You got a 2-star review. Now what?

It arrives on a Tuesday, two stars, three sentences, and it lands harder than the twelve good ones put together. Here is what a low review does to your book, which is less than you think, and the short list of things to do about it.

What a low review does to sales

A listing with a perfect five-star average and twelve reviews reads as rigged. Shoppers have learned that real books have a spread, and a two-star review among a dozen honest ones makes the four- and five-star reviews believable. Several studies of online reviews have found that products with an average around 4.2 to 4.5 convert better than those at 4.9 and above. Your rating dipped from 4.9 to 4.7 and your listing got more credible.

A low review also tells the right readers to skip the book, which protects your rating from a run of 'not for me' two-stars later.

Read it once, properly

Strip the tone and look for the claim. 'Boring' is noise. 'Nothing happens for the first fifty pages' is data, and if two reviews say it, it is true. Reviews are the only unpaid editorial feedback you will ever get from strangers; take the note and move on.

When you can report it

Amazon removes reviews that are about delivery or price rather than the book, that contain personal information or abuse, that are obviously about a different product, or that are written by a competitor. It does not remove reviews for being wrong, unfair or short. Use the Report link under the review for those categories and nothing else; reporting honest negative reviews gets ignored and, done repeatedly, gets noticed.

Never

• Reply. Amazon no longer lets authors comment, and any route around that (contacting the reviewer, posting about them) ends badly every time.
• Ask friends to post five-star reviews to 'balance' it. That is the pattern Amazon removes clusters for.
• Screenshot it for social media. Your readers see an author arguing with a reader, and side with the reader.
• Change the book in a hurry. Wait for three reviews to agree before you touch the manuscript.

What actually fixes it

More honest reviews. A two-star among five reviews is a 40% share; among twenty it is a footnote. If your campaign is still running, the next verified reviews will move the average on their own. If it is not, start another ten. Readers who pick your genre and read the book will, on average, like it more than the one who did not.