Tuesday, March 1, 2016

IWSG, Turn a 1-Star Amazon Review to Your Advantage and March 2016 Celestial Calendar

Hi everyone, as always thanks for stopping by! This week’s IWSG is brought to you by Alex Cavanaugh, Lauren Hennessey, Lisa Buie-Collard, Lidy, Christine Rains and Mary Aalgaard. Don’t forget to stop by their blogs and show some love! 

Turn a 1-Star Amazon Review to Your Advantage This is a concern of any writer. Amazon reviews mean everything to a writer. We love receiving them, except when they are 1- Star or 2 - Star. 

I received a 1 - Star a couple weeks ago for Salem’s Daughters that actually nailed what my book is all about: “Ghastly violence. No Heroes here. This is a horror story. Not my kind of book.” 

This, after the synopsis uses words like witches, possessed, killings, murders, curses, malevolent, deviltry and ghosts. Anyway, I decided to make lemonade from lemons and use it as a promotional tool. 

Example I used the following on Twitter and included an image of the book’s cover art with the Tweet: 

Best 1-Star Review Ever! Nailed it!! http://tinyurl.com/qeymcqc #paranormal #thriller #suspense Thx Amazon reviewer! 

Tip Use some of the 140 Twitter characters for cover image of your book rather than your book's title. 

Using Facebook and Twitter I had close to 50 downloads that weekend. Many Twitter followers felt the pain of 1-star reviews and Retweeted! Nothing earth shattering, I know. But I did use it to my advantage. 



Kindle Book Preview Kindle allows you to embed either code or a link into your sidebar so visitors can preview a segment of your book(s). Go to your Kindle Book Page, look toward the right for the work "EMBED" and copy and paste the code into an HTML gadget or the link into a an IMAGE gadget into your side bar. 

Easy! Check it out by clicking the top two Black Cat images of my right side bar for Salem's Daughters! I'm not going to keep both. I'll probably keep the link which is the one on top.

March 2016 Celestial Calendar 

March 8 Jupiter at Opposition The giant planet will be at its closest approach to Earth and it’s face will be fully illuminated by the sun. It will be brighter than at any other time of the year and will be visible all night long. This is the best time to view and photograph Jupiter and it’s moons. A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details of Jupiter’s cloud bands. A good pair of binoculars should allow you to see Jupiter’s four largest moons, appearing as bright dots on either side of the planet. 

March 9 Total Solar Eclipse A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon completely blocks the Sun, revealing the Sun’s beautiful outer atmosphere known as the corona. The totality will only be visible in parts of central Indonesia and the Pacific Ocean. A partial eclipse will be visible in most parts of Northern Australia and southeast Asia. 

March 20 March Equinox The March equinox occurs at 04:30 UTC. The sun will shine directly on the equator and there will be nearly identical amounts of day and night throughout the world. This is also the first day of Spring (vernal equinox) in the Northern hemisphere and the first day of fall (autumn equinox) in the Southern Hemisphere. 


Question Have you turned a bad review to your advantage? Checking out Jupiter next week? Do you have binoculars or a telescope or thinking of buying them? Do you have an option for visitors to preview a few chapters for free on your blog?

Reference

25 comments:

  1. Clever idea, Stephen! I need to try it. I have some really funny and dumb one star reviews.

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    1. Alex, funny works too! Try doing Twitter blasts and save those precious 140 characters by skipping the title and rather include media image of your book which shows the title on it!!!

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  2. I haven't yet received any 1-star reviews, but that's only because I've received so few reviews so far that I can count them all on one hand. I will definitely be keeping this in mind for when it inevitably happens. I love your outlook on this!

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  3. I have to remember about Jupiter. I've only had two one star reviews. One was like yours, complaining about the genre when it was right in the descriptive words what genre it was.

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  4. Reviews are subjective; that particular person wasn't fond of the content, but the book was still well written. People need to take all of that into consideration when giving a review I think!

    betty

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  5. Hi Stephen - clever turning the one star in to 5 stars in other ways. Good luck with the rest of the promotion ... and then yes - to remember Jupiter etc ... I hope we have a clear day - cheers Hilary

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    1. Hilary. the extended forecast here a few days ago called for rain but it's since been revised so that I should be able to see Jupiter. Hopefully there won;t be fog.

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  6. That's a great way to turn a negative review into something better.

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  7. Thanks for sharing, Stephen. I got a 2-star rating on Goodreads and it gutted me. I emailed the person (knew her), and she was appalled. She'd meant to give it 4 stars, but something went wrong. So I was pleased I enquired about it.

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  8. Lemons into lemonade, Stephen. Well done.

    I live in the wrong part of the world to see that eclipse.

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  9. Way to make lemonade out of lemons!

    It's always somehow cloudy when my area has special celestial events!

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  10. I could have sworn I'd already bought Salem's Daughters, but Amazon tells me I didn't. I can honestly say that your 1-Star review just made you a sale!

    Never had a 1-star review, but I had a 2-star rating on Kobo, which is super annoying because they left no comments about WHY they rated it 2. At least if they told me why they didn't like it I could have, like you, turned it to some kind of advantage.

    I love the book preview gadget. I'll have to look into that!

    IWSG March

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    1. Thank you and enjoy! I like the first gadget better than the second. It keeps the reader here.

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  11. That was genius. I don't understand how people give low ratings because it wasn't "their kind of book." But was it good??

    Can't wait to see Jupiter!!

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  12. I love how you used that 1-star review to your advantage. Smart! This person obviously didn't read your blurb or any other review.

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  13. Laughing and enjoying the idea of a positive one-star review! Thanks, Stephen

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    1. Cheryl, just have to keep finding ways to promote and this seemed like the right thing to do.

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  14. This person seems not to like horror, so why did they read a book that was clearly labeled as horror and had a description that explicitly said it was horror? Hmmm, that's like buying a box of knives and complaining you didn't get spoons.

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  15. That's a great idea. I do wonder about someone reading a horror book that doesn't like horror though. Maybe I'm missing something.

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  16. I saw your tweets and have to give you a lot of credit for spunk and ingenuity! I love the embedded preview idea. When I eventually get a book on Amazon, I'll do that on my blog too!

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  17. That's a brilliant way to handle a one star review! Just shows that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

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  18. Ha! That's awesome you could use the one star review that way. I had one the other day on a short story were they said the only good thing about the story was it was short. I thought, "hey, they found something positive at least!"

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  19. Great Attitude!!! My post this month is also about bad reviews!!! You handled yours well!!!!

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  20. Odd how someone would pick up a book that's clearly horror, despite not being a fan of the genre. As disheartening as it must've been to receive a one-star review as a result, at least you found a way to cope with it in a clever way!

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