Ep 135: Q&A: Kirkus Reviews, Writing with AI, and Bestseller Status

Ever feel like everyone has some secret book marketing hack? Most of those “shortcuts” are just expensive detours.

In this episode, I’m calling out three distractions that keep indie authors spinning their wheels. First up: Kirkus Reviews. Are they legit? Yes. Are they worth the price for most self-published authors? Maybe. But if you're hoping a $400 review is going to move thousands of copies, well, it probably won't. 

Then we dive into the Amazon Bestseller badge obsession. 

Finally, we'll talk about AI. As someone who edits A LOT of manuscripts, I can spot AI-generated content from a mile away. So can readers. In publishing, the long game truly is the shortcut.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction and Core Beliefs
• 3:05 Amazon Ads Course Launch Announcement
• 5:26 Are Kirkus Reviews Worth It?
• 10:35 The Bestseller Status Myth
• 17:03 When (Not) to Use AI for Writing
• 23:47 Closing Thoughts and CTA

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:23

Hello and welcome to the Write the Damn Book Already podcast. My name is Elizabeth Lyons. I'm an author and book editor and I help people write and publish thought-provoking, wildly entertaining books without any more overthinking, second-guessing or overwhelm than absolutely necessary. Because, let's face it, some overthinking, second-guessing and overwhelm is going to come with the territory if you're anything like me guessing, and overwhelm is going to come with the territory if you're anything like me. In short, I love books and I believe that story and shared perspective are two of the most impactful ways we connect with one another. A few things. I don't believe in gimmicks, magic bullets and swoon-worthy results without context, as in. Be sure to reveal that a result took eight years or required a $30,000 investment in ads, because those details are just as important. What I believe in most as an author, the long game is the shortcut For more book writing and publishing. Tips and solutions. Visit publishaprofitablebookcom or visit me over on Instagram at Elizabeth Lyons Author. Hi everybody and welcome back. All right, this is actually a very exciting week because, after many, many, many, many months of prepping and fixing and refixing and all the things, I have finally launched Amazon Ads for Indie Authors. So for a point of reference. Today is Wednesday, july 30th, pretty sure 2025. And this course I'm so incredibly excited about because it finally simplifies Amazon ads. Now you do need to be an indie author, meaning that you're either self-published or you in some way, shape or form, have control of your book's listing through KDP, because you will need to be able to get in there to run the ads. But as long as you have that ability whether you're a self-published author or a hybrid published author who has access to your ads account and your book's listing on Amazon this course is here to simplify the entire Amazon ads process for you, simplify the dashboard and, frankly, even if you didn't want to run ads ever or yet, it covers the first thing that most indie authors forget, or they just don't even know that they need to do when it comes to optimizing your book's listing so that you're found more easily and more readily by people who want to find you on Amazon, who are already trying to find a book just like yours. So, in the areas of keywords, categories and book description, I have all of the tips and strategies that I have used over the years to help ensure that your book is set up as optimally as possible to find, not to find, but for the people who want to best find your book, to find it. We are still in early bird pricing and I've got the link to the course in the episode notes, or you can go to publishaprofitablebookcom forward, slash Amazon ads and see everything that is included in the course. Again, super excited. I'm thrilled to be welcoming people in and I hope you will join us.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Okay, so this week what I'm going to do is focus on some FAQs that I've gotten over the last couple of weeks, or couple of months even, and the first one is with regard to Kirkus. So if you're not familiar with Kirkus, lots of times when you it's spelled K-I-R-K-U-S. When you see a book there will be it'll say it received a Kirkus starred review, or even on the book's listing on Amazon or on the book's cover you will see the review from Kirkus. So now indie authors have the ability to also get a Kirkus review. It's something that for a long time was only available to traditionally published authors. Many authors still today, many readers still today, think that it's kind of a mark of credibility, because if you've gotten a Kirkus review at all, then surely your book is credible, which I would agree with, and for indie authors, it is something that we can pay for that service.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Now, what I'm not 100% sure on just full transparency is when you pay for the service. I'm quite certain that it's an honest review and then you can decide whether or not you want to use it. That part I would need to look into more, how it all works. It's several hundred dollars, it's not. It doesn't break the bank, but for some people it could. So I don't certainly don't see it as a must have. If you're pinching your pennies right now or trying to budget your money, when it comes to well, anything but certainly book marketing, I would not say run and go, get a Kirkus review.

Speaker 1: 6:15

However, in the last couple of weeks I've been asked twice by authors whether or not, a it's reputable and they should do it, and then B from one author who actually had a Kirkus a starred review, has a starred review on her first book. Should she pursue a second one Like is it those favorite words that we love worth it? See the air quotes. My feeling on it is this it depends which is everyone's favorite answer.

Speaker 1: 6:45

I don't think in my experience that a Kirkus review is the be all end all. Nothing is the be all end all for a book getting momentum. Even if you've written the most amazing book on the planet, if nobody knows about it, it's probably not selling very well or it's not selling very well. The thing that a Kirkus review can do that is nice is, as mentioned earlier. It does provide that added layer of credibility on a book's listing, because Kirkus isn't going to write a review a good review of a book that they don't feel deserves it, and they certainly are not going to give a book a starred review if they don't feel like the book deserves it. So if you feel like that's something that you would like to have or you would like to try, then I say you know, go for it. It's certainly not so outrageously expensive that I feel like it's not a value add in any circumstance.

Speaker 1: 7:52

That being said, if you're thinking of it like this will be the magic bullet that will get my book noticed, I would encourage you to think about that differently, because the only magic bullet that gets your book noticed is someone mentioning it, either you or somebody else, and even then it you or somebody else, and even then it's a magical. It's quick and it does not. It's not long lasting, typically so. If, when you're deciding on your marketing plans and how you want to position your book and what accolades you want to pursue, I get similar questions about different sort of awards that you can enter to win and, unless they are very, very well-known awards, which can often raise your visibility to agents, it can raise your visibility to publishers, that sort of thing, and that's great. There are a lot of lesser known, lesser reputable, lesser understood in the industry awards that are just created as a moneymaker for whomever is giving out the award.

Speaker 1: 9:03

So the idea that if we say, well, I have an award-winning book, that that is going to help it get legs is, in my experience, not accurate. So I encourage you to really think about is Kirkus legitimate? Absolutely. Is a Kirkus review legitimate? Does it give your book some credibility? Yes, legitimate. Does it give your book some credibility? Yes, will it, on its own, give it the momentum that you're hoping for? Most likely no. So it will still require that you're on the other side of that, using social media, your email list, et cetera, to say here's the Kirkus review or this book has a starred Kirkus review review, and continuing to get that message out over and over again to your readership and to prospective readers for it to really have any true solid effect on your book sales.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Okay, so another question this isn't really a question, but I got recently was someone messaged me and was in a very big hurry to get their book formatted and launched, and when I inquired about the urgency, what I heard back was that there was a competitor in the space who was launching on a certain date and this person really wanted to beat the competitor to market so that they could get bestseller status on Amazon before this competitor got bestseller status on Amazon. And through conversation I not terribly unsolicited, I tried not to do this unsolicited, but when the question became, isn't this a good idea? My exact answer was you might be asking the wrong person, because I have long believed that Amazon bestseller status, especially if it's not in the top 10 of the whole store or in the top 10 of a big, big category, big category does not mean very much, it's very fleeting, and so people will spend a lot of energy and money and time putting together these campaigns that seek to get thousands of people to purchase the book at 99 cents so that you can rise up for between one hour and, we'll say, 36 hours to be the bestseller new release, number one new release, whatever the case may be, in either your category or normally it's in a pretty obscure category. So anytime that you are contacted by a marketing agency or an agency of any sort who says we guarantee bestseller status, to me that is a huge red flag, because what that means is the only way they can guarantee it is if they put it in an obscure category where there are only, say, 10 books and those books aren't selling, and so they know that if they just sell two copies of your book in an hour, that you're going to hit bestseller status but it won't do anything overall for your book. You'll sell those two books and that's probably that, and then it'll drop from bestseller status the next hour or the next day and that'll be the end of it.

Speaker 1: 12:32

So when people are rushing and I typically see this in the entrepreneur space, where people are rushing to get that bestseller status because they have a firm belief that by being able to say my book is an Amazon bestseller number one, able to say my book is an Amazon bestseller number one, they'll sell a lot more of them, and number two, that they can then bring people in more readily to their course or their program or their speaking. Whatever they're doing that, they're using their book as a lead magnet for, for lack of a better explanation of that, for lack of a better explanation of that, and it doesn't work terribly well because not only is the industry really keen to this practice, but readers are becoming very aware of it and clued into it as well. And so, if you have not like, when I talked to this individual, I asked about editing and the response was there's no time, it doesn't need to be edited, I've just got to get it out there so that I can hit this bestseller number before my competitor does. Even if you were to do that, the result isn't going to be what you want. I can say that with a strong degree of certainty because if you have not put, I watch so many people put so much time and energy and love into their book and still have to work quite hard. Every author who's been an author for more than five minutes knows how much time and energy you need to put into your book, for as long as you choose to put it in there, in order to get those sales going and keep the sales going and keep the momentum.

Speaker 1: 14:15

So the idea that you can just throw something up there that really hasn't been well edited, well worked, well structured, well intentioned, and hit that status and that the result of that is going to be an influx of readers who are going to review it positively, and then that's going to continue. It's going to become like a tipping point and it's just going to be like the ball rolling down the hill. That is not what happens. So if anyone else who's listening or watching is thinking, feeling this angst of I need to get the book out quickly because my competitor is doing something similar, try to think about how your book is different from your competitor, so that you could actually sort of ride the wave, which is different from riding the coattails of your competitor, not compete against them, because inevitably there's something about your book and your process that's different from your competitor. There has to be, otherwise there's no place for it in the market. So if you can focus on that and relax a little bit and let your competitor do his or her thing, and then release the book when you're ready, and when the book is ready and you can parlay, so you know like how, if you read this, you'll also love this, and here's why this is going to give you something a little different from what so-and-so gave you. That is a great opportunity to make use of and allow a competitor's book to become a complimentary book, not a competitor's book. This whole competition thing in the book world is quite different from the business world, and it still exists, but there's a lot more opportunity to complement instead of compete, and that's what I would encourage people to do who want their book to truly be well-received, be well-reviewed, be well-recommended and therefore continue to gain momentum.

Speaker 1: 16:27

All right, last question for today is I'm really hesitant to even bring this one up, but everyone's talking about it. So when is it okay to use AI with writing books? This is just my opinion on this, so this is not the right opinion. This is not the be all end, all anything. This is how Elizabeth feels about it. I don't feel like there's ever a good time to use AI to write anything that has to do with your book.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Beyond helping you with a structure and I helping the word is helping. So if you take the structure that AI gives you and you say, well, this is it, and I helping the word is helping. So if you take the structure that AI gives you and you say, well, this is it and I'm not gonna modify it at all. That's not great either. You're going to have a very formulaic, probably boring book. Many of the topics that it's outlining you probably can't even speak to. So if you would like, if it's helpful to you to use it as a starting point, I personally have no problem with that.

Speaker 1: 17:34

I, as an editor, see book after book after book lately where I respectfully go back to the author and say, with all due respect, I can tell that this chapter was written by AI. There are so many tells now and it kind of sucks because the em dash is one of the biggest tells and I love the em dash. I just don't love it where a comma would work better and in most cases with AI the em dash is plugged in. But I have a list I mean there are about 10 now that I'm very aware of that are an immediate AI tell. So one of them is the MDASH, one of them is, in case you're interested, things are always a series of three.

Speaker 1: 18:21

When you're giving examples, there's always a series of three. There is an overabundance of metaphors, to the point where you first start reading a book and you think, oh, these metaphors are really clever, I get this. But the more you get into it it's like, oh my God, there's another one, there's another one, there's another one, it's just there's too many. Another is things like the truth is, or here's the crazy thing, or the thing is, and then another one that's just right at the top of my head is it will spit out something like it's not just blank semicolon, it's blank.

Speaker 1: 19:04

When you start having those things repeatedly in your manuscript, it is beyond evident that you've used AI to write it and even if the reader doesn't pick up on, oh, this is written by AI, they will quickly get bored because it's not your voice and it doesn't feel like your voice. So unless that information is heavily honed so that it sounds like you using words you would use, using analogies that you would use, but not every paragraph, using personal stories or stories from clients or wherever, it will fall flat for the reader because they don't know quite what about. It isn't connecting. What they know is that it's not connecting. So as an editor, I can see it and say I'm 99% sure this is AI generated, and lots of times authors with whom I'm working, even feel embarrassed about that. So they'll say no, no, it's not, I swear it's not, and I just say okay. So they'll say no, no it's not, I swear it's not, and I just say okay. Well, regardless, it doesn't feel quite like your voice, it feels flat.

Speaker 1: 20:07

This chapter feels completely different from a previous chapter in terms of, like, your creativity going. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that. I use podcasts for that, I use TV for that, I use conversations with my friends. For that you're actively writing. It really needs to be your voice, your experience, your expertise and more often than not, the reason that authors don't do that is one they're impatient and they just want to get the thing done quickly and out, because maybe they are in the entrepreneurial space and they're using the book to help attract people for a course or a program or they have crazy imposter syndrome, which is totally understandable.

Speaker 1: 21:04

So there's this thought that if something else, even though it's a robot taking content from other people who have already written it writes it for me, then it must be good and it'll sound good. And I'm not a writer and I don't have great grammar skills and I don't have great punctuation skills. So this thing. This tool over here will do this for me. It has the opposite effect, and every author has to lean into his or her feelings of imposter syndrome when writing a book and get more and more comfortable with what do I want to say and how do I want to say it, and then trusting an editor to help finesse that so that it does sound air quote better in a book, because we speak differently from the way that we write, and so partnering with someone who can come in and help make those words sound better and keep them in your tone and style is incredibly important.

Speaker 1: 22:08

With 42 million plus books on Amazon, getting your book discovered is hard enough Once you've exhausted your friends and your family and your colleagues, and now you're pushing out to the next layer, which is a colder audience who hasn't heard of you.

Speaker 1: 22:29

It becomes all the more important for your book to be able to stand on its own, not just on oh, I like you, so I'm going to support you, or I want to support you, or it's 99 cents today. Whatever the case may be, that has caused people to purchase up until now, so that's my feeling on that, but I would love to hear what thoughts you have on that, because I'm always interested in how other people are using AI with integrity in the book writing space, because it's different in all different spaces. So please feel free to just email me and let me know how you're using it in a way that feels good to you and where you found it to be beneficial. But that is it for today. We'll be back next week with another interview and again. In the meantime, if you haven't yet checked it out, check out the show notes or go to publishaprofitablebookcom forward. Slash Amazon ads so you can get in on early bird pricing on the Amazon ads. I'll talk to you again next week.