Star Ratings, Direct Sales and Other Musings

Hello again. First of all I have been back in the UK for ten days or so and feel exactly how anyone would have expected, including myself, about returning to the cold weather. But as well as having to wear all the layers every time I leave home, it also means that once again it is possible for me to add personalised signatures to paperbacks and ensure they are promptly posted to anyone who orders them directly from www.aneurysmcupcake.com - with UK shipping still free until the current stock runs out. International shipping is just £5 to anywhere outside of the UK, and as well as the signature, orders include a couple of free bookmarks.

Meanwhile, I found myself participating in an interesting conversation about star ratings on Twitter yesterday, which prompted me to set out exactly what each rating from one to five stars means for me. That is to say what I am thinking when I decide what ratings to give, not how I interpret anyone else's.

This is what I wrote (heavily influenced by what was possible to fit into a single tweet - star emojis, spaces and proper punctuation aside - I'm adding them here and now only, because I can).

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 - got me so excited I want to tell everyone all about it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 - easy to imagine it's a 5 for someone else but not to my taste, or it's a 3 but pushes a lot of my personal excitement buttons.
⭐⭐⭐ 3 - I enjoyed it.
⭐⭐ 2 - it deserves to exist.
⭐ 1- finished it just in case it got better, but it didn't.

Upon reflection I might reword 1 star ⭐ to simply say "I managed to finish it."

I subsequently added that I believe we should really have an even number of options. Many people would like half stars in between, which would guarantee an even number, so I would absolutely fine with that. I imagine that the main appeal of half stars to most people is to expand the scale from 5 degrees to 10, and I can see the benefits of that. We read a lot of books, more than enough to spread our ratings over that many distinct levels of enjoyment, significance, quality or whatever it is that we choose to measure.

But I'm more interested having an even number of options available, whether 4, 6, 10 or any number greater than 2, which only allows you to say good or bad, because then a reviewer must make a choice to go above or below the 50% mark, and I think that would be very helpful. My own reason for giving three stars illustrates this well enough. "I enjoyed it". Right in the middle. Not really saying anything of value.

Of course this is also the reason why I don't pay much attention to the number of stars in a review. What's written in words matters so much more. The reasons someone gives for not liking a book could be reasons why I might love it, and vice versa. That's also why I would never ascribe my own interpretations of the stars that I use as my own guide to anyone else's ratings. I don't know what giving 2,3,4, or any number of stars to a book means to you, but that's fine because you're also going to tell me what you thought of that book in your review.

That said, while I don't think there should be an absolute standard definition of ratings, whether mine or yours, or even one suggested by the review platform in question (now I realise it might have been sensible to check if Goodreads has one before beginning this blog entry, but never mind), I do strongly recommend that everyone has their own, which you can disclose on your review blog or keep privately just for yourself. If you always know what you personally mean when rating a book (or a film or anything really), and can keep it consistent as a result, you may find that really useful. Just remember that your system is for you, and only for you.

Meanwhile, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review or even just a rating on my work. I don't reply to individuals for obvious reasons, but I appreciate every single review for its honesty, clarity and the avoidance of spoilers, which are the only three things I believe an author should expect. If you have written a review either before or after this is posted, you may take my thanks personally.

By letting others know how well a book compared with your individual tastes and expectations, you're giving them the best chance of deciding whether or not it is right for them, and it is the best kind of help there can be for the right pairings books and readers to find each other.