#Authors: Get Better Feedback To Help Improve Your Book

Authors need to get good feedback when they write books. Writing is such an individual pursuit. It's just too hard for one person to be objective about a body of work that goes for dozens and dozens of pages.

I just posted a six minute video with some tips on how to make sure you get the best feedback you can. (And yes, that is two jars of jam in the header image. Watch the video to find out more.)

The too long; didn't watch version is:

• For general readers, ask simple questions about the book, like "Did you like it?" or "Would you recommend it to someone else?" The objective is to just find out if the book is working or not.
• For detailed feedback on why the book isn't work or how to improve it, ask editors who work on books and experts in that field of knowledge. Those folks have the ability to articulate the details of what need to be changed that general readers can not.

Let me go into a little more detail here about how to ask for feedback from general readers.

I am a big fan of Net Promoter Score, and have used it with a number of clients. This basis of this methodology centers around one question I always start with:

"How likely is it that you would recommend this book to a friend or colleague?"

This question has been heavily researched by Fred Reichheld, a long time Fellow at Bain and Company. His work focuses on customer loyalty and the positive effects it can have on a business. According to Reichheld’s research, a 5% increase in customer retention increases profits by 25% to 95%, and that is the main driver of the question. We want a quantitative way to measure likelihood of referral and customer satisfaction.

Why about does that matter?

Because we want to think about referrals. They are everything in the world of book publishing. Word of mouth is the primary way people discover new books.

When the Net Promoter Score question is asked, the participant gives a rating from 0 to 10. Based on their answer, individuals are put into three groups. Those who rate the business with a 9 or 10 are considered a promoter. You can look at this group as the kinds of people who would actively sing the book’s praises. If you asked a promoter about the best place they have eaten lunch lately, they would say, “Oh my! You have to try Jones’ Pub. It is amazing!”

For those who rate a business with a 7 or 8, they are considered passive. There is no great love or great hate for what you do. If you asked them about their recent lunches, they would say, “Hmm...can’t really think of anywhere.”

The last category are the detractors. These are people who rate your company anywhere between 0 and 6. This is the widest range of any of the categories, but if you think about your own experiences, you probably recognize this status. With the question about lunch destinations, a detractor is likely to say, “I don’t have any great recommendation but whatever you do, don’t go to Smith’s Deli. It was terrible.” Detractors don’t just dislike your business, they actively direct people away. 

The Net Promoter Score methodology creates ratios to do further work with the results. For our case, we are just going to think about those three groups of respondents—promoters, neutrals, and detractors. For each group, I ask just one more question.

For promoters with scores of 9 or 10, I ask them, “How would you describe the book to someone else?” This is such a great question! We get the opportunity to hear the actual language a customer would use in a recommendation. In hearing that language, we can evaluate a wide variety of decisions about factors like title, subtitle, book description, chapter titles, and so on. And if we believe that we are always experimenting, then we can still make changes. 

For passives, I normally ask, “What would the book need to be a ‘10’?” My intention is to try and get more information for what it would take to improve the book. My working theory is that passives didn’t have an aha moment, that moment of insight and clarity into how they view the world. In the case of publishing, the book was good, but there are other books that they still like more. Keep in mind that feedback from passives is a big opportunity for helping create a better experience for all readers.

For detractors, I ask, “What is one thing we could do better?” If a reader rates a book with a 6 or less, they can tell you exactly what did not work about the book. Sometimes, it is their expectations. Sometimes, they don’t like the approach. I don’t spend much time on detractors because it’s hard to change their mind. Haters gotta hate. Find out what you can and move on.

One question can do a lot to find out what your customers think and how they feel about sharing your product with others. That's all we should expect in feedback from general readers.