Do any of you rate your own books on here?

[J.]

Just curious, as a publisher/author acquaintance of mine did so on his first published novel, but I'd feel really weird about doing that myself!

Any of you guys ever do such a thing?

[Jack]

Yep, I did it on both, because I can. Never miss an opportunity to promote your own book or send a message to your fans. That's what I use it for. And of course I think it's 5 stars, I wrote it. Have fun with all this stuff and don't take it too seriously.

[Ian]

If I saw an author rating his/her own book I'd find it tacky and would be put off considering buying it...

[Christina]

I see a lot of authors who have done this. I don't particularly find it offensive because hey, if you aren't a fan of your own work, who else will be, right? However, I don't rate my own books because doing so just goes against my self-styled beliefs.

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

J. wrote: "Any of you guys ever do such a thing?"

I used to, but I don't anymore and have deleted the ratings. I am not opposed to authors that do it, though. Everyone's gonna do their own thing and there's much worse stuff people could be doing besides saying to the world, "I love my stories."

The main reason I don't is to help me get a clearer idea of what people are thinking of my stories. I know what I think. I do love my stories or I wouldn't publish them. I just want to see a pure rating from readers. Even one rating from myself would throw it off.

[Bill]

I don't really think there's anything wrong with it, but...I have to admit; I would subconsciously subtract points if an author did that. I guess it smells of desperation. Like maybe they don't have any confidence in their own work, or the fact that readers will leave good ratings. Just being honest. But it's your book, not anyone else's.

[Charles]

I did but I rescinded them, mostly because it isn't up to me to rate my work. This discussion did make me go back and rate one of my shorts as a 3 because that's what I think it deserves.

[Riley, Viking Extraordinaire]

I did my Breath of the Titans series but only because of my free Reader's Favorite review that took me 7 months to get. It was worth it, and I state it's someone else's review. But I only did it on goodreads, since they did tag Amazon. And it was my FIRST review.

[Owen]

I don't see a problem with doing it (after all, it's well established that you can vote for yourself), but I don't. I'm not sure how I'd rate our books. Personally, I don't think we've written a 5-star book yet (I think we will though). Overall, I'm happier not rating them. (I already know what I think.)

[Nik]

It's sort of like boasting and self-promoting, usually results in negative feelings of the audience and if to give lower rating to yourself, then people might think: 'hey, why do you offer me something that you yourself think is imperfect?' -:)

[[deleted user]]

Never.

[[deleted user]]

I always thought it was in poor taste, and seems a little desperate on the author's part. As a rating it's worthless, and way too self-serving.

[Matt]

I don't. I don't let my wife (always my first reader) enter reviews on Amazon either, although she really wants to.

[J.]

Some interesting thoughts so far, guys.

I don't think I'm ever going to rate my own stuff (for a lot of the reasons others have stated) but I find it interesting that Goodreads allows it (and, therefore, tacitly approves it) given that you can't, say, "like" your own book review.

Because (so far) the only star rating I have received anywhere is one (4 star) rating of my novelette that I only uploaded for the heck of it (wrote it mainly for the writing practice) I get occasionally tempted to rate one of my other works myself.

But I won't.

[Thomas]

I just did it. I may be going to writer hell/purgatory.I am not sure I would do it for all my books. I have another coming out in a few months that I would not give 5 stars to, but my first....
I couldn't resist.

[Christina]

I will say this. I saw an author go through and give themselves five stars after someone gave them a one star, and they were called on it by the person who gave the one star. This led to an argument that I'm guessing did the author more harm than good, so keep that in mind. I know some folks will say that bad press is better than no press, but I think Goodreads has on several occasions proven this to be false.

[Thomas]

Christina wrote: "I will say this. I saw an author go through and give themselves five stars after someone gave them a one star, and they were called on it by the person who gave the one star. This led to an argumen..."
I may have to change my mind. I do admit in the review that it is my book, the site seems to emphasise the lighter side of life, books and publishing in general.

[Micah]

Nope.

What's the point? True, with the minimal number of reviews I have, it would up my overall average, but consider...

Scenario 1: You rate your book 5 stars.
What will readers think?
- Of course the author would give 5 stars, what else would you expect?
- This author is really arrogant. I mean, 5 stars? Really?
- This author sure has a big ego.

Scenario 2: You rate your books at lower than 5 stars because you're not egotistical enough to go all out.
Readers think...
- What, even the author doesn't think this books great?
- Boy, this author's not very confident.

So I can't see that it helps in any way.

[Ellen]

From what I've read on message boards here and elsewhere, it won't do you a bit of good except hand you a bad rep with the reading public. It's about as unprofessional as the big publishing houses purchasing huge units of their books and marking them as single sales to make them "Best Sellers" before the book is even released or giving the books five stars without any reviews to back them up.

[Thomas]

I used to (I did it once) but y'all have changed my mind.

[[deleted user]]

Nope.

[Igzy]

I've discounted entire bodies of work because I saw the author was one of the few people reviewing their books (5 stars of course). It seems tacky to me.

[J.D.]

I'm not morally opposed to it, I just don't see the point in it. Like, what is rating my own book supposed to accomplish? To let people know I believe in it? If I didn't believe in my story, I wouldn't have published it and listed it on so many websites I've lost count in the first place. Maybe this is just me, but the fact that I've made Bounty available for public consumption should be enough of a clue to people that I believe in the story. I don't need to give myself stars to convey that message.

[Margaret]

I appreciate all the posts to this question as it is something I was wondering about after seeing it's possible to do so on GR. And as a new author, I'm wondering about a lot of things!

[Courtney]

From a readers standpoint, I respect authors who err against that and think they're doing themselves a bigger favor by not. Some readers are indifferent but others have a hostile attitude because it's perceived as immodest, self-congratulatory, arrogant and other bad taste in the mouth endorsements.

The census of my last group discussions on this was - don't. It's just not worth automatically shooting yourself in the foot with some readers and people will always find a writer classier if they can avoid it.

[Angela]

Courtney wrote: "From a readers standpoint, I respect authors who err against that and think they're doing themselves a bigger favor by not. Some readers are indifferent but others have a hostile attitude because ..."

I think I have to agree with this statement myself. It doesn't bother me if some authors want to rate their own books, and I'd still look into them and buy them if I found the synopsis interesting. But I don't do it myself because I know what I think, and the ratings are there for my readers to take advantage of if they'd like to bestow their mark upon my work...so to speak lol :)

[Erin]

I'd never do that b/c to me that's a biased rating. Of course we like our own books. ;)

[Jenycka]

I don't rate my own. However, I do have a few IRL friends who are on GoodReads, and you'd better believe I got them to give me good ratings.

[J.]

If I could get any of my friends or family to actually read my books, I'm sure I'd convince them to rate me as well...

[Jenycka]

J. wrote: "If I could get any of my friends or family to actually read my books, I'm sure I'd convince them to rate me as well..."

I just have a few select friends who have read mine. Most of my conservative religious family doesn't know I write erotica. And the ones who do pretend that they don't. My friends who have read it tend to be sexually adventurous females... if you have friends like that, write a dirty book and give them copies. They will read it.

[[deleted user]]

J. wrote: "Just curious, as a publisher/author acquaintance of mine did so on his first published novel, but I'd feel really weird about doing that myself!

Any of you guys ever do such a thing?"

I personally wouldn't do it , but I don't find anything wrong with it

[Ted]

Too funny. why do you think I created the art house? to avoid self-promotion. J. wrote: "Just curious, as a publisher/author acquaintance of mine did so on his first published novel, but I'd feel really weird about doing that myself!

Any of you guys ever do such a thing?"

[[deleted user]]

You know what... I'm going to rate my book right now lol

[E.J.]

I don't rate my books - I just add them to my "read" list. I've always thought it seemed kind of egotistical and tacky, and I don't want to be "that person." If I come across a new-ish book that only has one 5-star rating and I realize it's from the author, it honestly makes me want to read that book less. The way I see it, the fact that the author likes their own book should be a given and there shouldn't be any need to proclaim it to the world. When I look at ratings and reviews, I want to see other people's opinions, not the author's.

Someone argued once that a person has the right to vote for him/herself in an election or contest, so they have a right to vote for their own book. And that's true. But voting in an election is also anonymous in most cases, so I feel like the situations are still different.

I just don't feel like it looks very good when authors rate their own books.

[Iffix]

I don't rate my books, but I do vote them into Listopia. I figured it was a decent way to let others know it was out there and make it easier to find, but I do think it's tacky when an author rates their own book. I figure it destroys a writer's credibility.

[Diana]

I have seen some readers who have a lot of rules in their own minds for what authors can do on GR. I would be worried about someone punishing the author by giving a lower rating, but that seems really unlikely.
As far as amazon.com goes, you aren't allowed to review if you are close to the author. They have recently made it hard for followers of authors to rate books, even though they don't know them in person, so they would have a fit about a wife reviewing a husband's book.

[April]

No. I did rate it once, just for fun (but I immediately deleted my rating).

It is on my currently-reading list, though, because I am reading it. I read it over and over, constantly looking for any errors that might have slipped through the proofreading. I'm paranoid about having errors in my book.

April

[Ty]

I did for my first one, just because, really. I haven't for my second and current work. I can see the reasoning behind either position, though as I reader it would make exactly zero impact on my own decision to read a piece, in either direction.