Allie Potts with a timely reminder of how important reviews are to independent authors, especially with recent changes to Amazon’s review policy. A great post!
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How about a review or two (or three)?
Amazon recently changed its review policy so that fake reviews, or reviews in which someone raves about a book they’ve never read or product they’ve never used, more difficult to post. It is a policy designed to protect the reader / buyer (a good thing!) however, one of the side effects of their more stringent rules is it is now more difficult for independent authors increase their book’s exposure.
Why is that?
Reviews matter, not just to other potential readers, but to marketing services and other press. Many sites won’t let an author even pay for an ad unless a book has achieved a certain quantity of ratings with an average star rating of 3.5 or higher. So tougher rules and more hoops potential reviewers have to go through mean greater difficulty for authors to gain the…
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Helen Glynn Jones 
Are mediocre reviews better than none?
That’s a good question. I always want reviewers to be honest, but at the same time a bad review can be quite crushing haha. I do know that several book sites, like Bookbub, require you to have a certain level of reviews (ie 3.5 star average or more), so mediocre reviews can hinder indies in that instance. I can appreciate that not everyone is going to enjoy my books – that’s just the way of things, but I would hope any less than positive review would be constructive, rather than just ‘I didn’t like it’