Buying Reviews

I've been reluctant to give away books for the promise of the recipient leaving me a review. I question how ethical such a practice is, but it's what most other authors and many publishers do. Some have a team established who read a book early and post reviews as soon as it's published. Amazon allows this as long as the reviewer states it in their review, but most people still don't do that.

As a result, many of my books have very few reviews. In fact, Cleared for Planting, the book with the most reviews only has 23. Peace, the last one out, doesn't have any yet. The reviews I have, however, are very good, averaging 5 stars, the best rating. And most of them are not from family and friends. I have a really difficult time getting most of them to leave reviews, too. I don't think they realize how important they are or how much they mean. The best way to thank and author is to leave a review.

The books on Amazon that have the most reviews are the always free ones or those offered free often. I haven't done that either, although mine have been put on sale for 99 cents occasionally. I have 4,000 books stored on my kindle waiting to be read, and most of them have been free. If readers are able to get all the books they can possibly read for free, why buy them at all?

Perhaps I'm looking at this all wrong. I'm certainly no expert on marketing. And maybe what other writers are doing works better. However, my books are selling steadily in both print and ebooks, I'm enjoying writing and presenting, and I've established a solid fan base. Now if I could just get more good reviews.
(I would love to hear what you think, so please leave comments.)

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