Indie book sales fall off a cliff following a 2-star review…

I’m not saying that sales were going swimmingly. But they were happening regularly for one of my titles, with a rating north of 4.0 on Amazon. Then a 2-star review caused the average to dip under 4.0 for the first time.

And that seemed to change everything.

As all writers must do, you have to take the good with the bad, the rough with the smooth, the one and two stars with the fours and fives. And I did, not expecting the bad review to have much of an impact on a book that was selling well regularly, and attracting a fair few KENP reads.

But,unless there’s another reason for a sales slump that started in mid-March and has continued ever since, the average rating of the book falling below 4.0 has impacted interest in and sales of the title.

The number of clicks on the ad I’m running on Amazon to advertise the title are down too. Again, is this linked to the drop in the average rating, or are other forces at work?

Do other writers have experiences of their titles suffering from a sudden bad review out of the blue? Actually, it was only a rating that was provided, no review. But, on the face of it, the 2-star rating looks like it has knocked sales of this title for six!