Exciting News for GetBooksReviewed.com – A New Chapter!

Dear GBR Members,

I hope this message finds you well!

Debby, the founder of GetBooksReviewed.com, has decided to embark on a well-deserved retirement from GBR. For the past three years, Debby has fostered an incredible community of authors, and her dedication has made this platform a valuable resource for all of us. Debby has written a letter to you all so check out that post. Please take a moment to thank Debby for her hard work and extra ordinary vision over in the comments section of the letter.

I’m excited to announce that I am the new owner of GetBooksReviewed.com!

I’ve (Benjamin Johnstone) had the privilege of working behind the scenes as the developer for GetBooksReviewed.com since the very beginning, and I’m deeply passionate about this community and its potential. Debby and I have been working closely together since the beginning of June to ensure a smooth transition, and I’m honored to have her full trust and support. Of course a big change like this never goes 100% smoothly and we’ve had a few bumps in the road over the last 90-days but with the support of the community and the ability to act quickly on new development improvements things are running very smoothly now.

What we’ve improved so far:

Over the past month and a half, I’ve already been busy making some important improvements:

• Fix and then sunset the Daily Double feature
• Created a ticketing system for support requests
• Created a help center for the most common questions members ask
• Changed the token value tiers to allow low or no word count books in the membership at a fair token value related to the time and level of thought it takes to review low-word-count books
• Updated the add and edit book forms to ensure book information is properly added and edited
• Added clarity to the review process. Now:
  • the “reviews in progress” have be split into:
    • reviews in the reading in review process where the reviewer is working on the review for up to 5 days
    • reviews waiting for confirmation where the review has been submitted to Amazon but may not been made publicly visible yet
    • learn more about the review process here
  • reviews have a reference number and submission date
  • reviews can be confirmed or reported as having issues by authors to help expedite the turn around time as well as streamline the support process. We will still confirm reviews for you after an 8 day wait period, but you can expedite this if you submit a ticket or confirm the review yourself.
  • when leaving a review, reviewers now see clearer explanations of each review type. This helps them correctly submit their Kindle or Verified Purchase (paid) review.
  • we are in Phase 1 of a reviewer scoring system where reviews can be graded on book understanding, level of thoughtfulness, and overall satisfaction. In Phase 2 (slated for release early next year) you will be able to specify what type of reviewers you’ll accept reviews from. Learn more here.
• Added a new bonus system to replace the Daily Double system
• Found and banned several dishonest reviewers that were attempting to steal tokens by leaving copycat or no reviews at all. We are currently working to notify any author who left a review for a banned member so they can change or remove their review if desired. We are still vigilantly monitoring the reviews to ensure bad actors do not take advantage of our community.
• Refactored a lot of code to make things work faster and smoother

Here is a small sampling of what we have coming up next:

• A more robust help center for quick answers to common questions
• Better email communication on important updates and new features
• A mandatory book information review to ensure all books are adjusted to the new token tiers and to ensure book pricing is up to date
• New Quarter and Half Membership options (lower monthly rates, but you don’t get as many tokens for reviewing books)
• New behind the scenes features to catch bad actors that would try to steal from or harm the community
• More support agents to speed up support turn around times
• New features to support international authors
• A feature request and feature roadmap system to gather the most popular feature requests so we can work on those as a priority
• A large marketing campaign to bring in more authors to review your books
• A new-member onboarding process with step by step instructions on how to get started which will help us convert more new members to our network while ensuring they understand how to leave a proper review

The future we’ll create together

My goal is to maintain and build upon Debby’s core values, making GetBooksReviewed.com even more effective and enjoyable for everyone. With your support, I will improve GBR until it’s the number one site for receiving high-quality reviews in a way that respects Amazon’s terms for leaving reviews. Helping keep our authors safe from account bans on Amazon will be my #1 priority even though it’s the area GBR has the least direct control over.

Focusing on quality and safety will mean I won’t be aiming to have this site get authors a high volume of reviews quickly. Honestly, that would be easier and more profitable for me in the short term, but I’m in this for the long term, and I hope you are too! The potential danger of unleashing unlimited reviews that could get author accounts banned or suspended on Amazon is not worth the gamble. Of course, we will focus on getting each author a steady and reasonable stream of reviews that will not come across as suspicious activity. We’ve already made a huge improvement in this area by removing the Daily Double feature and adding the new Bonus Book feature.

Over the past 90 days, working closely with members through client support has been a truly rewarding experience. I knew GBR had a special community, but the thoughtfulness, kindness, and helpfulness of the members I’ve assisted through support tickets have far exceeded my expectations.

I’m committed to open communication and value your feedback. If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to support or if you have a general comment leave it down below.

I’m incredibly excited about this new chapter for GetBooksReviewed.com. Let’s continue to support each other, share our love of books, and make this the best author community on the web!

Happy reading and reviewing,

Benjamin Johnstone Owner, GetBooksReviewed.com