18 days ago (On 14 May 2026) I had 5 Amazon reviews with an average rating of 3.0. Today I have 27 reviews averaging 4.1 — and there are still more coming in.
In this video I document exactly what happened after signing up for Scrivy’s ARC (Advance Reader Copy) service on May 15, 2026.
I also cover how I’m using those reviews as source material to create promotional videos, distributing them across 7 social media platforms, and the impact it’s all having on book sales.
If you’re a self-published author trying to build your Amazon review base, this is worth watching.
📖 Get the book: https://mybook.to/A8X8
Transcript of Video:
So, this is going to be part two of my review for the service called Scrivy.
0:07
7 seconds That’s uh S C R I V Y. Now, uh I am an author. I wrote this book. It’s called
0:16
16 seconds “You’re Going to Die Someday, right?” I’ve like a lot of independent authors, I’ve been trying to figure out
0:23
23 seconds what’s the best best way to promote the book. What works and what doesn’t.
29 seconds And there’s thousands of services out there, or at least seems like there’s thousands that are all trying to
0:37
37 seconds get you to sign up, pay for whatever it is that they do. And of course, you have no idea what works and what doesn’t. I didn’t either. So, the the
0:46
46 seconds the reason why this Scrivy exists is it uses what’s called the advanced reader
0:52
52 seconds copy or ARC network to generate reviews for your book. The way the
0:59
59 seconds publishing industry works is they use this ARC network for a new book that hasn’t been released yet so that when it’s on its release date, they have
1:08
1 minute, 8 seconds reviews already and they can say it’s a great book. You’re going to love it. So you pay for reviews. Let me
1:16
1 minute, 16 seconds clarify that you’re paying for the service. Scrivy does not pay for the individual reviews. You’re paying $6 per
1:23
1 minute, 23 seconds review. Now, if I hand out author copies of my book, they cost me about six bucks a piece to buy.
1:31
1 minute, 31 seconds So the idea is for about the same amount of money or less, I’m now getting
1:37
1 minute, 37 secondsre views on the Amazon website. When you’ve got more
1:45
1 minute, 45 seconds reviews on your book, then it just indicates to Amazon’s algorithm that you have
1:52
1 minute, 52 seconds some traction. So, somebody’s reading your book and they like it and they’re giving some feedback. So, somebody’s more likely to actually buy
1:59
1 minute, 59 seconds your book. So, two things. This is now the second – Where’ my glasses go? Excuse me for just a moment
2:07
2 minutes, 7 seconds so I can be a little bit less blind. So, I want to pull these numbers up. So, I know that right now when I started this was uh probably two or three weeks ago.
2:17
2 minutes, 17 seconds there were my book was published in November of 2025.
2:23
2 minutes, 23 seconds So, it’s been out for like 6 months and in all of that time, I’ve been advertising it on KDP
2:31
2 minutes, 31 seconds or Amazon KDP and, basically getting almost no sales and almost no reviews. I had I handed out dozens
2:40
2 minutes, 40 seconds of copies of books to friends and neighbors and relatives and people that I run into. And in all that time, I’d
2:47
2 minutes, 47 seconds gotten five reviews. Not good. So now, and this is 3 weeks later, there are now
2:53
2 minutes, 53 seconds 27 reviews of the book. It’s kind of hard to to know exactly what came
3:01
3 minutes, 1 second organically from sales and what came from Scrivy. So, I paid for 21
3:08
3 minutes, 8 seconds reviews or I paid Scrivy $6 for 21 reviews and they pass them out to the people on this ARC network and then
3:16
3 minutes, 16 seconds those people kind of understand that well I get free books in exchange I’m expected to write a review. Scrivy goes out of their way to say
3:24
3 minutes, 24 seconds that they’re you know you’re your reviews are not guaranteed, you’re not guaranteed to get any reviews at all and you’re not guaranteed to get good
3:30
3 minutes, 30 seconds reviews. So, I paid for 21 and I went from 5 to
3:38
3 minutes, 38 seconds 27. So, I got more than what I paid for. There’s still
3:46
3 minutes, 46 seconds several that are outstanding. Now, it’s a little bit weird because there’s kind of a disconnect between what’s showing up on Amazon and what is being reflected
3:54
3 minutes, 54 seconds on Scrivy. So, that’s all you can really see is what is actually on the Amazon website. and then go back over to
4:02
4 minutes, 2 seconds Scrivy and you can see in some cases the same review that’s on the Scrivy website is the same review that’s on Amazon. In some cases there’s stuff
4:10
4 minutes, 10 seconds that’s on Scrivy that has not shown up yet on Amazon. Um there was one case where a a a really really good book
4:19
4 minutes, 19 seconds review was written and it was uh spot on, you know, the to to the content and the intent of the book and that you can tell
4:26
4 minutes, 26 seconds that the person actually read it. And it was a great review. I’m like, man, that that review is amazing. And it was like on the Amazon website for like a
4:34
4 minutes, 34 seconds day and then it seems like it was pulled down. I think that maybe it was automatically flagged as being like good, too good of a review or something
4:42
4 minutes, 42 second sor I don’t know. And then but then it came back up. So whatever. Anyway, what I’m saying is Amazon
4:50
4 minutes, 50 seconds really wants to protect the quality and the integrity of their review process and then Scrivy is playing within the
4:57
4 minutes, 57 seconds rules of the ARC network uh that the entire publishing industry uses. So,
5:05
5 minutes, 5 seconds it’s working out okay, but there is a little bit of a disconnect there between what Scrivy shows and what Amazon shows
5:12
5 minutes, 12 seconds and stuff. And I kind of like stopped. I was tracking it for a while and I built a little spreadsheet so I can say, you know, well, here’s this one and there’s that one and who did this and
5:20
5 minutes, 20 seconds who did that. I stopped doing that because I was just like, well, that’s just kind of a waste of time. Now what I am doing, and what I’ll do is I’ll put some links to this down below.
5:30
5 minutes, 30 seconds There are some reviews that are really, really good. So, what I’ve been doing is taking those reviews
5:37
5 minutes, 37 seconds taking the transcript, taking the review itself, and then plugging that into an AI, making an AI voice over. So, now I’ve got an AI voice reading the review.
5:48
5 minutes, 48 seconds So, if it was written by a female, for example, use a female voice, and then taking the same script, plugging that into another AI and say, “Okay, write
5:57
5 minutes, 57 seconds prompts for me to create the images that would go along with this script as it’s read.” And then I plug that into another
6:04
6 minutes, 4 seconds AI. So, three so far. And then create those images and then take that and use the software that I use for video editing is called Da Vinci
6:12
6 minutes, 12 seconds Resolve. And then take those and plug it all in, add transitions, oh, I’m sorry, four AIs because now I used
6:20
6 minutes, 20 secondsanother AI to create a very, uh, gentle melodic uh, background uh, music track.
6:28
6 minutes, 28 secondsUm, and anyway, so now I’ve made about five of those use. So, in other words, taking the uh reviews and generating
6:37
6 minutes, 37 secondspromotional videos based on the text of the review using AI to create all this stuff and then putting them out on I’m
6:45
6 minutes, 45 secondsusing seven different um uh social media platforms. So, okay, this is a test if I
6:53
6 minutes, 53 secondscan name all seven off the top of my head. So, I’m on YouTube, uh, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, uh, Pinterest or
7:01
7 minutes, 1 secondPinterest, um, X, and, uh, uh, LinkedIn.
7:07
7 minutes, 7 secondsSo, there’s seven. And then I take the same videos and putting them put them out on all seven, uh, platforms. Um, and
7:16
7 minutes, 16 secondsI’m promoting them on, uh, YouTube, so basically paying for views. and it’s really not that expensive, but it’s
7:25
7 minutes, 25 secondsgotten on just on YouTube uh generated uh 25,000 views. Now, now what that
7:32
7 minutes, 32 secondsmeans is just in the month of May, so the reason why I’m doing this video today cuz it’s the month of May. Um and I I looking at the KDP, so that’s the
7:41
7 minutes, 41 secondsinternal Amazon advertising for the book. Um again, paying for a little bit of advertising there, not paying a lot.
7:48
7 minutes, 48 secondsUm but that that advertising generated four sales. [snorts] Um during the month
7:54
7 minutes, 54 secondsof May uh there were a total of 11 sales of the book which means that the four is what I would have gotten had I not done
8:02
8 minutes, 2 secondsany promoting on anything else. And then the other additional sales were um um have to be because of the additional
8:10
8 minutes, 10 secondsadvertising. Um, so bottom line on Scribby, thumbs up. I’m
8:18
8 minutes, 18 secondsgoing to uh I’ve looked at some other um platforms and um so when I’m looking at some of these other ones and I can’t
8:26
8 minutes, 26 secondsremember the names off the top of my head. Um it’s the same kind of thing as Scribby. They seem to be in some cases when you look at cuz you can you can
8:33
8 minutes, 33 secondsresearch these things and it says, “Okay, this one works this way.” And then you look at some of the reviews and you see some of the complaints and you
8:42
8 minutes, 42 secondsknow what’s the cost and it it seems like some of the other ones cost more money and don’t do as good or better of a job. Um I might try one of those anyway. But right now I like scrivy.
8:54
8 minutes, 54 secondsIt’s working and I’m going to continue with scrivy. I’m going to do it again for another batch. I’m going to wait for all of these ones. The original the
9:02
9 minutes, 2 secondsinitial 21 that I paid and again it’s $6 a review. So, whatever 21 * 6 is, that’s how much money I paid. It was 120
9:10
9 minutes, 10 secondssomething bucks or something. Um, which is fine, you know. Um, but I went from five reviews to 27. The overall ratings
9:18
9 minutes, 18 secondson the reviews uh were mixed. Uh, I think I’m at about a 4.1 or 4.2 right now. Um, which is fine. That’s okay. Um,
9:27
9 minutes, 27 secondsthe the ones that matter the most is that the the the the ones that you can tell that were like really good, happy,
9:35
9 minutes, 35 secondsglowing reviews. It was great book. I love the content and all that. Who are people who were into it, they liked it, they enjoyed it, and they could read it
9:42
9 minutes, 42 secondsand understand it. It’s it’s not like a, you know, a a really simple the the the content of the book can be kind of
9:49
9 minutes, 49 secondsheavy. I mean, it’s it’s not a just a weekend at the beach kind of read thing.
9:55
9 minutes, 55 secondsuh it’s not a romance novel, you know, it takes some thought there to be able to process it.
10:01
10 minutes, 1 secondAnd and you could tell the people that that kind of like were leaning toward the negative reviews were those who really didn’t read it, really didn’t
10:09
10 minutes, 9 secondsunderstand it, or disagreed with the conclusions. Well, they’re not they’re they’re they’re they’re
10:17
10 minutes, 17 secondsnot really talking about the content of what’s in the book. They’re talking about the fact that I don’t like your ideas. Well, okay, whatever. That’s just
10:26
10 minutes, 26 secondsthe way it is. I don’t really care if uh some people don’t like it. Um I want people who are interested in it and and
10:34
10 minutes, 34 secondsand think that the the conclusions in the book are valid and and accurate and and it’s it’s good that that they can
10:41
10 minutes, 41 secondshave different opinions to look at. But anyway, the the the the really good reviews are really good. I guess that’s
10:49
10 minutes, 49 secondsthe way it is. I’m not used to dealing with reviews or dealing with things like that. So, this is new for me. Um, but so
10:57
10 minutes, 57 secondsfar again, I’ll take a 4 whatever um for Amazon. And going from five reviews 3
11:04
11 minutes, 4 secondsweeks ago to 27 reviews today is outstanding. I’m going to wait. There’s about three or four left. I that’s why
11:11
11 minutes, 11 secondsI’m saying that out of that 27 number um I only paid for 21 reviews and got 22 and there’s still supposedly about five
11:20
11 minutes, 20 secondsor six left that are going to come out of scrubby. So that tells me that some of those are just organic from the the regular traffic on Amazon which is great
11:27
11 minutes, 27 secondstoo. Um and uh yeah so anyway bottom line, Scribby thumbs up. Still using
11:33
11 minutes, 33 secondsthem and to be crystal clear this is not paid advertising. Scribby is not giving me anything for free. Um, I’m paying for
11:42
11 minutes, 42 secondsthe service. Uh, this is an honest if they sucked, I’d tell you. Uh, but what I’m saying is I like it. It’s working and I’m going to continue using them.
11:51
11 minutes, 51 secondsSo, that’s the best possible endorsement that I could give them. Um, if they were terrible and they were crap and I didn’t like it, I would tell you clearly and
11:58
11 minutes, 58 secondsthat’s just not the case. Uh, so [cough] doing a few other things. [snorts] The problem is my uh my neighbor was getting
12:07
12 minutes, 7 secondsa new drill uh a new a new water well drilled across the street. So he’s had his thing over there bang literally banging through the bedrock um which was
12:16
12 minutes, 16 secondsjust devastating when it comes to noise and trying to record a video in the backyard. My neighbor was mowing the lawn the other day. I had wind blowing
12:24
12 minutes, 24 secondsthrough here at 40 miles an hour so I couldn’t do any videos. Um, I’m going to try to get out there and do another one of these and keep track of all the things because right now I am doing a
12:32
12 minutes, 32 secondslot of these services. Um, next up I’m doing some uh avatar generation of uh to
12:40
12 minutes, 40 secondspromote some chapters. So you might look at me and say, “Hey, this is me.” But maybe next time it’ll be an avatar.
12:46
12 minutes, 46 secondsOkay, so um anyway, all of that good to go and uh hope this helps. Hope somebody can find this uh useful and uh have an amazing day. God bless. Bye.
13:01
13 minutes, 1 second Oh yeah, don’t forget on Amazon. Buy this. You’re going to like it. If you’d like to know what happens after you pass away according to the near-death
13:08
13 minutes, 8 secondsexperience data. Um also, by the way, it happens to cover the origin of all religion in in terms of where where did
13:16
13 minutes, 16 secondsthe word god come from? Where did the word soul come from? Why do we have these things in our brain? Um, I explain all that
13:25
13 minutes, 25 seconds bald-faced promotion of my book. Buy my book. It’s on Amazon.