Features | Self-Publishing Review

Why It’s A Bad Idea For Authors To Do Review Swaps On Amazon

So many times authors join a social media group called “Review Swaps” or “Author Swaps.” These groups have been set up quite innocently so that authors can get free Amazon Customer Reviews. Unfortunately swapping your book for a review on Amazon is actually a pretty bad idea – and I have found a lot of authors still don’t understand why. Let’s take a look.

If you can be proven to be connected or you are directly in touch with someone who leaves a Customer Review, this is against Amazon policy and can result in that review, or worse, that person’s […]

Cate Baum2019-02-03T09:34:25+02:00July 2nd, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Book Promotion Articles|

35+ Alternatives to BookBub – UPDATED

This post was first published in February 2016. Because Amazon clamped down on affiliate-linked services using free or discounted books to garner affiliate fees from Amazon in May 2016, we have added a new column below that shows which services use an affiliate tag to profit from the book’s sale and could affect your book’s campaign. Note this is probably only affecting free books, as then Amazon was paying out on a loophole into the negative, but we advise to proceed with caution with any service that uses an affiliate tag system.

So let’s move on to the information.

As […]

Lysa Grant2020-02-21T04:34:55+02:00June 23rd, 2016|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Book Promotion Articles, Newsletter Campaign|

New SPR Book Promotion Deals For Amazon Success

Self-Publishing Review’s new Amazon book promotion services give authors a great way of increasing customer sales and reviews in a safe and proven way, tweaked to be in line with Amazon’s new review and selling policies for June 2016 to ensure book success continues with our clients’ books.

What changes did we make?

We have changed our Best Seller Book Packages on three levels, and have renamed them, with some changes to terms of service. We did this as good practice, and to give authors security and peace of mind.

1. We are no longer offering a money-back guarantee. From […]

Cate Baum2019-04-16T13:56:32+02:00June 23rd, 2016|Categories: Features, News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

What To Do When Your Book Is Pirated Online – 5 Easy Steps

Every author should read this article!

Pirating is a massive issue right now and one that all authors should be aware of. Like movies, as soon as your book is made publicly available you are facing someone making it into a FREE PDF and sticking it on one of the many download systems available, with thousands of readers downloading your content. Here’s what to do, following the example I have here for my husband Henry Baum’s book, “Oscar Caliber Gun” – out now for its 25th Anniversary!

1. Check your book title for piracy on Google

Search for […]

Cate Baum2016-06-12T11:17:59+02:00June 11th, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Copyright for Authors|

How A Professional Reviewer Reviews Your Book

At SPR we’ve been reviewing books for nearly a decade. Here, we talk about how we review a book, and answer some of the most burning questions authors have.

Book Policy

When a book comes in for review, the first thing we check is that it meets our book policy. We do this by reading the synopsis and then scanning it for keywords that might flag up any issues against our guidelines. Since 2013, we have rejected books that titillate using triggers, such as harsh violence, hate crimes, religious or political hate, or child abuse outside of a survivor account. […]

Cate Baum2019-02-03T09:31:36+02:00June 2nd, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Book Promotion Articles, Book Reviews|

How To Build A Perfect Amazon Book Page

Once you have taken the plunge with Amazon KDP and opened your account, the front end (what the customer sees) is going to be incredibly important to sales. In this article, we go into the look and feel of your Book Page and what some of the sections are and how to maximize their potential selling power.

Book Description

The book synopsis on Amazon KDP is basically the product description field for any other product on Amazon
It should be less than 4000 characters long by Amazon specification, and should describe succinctly the product. If you think about that, we

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Cate Baum2019-02-03T09:34:34+02:00May 27th, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Promotion Articles|

Mythbusting The Amazon Algorithm Part II: Amazon Lists, Products, and Sales

There has been a fair outrage from certain authors and bloggers who claim that my last piece about the Amazon Algorithm did not consider the way lists (often referred to by the author community as “poplists” although this is not an Amazon term) work. There has also been some whispering about BookBub’s sales being left out of Amazon results, and a high misunderstanding perpetuated by crowd mentality and myth online.

I called myself a “search expert” in the last post. Clarification: my entire adult working life has been spent in publishing, marketing, and search for multinational banks, automobiles, telecommunications […]

Cate Baum2019-12-16T08:35:48+02:00May 7th, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Promotion Articles, Mythbusting Amazon For Authors|

Mythbusting The Amazon Algorithm – Reviews and Ranking For Authors

How to get the best out of your reviews and sales to rank high on Amazon without the myths from former search expert and COO of SPR, Cate Baum.

Despite many educated guesses that seem to have passed into urban legend in self-publishing communities online, there are no secrets to the Amazon ranking system.

I have spent the last few months tracking down programmers, algorithm experts, and reading technical documentation about Amazon’s algorithm, and the documentation that is provided online by Amazon at Amazon Seller Central and KDP. What I didn’t do was talk to any authors or bloggers, because […]