul Mate only publishes on Amazon because they believe books in Kindle Unlimited are more profitable for their authors. To date, the e-book has three reviews.

That’s the book’s history until this month.

On May 11 my publisher made the book free in the Kindle Store. It made the top 50 in the free Kindle Store and rose to #1 in Regency Romance. That means a lot of people downloaded the book. Still, only three lonely reviews are on Amazon. When the promotion ended, the book began to rise in the Paid books and is still rising. But not one more review has appeared.

Why is that? Since the e-book is only on Amazon perhaps it is Amazon’s review policy and their diligence in not allowing books they deem are from Friends. Amazon has a weird requirement that in order to post a review, a reader must have purchased at least $50 worth of merchandize via Amazon. Not books. Anything. But it’s hard to believe that people buying my book haven’t bought others. It doesn’t take much to get to $50.

Perhaps people don’t post review because they think it has to be a synopsis of the book. Great if you want to do that, but totally unnecessary. Just say if you liked it and if so, why.

In a review for one of my Contemporaries, the reader said, “This is a fantastic book. As usual Pamela does an amazing job taking the reader to another level.” Another reader simply said, “Great.”

Professional reviewers and bloggers often go into greater detail. Paid reviewers do the same (yes, people can buy reviews). But if you are a person who reads for pleasure, like I do, then please consider leaving a short review of the books you read.

Believe me it means a lot to the author.