Selling Books

Your Guide to Writing, Publishing and Marketing Books and Ebooks

How to Send Kindle Ebook Review Copies

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Reviews can help sell more copies of your books, including Kindle ebooks. However, many authors are unsure about how to send review copies of Kindle ebooks to potential reviewers. It turns out that Amazon provides a simple way to send copies of your ebook to anyone. The above video explains it in more detail.

To send a review copy, get the email address of the reviewer’s Amazon account. Go to your book’s page on Amazon and click on the “Give as a Gift” button near the buy button. Enter the email address of the person to whom you want to send the book. They will receive an email that the ebook has been gifted to them. When they accept it, the ebook will be delivered to their Kindle device or app. One caution: they can decline the ebook and elect to receive a gift certificate instead. Make sure you only gift books to people who have expressed a willingness to receive, read and review your book.

You will pay full price for the book, but you will receive a royalty. That means that your net cost is the sale price less your royalty. If your ebook sells for $2.99 with a 70% royalty, your cost will be just over $.90 (Amazon’s 30% plus a small download charge, usually a few cents). That is a small price to pay, especially when you compare it to the cost of printing and mailing a paper book.

There is another reason to choose this method instead of simply sending a file to the reviewer. When their review is posted to Amazon it will include the notation, “Amazon Verfied Purchase.” There are authors who post fraudulent or paid-for reviews on Amazon, so showing that the reviewer actually received the book from Amazon gives more credibility to their review.

(Note: Paying for reviews is against Amazon’s terms of service. However, providing a free copy to a reviewer is specifically allowed.)

Comments

  3. Thanks for this great information! Question: Does the book show up as a “sale” as well? I think based on your “Amazon Verified Purchase” comment that it would, but I wanted to make sure.

    Thanks again!

  4. Shawndra, it will show up as a sale after the recipient redeems the gift. Think of is this way: You are actually sending the recipient a gift card for the amount of your book. When they “spend” it to buy your book, it counts as a sale. (You should remember that they can choose not to spend it on your book. You are sending cash, and the recipient may use it any way they wish at Amazon.)