Reviews: The hot meal after a long journey

In my last post, I talked about the silence after a book launch and how self-publishing isn’t the celebratory parade some imagine, but a cold, slow grind. You hit publish, watch your book go live, and then… nothing. No fanfare. No crowd. Just the quiet realization that the hard part is still ahead of you.

A few posts before that, I discussed broken dashboards, the labyrinth of customer service, and ranking systems that ignore page reads and verified purchases unless you fight to prove they exist. I’ve spent a lot of time recently talking about the hustle, the emotional drain, and the need to be everywhere, all the time, just to hold your place in line.

But there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned in a while: reviews.

Not because they don’t matter—they might be the most important part of the entire equation—but because asking for them feels needy. It feels like I’m breaking some unspoken rule of dignity. But am I supposed to just hope readers will speak up, rather than admit how badly I need them to? Maybe people just need a reminder!

The truth is sobering: only about one out of every hundred readers will leave a review. That’s not a guess—it’s the industry average. You can sell hundreds of copies and end up with just a few reviews. And unless you have lots of ARC readers or pay one of those review funnelling companies, you might go months before you see that first string of stars. That’s a long time to wait before knowing if readers even like your book. And it’s not like we have access to any real customer data. That twisting river through the jungle keeps a tight grip on that. We don’t know if you finished. We won’t know if you loved it, hated it, or if there is something minor we can fix that will make it better. Just silence.

Let me give you a personal example. My first self-published novel, Island of Stone, was released in the spring of 2020. It was my first foray into doing this on my own terms—my story, my choices, my risks, my decisions (good and bad). It’s also a different genre than what I’m writing now, but it taught me what it meant to create something, unleash it into the world, and ultimately, to let it go. In the five years since its release, it has sold roughly 350 copies. That’s about the number of passengers on an international flight, so it’s actually a good chunk of bodies. No, it’s not a runaway success, but not a failure either. For a debut indie title in a saturated genre, it’s respectable.

It has received 17 ratings, with 12 of those being customer reviews, the last in June of 2023.

That’s one review for every 30 readers. Which, believe it or not, is better than average. But it still means 95% of people who read it didn’t leave a review. The reasons for that are numerous. Maybe they didn’t care, or didn’t enjoy it, and were afraid to tell me. But I wager that many probably found at least some entertainment in it. I don’t necessarily blame them for their inaction. We are trained as consumers, not participants. Life is busy. Maybe they simply forgot as they moved onto the next book on their shelf. But most people don’t realize how much power a review holds for someone throwing a bit of yarn out into the world to see if they can catch something.

A single review can move a book into visibility. A cluster can trigger algorithms to start recommending it to other readers. Enough reviews, and suddenly an invisible book starts moving up the rankings, showing up in searches, in suggested titles, in funnels you can’t buy your way into. Sales might open the door, but reviews are what keep it propped open.

And it’s not just about the twisty river in the jungle. Goodreads, BookBub, social media, even search engines—they all rely on reviews to determine what matters. Reviews tell the system: this book is worth noticing.

Now, I’m not asking you to write a professional critique. You don’t have to summarize the plot or explain the themes. I assure you, it doesn’t have to be a book report. You just have to write something. A sentence. A thought. A gut reaction. “I liked the pacing.” “The main character surprised me.” “Not my usual genre, but it kept me reading.” “Too slow in parts, but beautifully written.” That’s enough. If you are still wary, a star rating without a review helps too. They don’t have to be five stars—but they do have to exist. If you’re feeling ambitious, an example of a god-level review can be found here (thanks, Freya!).

Even a critical review can help if it’s constructive. What’s worse than a mixed review is no review at all. Silence means death—not dramatic death, but slow, algorithmic erasure. The kind where the book is no longer shown to anyone who didn’t already know it existed. The Island of Stone fell into that void a long time ago. My last sale of that title was in April.

When you leave a review, you’re doing more than expressing an opinion. You’re keeping a book alive.

If you’ve read one of my books—The Island of Stone, The Slaying of the Bull, Dawn of the Lightbearer, The Mourning Son, Noonday in the North, Destiny of the Daystar, The Novice of Thanatos, Duke Rhime of the Spire, or the Absolution of the Morning Star boxset—please consider leaving a review. Even if you already told me in private that you liked it, please say it publicly.

I’m not writing this to beg. I’m not writing this because I think you owe me anything. I’m writing this because I want you to understand what it’s like to pour everything into a story, to build a world from the ground up, and then watch it vanish—not because it wasn’t good enough, but because I don’t have the resources to make it visible enough.

My plea isn’t about fame or profit. I’ve accepted that I’ll probably never make a living as a writer. That’s fine. But I do need to know people are reading and enjoying the work. It is what it is all for. It is what keeps me going, energizes me to spend hours carving worlds and molding characters. This is about connection, and reviews are one of the only ways an author knows a book landed.

So, if you’ve read one of my books and felt something, anything, please say so. Even a single sentence makes a difference. You don’t need to be eloquent. Just present. Because indie authors aren’t asking for praise—we’re asking for proof that someone is listening.

Cheers!