This transcript is from a YouTube video in which Julie Broad (founder of Book Launchers) advises authors on how to respond to one-star Amazon reviews. She argues authors should celebrate such reviews as evidence their book is reaching an audience, explains many one-star reviews come from people who haven't read or purchased the book, and recommends highlighting and thanking positive reviews instead of fixating on negative ones.
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Imagine this. You 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. 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 non fiction book. You got your first one star book review. Do you know what I'm gonna 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.
No. Here's what I'm gonna say. Congratulations. If nobody cared about your message or nobody had heard about your book, then you would not have got a one so 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 docu 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 eye 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 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. 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 pension people that are reading the books. They're just haters. So see point 1. 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 gonna 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 you 40 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. You wrote a book. You invested time, money and energy into writing a book that's gonna 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 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 given 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. 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. 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.
