Musing about Ratings

My comics get the full range of ratings and that’s ok. Sure, the first time I got a 1-star rating it hurt, and I did some soul searching to try to figure out why someone would do that. But it is a reader’s right to rate as they will.

A year or two ago I read a BookBub blog written by a successful independent author. He was very passionate in his belief that nobody should give low ratings to books, even if that is a sincere rating. It can have a negative impact on the author, both in their ability and motivation to create, and on their income. In my experience, my motivation to follow my creative spark is easily impacted by both negative and positive comments that I receive. Fortunately the positive comments can counteract the negative ones.

Having gone through the academic life of submitting research papers to be reviewed, I have developed a more philosophical stance regarding ratings. As long as someone is given feedback that they can act on in order to improve, a negative review is ok. Therefore my preference is this. Give a 1-star rating if you honestly feel that way and want to express that for whatever reason, but please give a review with it, so the author has some idea about why you feel that way. It can be just one or two words. Here are some one-word examples:

boringdatedunoriginalclichéedinconsistentblokeygirlykid-litmisleadingplotlesscharacterlesssuspenselessuneditedilliterateungrammatical

Given one of these one-word reviews, the author will know whether to work on plot, characterisation, writing, or factual content. If the review is “blokey”, “girly”, “kid-lit” or similar, the story may still be ok. Perhaps its nature wasn’t clearly indicated in the blurb for the story, leading to the wrong audience finding the work. The better the blurb gives clues as to the type of work, the greater the chance that reviews received will be higher, since those who are not the intended audience will give it a miss, and its intended audience will be more likely to find it.