What does it mean if your book is not getting Reviews?

You have to have over 1,000 sales before you can draw any conclusions

The first thing is that you need to have over 1,000 paid book sales before you can analyze

If you are unable to get 1,000 paid sales and only have free book download to work off of, then please keep in mind

1. Results from free book downloads are not as relevant as results from paid book sales
2. Results from ‘Review in return for a book’ are not unbiased because the very act of getting the book for free creates Reciprocation. This makes people tend to leave slightly better reviews than they otherwise would. This also makes people leave reviews more often than they normally would
3. You will only get TRUE feedback from people who pay for the book

So the ideal is to get 1,000+ paid sales for your book and then analyze reviews

If you cannot get that, then you need to at least get a few thousand free book downloads, or hand out a few hundred copies to reviewers. Then draw a conclusion from that. With the understanding that it would not be as accurate as if it were paid book sales

Now, let’s see

What does it mean if Your Book is not getting Reviews even after 1,000 Paid Book Sales

Key things to keep in mind

1. A very well written book should be getting 1 to 10 reviews for every 100 copies sold
2. A well written book should be getting 1 to 10 reviews for every 1,000 copies sold
3. Readers are remarkably charitable and will not leave bad reviews unless you really mess up (spelling mistakes, characters mixed up, story plot broken, etc)
4. Readers are much more likely to leave a review If You Ask Them to Leave a Review
5. Readers are more likely to leave a good review, and more likely to actually write a review, if they have finished your book

With all of those things in mind

1. Zero reviews after 1,000 Paid Book Sales means you have to work a lot more on your writing skills and the level of polish
2. Negative Reviews and Zero Good Reviews after 1,000 Paid Book Sales means the same, with the added feedback that your book was not ready at all to be sent out
3. 1 to 10 good reviews after 1,000 Paid Book Sales, and very few negative reviews, means your writing is decent to good. That you need to work a lot more on your writing skills
4. 10 to 100 good reviews after 1,000 Paid Book sales, and very few negative reviews, means your writing is extremely good
5. A mix of lots of good and bad reviews after 1,000 Paid Book Sales, means your book is very polarizing and you should consider whether you are OK with that (which is one strategy), or you want to shift to mostly positive reviews and what you would need to do to make that happen

Unfortunately, there is very little room for interpretation in this case – A well written book gets good reviews from paid book sales, at the rate of 10 to 100 good reviews per 1,000 paid book sales

What does it mean if Your Book is not getting Reviews even after a few thousand Free Book Downloads

This is really difficult to interpret because

1. People download anything that is free, even if they are not very interested in it
2. Free book downloads get read a lot less than paid books

So, the best way to interpret it is

1. Divide the number of free book downloads by 10
2. Convert that number to Paid Book Sales

At this point you can refer to the previous section EXACTLY

Of course, if the figure for Paid Book Sales you got, by dividing the number of free book downloads by 10, is less than 500, then it is a small sample size and your interpretation might be flawed

The Solution: Get to 5,000+ free book downloads OR get to 1,000+ paid book sales

Then draw a proper conclusion

What does it mean if Your Book is not getting Reviews even after handing out a few hundred free copies to Reviewers

There are three very broad interpretations here

1.  If the service or method you used to get your book to Reviewers is unreliable, then you can draw no conclusion at all
2.  If you used a well verified service, and get no reviews, then your book is not good enough
3.  If you used a well verified service, and get very few reviews (less than 5), then your book needs a lot more polish
4. If you used a well verified service, and get 5 to 20 reviews, then your book is ready for the big time
5. If you used a well verified service, and get 20+ reviews from 200+ free copies sent to Reviewers, then your book is excellent

These are broad and not precise

You should be getting 5 or more Reviews for every 200 review copies/ARCs you hand out. Less and you are not yet ready