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By Heidi Gray McGill @HeidiGrayMcGill

For years, the ask lived quietly in the back of every book I published, a line thanking readers and inviting them to leave a review if they enjoyed the story. Printing it never bothered me. What made me uncomfortable happened later, when a reader emailed to say she’d loved the book, and I typed back, “Did you leave a review?” The question always landed wrong. Instead of feeling thanked, she felt caught, and now she was the one who felt uncomfortable. Asking felt like begging, and begging felt like something a real author shouldn’t have to do.

Then a longtime reader wrote to tell me she’d finished my newest release in two days and alternately cried and laughed through the last three chapters. I thanked her, and for once I made myself ask the hard question directly. Her answer surprised me. She wanted to leave a review. She just didn’t know what to say. “I’m not a writer,” she told me. “What if I get it wrong?”

That single line changed how I thought about the ask altogether. I had assumed the barrier was willingness. It wasn’t. It was confidence. She loved the book enough to cry and laugh over it, and yet she still felt unqualified to describe why in three sentences on Amazon.

Once I noticed it in her, I started noticing it everywhere. Readers who messaged me with paragraphs of genuine praise, then admitted they’d never actually posted a review because they didn’t know where to start. They weren’t reluctant. They were stuck, staring at a blank review box the same way I often stared at a blank screen.

Around that time, I ran across Hebrews 10:24, which says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” I had always read that verse as instruction on how I should treat other people. It hadn’t occurred to me that it applied to something as small as a review request. Spurring someone toward a good deed doesn’t always mean encouraging them harder. Sometimes it means removing whatever is standing between them and the thing they already want to do.

So instead of asking readers to describe my book in their own words, I gave them words to choose from. I built a simple fill-in-the-blank sheet, structured like the Mad Libs we all filled out as kids. I ___ this book (loved, enjoyed, treasured, devoured). The characters were ___ (entertaining, charming, real). Nothing about the format required literary skill. It only required an honest reaction and a pen.

The response told me everything. Readers who had gone months without posting a review sent me screenshots of finished ones within a day of receiving the sheet. Several told me it was the first review they had ever left for any author, not just for me. One woman said she kept the sheet on her kitchen counter and used it for every book she read afterward. The tool outlived the original ask.

I would love to tell you every reader who received that sheet used it. Most didn’t. Reviews are still one of the hardest things to get from even the most loyal readers, and no format fixes that completely. What changed wasn’t the response rate. What changed was that the readers who were willing finally had a way in. I stopped measuring success by how many people reviewed and started measuring it by how many people who wanted to, now could.

That distinction matters for every one of us trying to build a readership. We spend so much energy crafting the ask, polishing the newsletter line, timing the social post, when the real friction often sits one step further down, at the moment a reader sits down to actually write. A generic request assumes the reader already has the words. A structured one assumes they might not and starts by giving them some to choose from.

If you’ve never tried something like this with your own readers, here is the practical piece. Take the pressure off the blank page. Give your readers three- or four-word options for the sentences you most want them to fill in, something as simple as “I ___ this book” with a handful of adjectives to choose from. You don’t need to design anything elaborate. You can download my Mad Libs for Book Reviews here, and you’re welcome to use it as is or build your own version from it.

The next time a reader tells you they loved your book but don’t know what to say, don’t send them back to a blank box. Hand them three sentences to finish instead.

Selah Award finalist Heidi Gray McGill writes award-winning Christian fiction that draws readers into stories of hope, grace, and redemption. Her Discerning God’s Best series brings the American frontier to life with historical richness and biblical truth, while her contemporary novels explore modern struggles with the same heartfelt honesty. She lives near Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband of over thirty five years and treasures her role as Grammie to three energetic grandsons. Connect with Heidi and receive a free prequel at HeidiGrayMcGill.com. @HeidiGrayMcGill