From the makers of Publisher Rocket and Atticus comes a free plugin to help you stay vigilant about unexpected price changes, new reviews, and the most convenient way to see your Amazon followers count.
But is this plugin worth the effort, even though it costs nothing? Is the information valuable to authors?
In this review, I will cover everything that you need to know about ReaderScout, and how it can help you collect valuable information about your books.
- What ReaderScout is
- Its different features
- How to use ReaderScout
Table of contents
What Is ReaderScout?
ReaderScout is a chrome plugin that you can use to track changes in your book price, as well as track new reviews, and it's a great place to see your Amazon Followers count grow.
The plugin updates once per day, so you will know immediately when a change happens.
And, since ReaderScout runs in the background, you will only be notified when a change occurred, which saves you a ton of time by freeing you up from constantly checking and rechecking your books.
ReaderScout Features
As of this writing, ReaderScout has three main features:
- Daily price checks
- Daily review checks
- Amazon followers
Let's discuss each of these in detail, and why you would want to have them.
Daily Price Checks
ReaderScout will periodically check your books every day for changes in price.
Why is this important? Because Amazon will sometimes change your price in order to match other sites, or because they are doing a promotion and are dropping the price of your book as part of that promotion.
That latter option is extremely important, because when Amazon drops the price of your book for sale, you still get the royalties for the original price, meaning you benefit considerably.
By knowing immediately that your book has dropped in price, you can take advantage of that sale by promoting it yourself, and bringing in higher royalties.
It also helps to prevent scams.
For example, there are instances of printing presses illegally ripping off your book, then selling paperback versions of that book through your Amazon page.
Thus, if you see a paperback book change in price unexpectedly, this could be a sign that someone is trying to illegally sell your book.
Daily Review Checks
I don't know about you, but when I was first starting out as an author, I was checking my books every day to see if there were new reviews. This became difficult the more books I had.
ReaderScout allows you to automatically be notified when you get a new review on Amazon.
Why is this important? If it's a great review, you can immediately screen grab and share on social media. If it's a bad review, you can immediately take action, such as correcting errors (like typos) in your book that might have contributed to the bad review.
Side note: in most cases, we do not recommend you respond to negative reviews. It will usually only pour fuel on the fire.
Plus, you can save time by not having to constantly check your books for reviews. ReaderScout does it for you.
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Amazon Followers
In 2023, Amazon made it possible to see the number of Amazon followers you have by logging into your Amazon Author Central dashboard.
However, this can get a little repetitive, so thankfully we made ReaderScout able to connect directly with your account, so you can see your Amazon Followers simply by clicking on your ReaderScout icon in Chrome.
This makes it significantly easier to find your Amazon Followers count, and to notice any changes that happen day-to-day. And it eliminates the need to constantly check into your Amazon Author Central account to know your number.
Be sure to visit our guides on how to find your Amazon Followers number and how to increase the number of Amazon Followers you have.
How to Use ReaderScout: Three Easy Steps
If you'd like to use ReaderScout, there are four easy steps for you to take:
- Download it
- Sync it with your Author Central account
- Select your books to track
- Get notified
Step 1: Download It
Since ReaderScout is a chrome plugin, you will need a chrome browser to run it.
But assuming you have a chrome browser, the next step is very easy: simply visit this link and add to your browser.
Once that is done, we recommend pinning the chrome plugin to your top bar of extensions, which you can do in the top right of your chrome browser.
Step 2: Sync With Your Author Central Account
Go to your Amazon Author Central Page.
Click on the ReaderScout Icon in the top of your browser, then click the button that says “Sync Your Amazon Account”. This will allow ReaderScout to automatically know what books you’ve written, as well as find your Amazon Followers Count.
Syncing with your Amazon Account automatically adds all of your books to the ReaderScout plugin.
Step 3: Select Your Books to Track
If you have successfully synced ReaderScout with your Amazon Author Central account, it should have automatically added your books to the plugin. However, if you want to add other books that are not yours (competitors, for example), you can continue to do so with the following instructions.
To do this, simply find the Amazon page for your book (or any book you want to track), then once you are there, click on the ReaderScout icon in the top right corner of your browser.
The plugin will drop down, and at the bottom is the button you want to press to add that Amazon book to your ReaderScout tracking.
Once you have selected all of your books, you can view the status of each of them by clicking on the ReaderScout icon again, then clicking on the bell icon which brings you to a new page with all of your books listed.
Step 4: Get Notified
Once you are tracking your books, ReaderScout will send you a notification every time there is a change in price, or every time you receive a new review.
Since ReaderScout runs in the background, you will only be notified when a change occurs.
So sit back and enjoy the time you saved, maybe go write another book.
Verdict: ReaderScout Review
ReaderScout is a great free tool for authors. Its features are simple, the information is useful to have, and it costs nothing.
In other words, I highly recommend you pick up ReaderScout and begin tracking your books today.
- Kindle Direct Publishing 
