Get pullquotes on your Amazon.com page

Self-published authors have long known that reviews on their book’s Amazon.com sales page translates to purchases. Readers often decide to buy a book based on the reviews – and a book with only one or two reviews (or worse, no reviews) probably won’t impress a reader as much as a book with a dozen or more.

Unfortunately, the more reviews your book has, the less likely readers are to wade through all of them, meaning the best couple of comments might be skipped.

To aid readers and authors alike, Amazon.com sometimes will add a set of three quotations, pulled from your reviews, to the top of the list of customer reviews. The pullquotes are selected by a computer algorithm that looks for common phrasing and wording used throughout the reviews of your book. It then pulls a quotation representative of the three most common phrases/words.

These quotations are quick and easy to read, include a note of how many other reviewers made similar statements, and are linked to the full review where the quotation was made. Because of this and their location, these pullquotes alone are powerful enough to generate sales.

The pullquotes won’t appear, however, until your book has enough reviews. How many that is remains a secret, but most of my editing clients say around 10 reviews leads to pullquotes. Of my own titles, one with as few as five reviews includes the quotations; my books with only three reviews do not, however. So, if you’ve ever needed any motivation to get at least five reviews for your book, you now have it.

Currently, authors can’t select which pullquotes are used. So long as the majority of your reviews are positive, however, they will be beneficial.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Tampa, Florida, or a small town like Deadhorse, Alaska, I can provide that second eye.