From Edie: Heidi Gray McGill shares why book reviews don't define your worth as a writer and how to build reader relationships, gain reviews, and stay faithful to God's calling.
The Review Is Not the Verdict: Why Book Reviews Don't Define Your Worth
by Heidi Gray McGill @HeidiGrayMcGill
What I Learned About Numbers, Worth, and Showing Up Anyway
I joined the one-star review club a few years back. Feel free to clap.
I say that with a smile now, but the first time a reader put it in public that my work was not worth their time, I felt it. Not for long, but I felt it. What I have learned since then is that the review was never a verdict on my worth as a writer or my calling as an author. It was one data point in a much larger numbers game, and understanding that distinction changed how I read those numbers.
When I published my first book in 2020, I had no platform, no newsletter, no advertising budget, and no real expectation that anyone outside my mother's friend group would find it. What I had was a conviction that God had nudged me toward this work, and that obedience to that nudge mattered more than outcomes I could not control. So, I stepped in and gave it everything I had.
Reviews Are a Numbers Game
Here is the math that changed everything. Roughly 12,000 people have read my first book. Of those, about 1,800 left a review. That is just under 15 percent, which means over 85 percent of readers who potentially loved the book enough to finish it never said a word in public.
That number is not discouraging to me anymore. It is clarifying.
If reviews are going to come, they come from volume. More readers mean more reviews, and more reviews mean more readers, and that cycle only starts moving when you decide to stop waiting for it and start building it. “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else.”Galatians 6:4 NIV. That verse belongs above every writer's desk, on the days when another author's review count makes yours look small.
What Actually Moved the Needle
I could not afford paid ads in the beginning, so I started where I could. I joined reader groups on Facebook, showed up without fail, and treated the same fifteen or twenty women who appeared at every party or takeover day I hosted like the friends they were becoming. I messaged them, responded to their comments, and invested in those relationships long before I ever needed anything from them.
When the time came to build a launch team, I knew who to ask. Those women said yes. They read early copies, posted on Goodreads and Bookbub before release day, and showed up on launch morning with reviews already written and ready to copy and paste into an Amazon review. Above 90 percent of my launch team follows through. That does not happen by accident. It happens because the relationship came first.
I also changed the back matter in my books to remind borrowed or gifted readers that a review is still possible and appreciated. I created a Mad Lib-style review template to make the process feel less intimidating for readers who wanted to help but did not know what to say. I asked my church library to display it near the checkout. I tested the limits of friendship and reminded people face to face. I did not apologize for any of it.
The Boldest Thing I Did
When my debut novel released, I reached out to Misty M. Beller, a USA Today bestselling author in my genre, and asked for a review I could use on my website. I contacted Kate Breslin and asked if she would consider promoting the book. Kate did not put it in her newsletter, but she shared it on social media, and sales spiked that week.
Neither of those things happened because I had clout. They happened because I asked.
Most of the strategies that worked cost nothing but time and a willingness to do for others first, expecting nothing in return. I promoted other authors, read their books, left reviews on Goodreads and Bookbub, and made genuine friends in this community. Some gave back without being asked. Some did not. I let it go and kept going.
What the Numbers Cannot Measure
I still read every review. Every single one. On Bookbub and Goodreads, I respond to each, because a reader who took the time to say something deserves to know it landed. I look for the words that repeat across dozens of reviews, words like uplifting, faith-filled, redemptive, hope-giving, and flawed but lovable characters, because those words tell me what God is doing through the stories and what readers hunger for. They also become the language I use in ads, social posts, and keywords, because readers wrote them, not me.
The one-star review did not get a response. But it did not get the last word either.
You are not your review count. You are not your ranking, your open rate, or the size of your newsletter. You are a steward of a calling, and God measures stewards by faithfulness, not metrics. Do the work, build the relationships, and show up for other authors the way you want them to show up for you.
The reviews will come. Keep writing anyway.
TWEETABLE
A sought-after encourager in the writing community, Heidi speaks and writes on the craft of storytelling, writing with biblical conviction, and reaching readers across generational and cultural divides. She is both independently and traditionally published, and she writes despite progressive vision loss, which has only sharpened her perspective on what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.
Connect with Heidi and receive a free prequel to her bestselling series at HeidiGrayMcGill.com.
Christian Fiction. Relatable Characters. Life-changing Stories. Fusing Faith and Fiction™
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