Reviews...Ratings.....Incomplete...What do you Suggest?

[Judith]

I'm a writer, so I rarely rate other writers' books. It's so subjective, I don't feel comfortable with it, especially when I know that I've become more critical as a reader since I'm a writer. But I do sometimes say what I liked and what I think could be better. And I have friends who don't feel comfortable offering opinions of what works and what doesn't, but they read a lot and know if they liked or didn't like a book, so they just do ratings. Complete opposites. But I do get a little frustrated when people give something a 1 star review with no comment. Then a writer doesn't know what they REALLY didn't like, so they don't know how or if to fix it.

[Lisa]

Judith -

All opinions are subjective :). Your opinion is just as valid as any other person's! And, as a writer, you can probably do a better job than most in explaining your thoughts on the book. That will be a great boon to the writer, no matter what it is you felt. You're probably explaining things to them that many of their readers feel but couldn't put into words.

Lisa

[Judith]

Uh-oh, I deserved that. You're right. I belong to a writers' group and beta read my friends' manuscripts all the time. Time to write reviews for books I buy, too.

[I.S.]

This is a difficult question. I am an author myself and know how hard it is to just get reviews, let alone ones that you like. I personally do not like the practice of giving people ARC for the sake of writing reviews that people will see on public venues. You should not be submitting stuff for review unless you are ready to say it is the finished product.

First thing, if the book is not a genre that you like, you should not be reviewing it. If you are not comfortable reading erotica, you should not review it. The same could be said for science fiction, YA romance, anything. Second, beta reading is entirely different from reviewing.

Having said that, you do no justice to anyone by not being honest in your review. If the author gave you an advanced copy for reviewing and you really don't think it is good enough for at least a 3 star review, then at the very least you should tell the author what you do not like about it and why you would give it such a poor rating. Don't just write a glowing review if the story does not make you glow. If the story is bad, the bad ratings will come, and the author may have had a chance to make changes if you had warned him or her.

Bottom line is, use your judgment, but be honest.

[Judith]

For me, beta reading is a different thing from reviewing. I'm always brutally honest when I beta read, because things can be fixed and changed. But I know the writers I beta read for, and they read for me. So we know we're pushing each other to do our best. What Lisa called me on is my being a coward about reviews on books I'm not crazy about. I usually don't write anything...or write a few comments with no rating. I only review books I like. But for me, reading is about enjoyment, not work. Writing is WORK.

[Justin]

Ever since my first book was totally botched, chopped and thrown to the wolves so to speak, I make sure all my books over go thorough edits and beta readers. It's not about pleasing the masses of critics on here or anywhere else, its about making sure you put out the best work possible and that means making sure your book gets the proper care and edits it deserves.

Whether or not you pay to edit or know someone who does the bottom line is it should be gone over several times before being published. It just saves you the stress and shows people your serious about your work.

[Judith]

Agreed.

[Lisa]

Justin -

I would expand that the author should have read it quite a number of times - and then there should be multiple other people who are good with proofreading who should give it a final vetting. The more eyeballs the better. One person might be great at catching typos and another person consistency errors. You need all of that cleaned up before it goes live.

Reputations are precious. If an author gains a reputation for low quality work, that can dog them even if they later improve.

Lisa

[L.E.]

Justin wrote: "I sometimes wonder why some people will rate your book but not review it or vise versa. It's like if you can do one why not do the other? Do they not go hand in hand with one another? I always foun..."

I am one of those oddities. I find writing reviews hard. Being a writer I find that sometimes the review is too difficult to craft. I have folders full of half finished reviews which I can't bear to put out because they represent me and my writing.

I do star rate and I do this selfishly as I get recommendations based on what I like.

So I never feel bad about someone not leaving a review of a copy I've sent - at the end of the day they might just not have anything to say about it. Or as people say above life has got in the way.

And sometimes allocating as "did not finished" says more than a two star review.

My first ever review all those years ago just said "good read" no star rating at all.

[Lisa]

L.E. -

I'm an Amazon top reviewer and I get absolutely deluged with products to review. My house is stuffed with piles of things I need to review. So I understand what you mean. At this very moment I have on my desk, amongst other things, two small ipod-style speakers. Plus a trio of "remote speakers" next to the desk. I've used them, know their strengths, but I haven't figured out exactly how to describe the good and not-so-good aspects of them. So I put it off. I take my review writing quite seriously but on the downside it means reviews get delayed rather than posted. I really should just do something, post it, and I can always revise it later.

I have one of those veggie-grinder-things in the kitchen that I've had probably four months, because I keep wanting to try grinding other things in it and see how it does. I never feel quite "done".

Lisa

[L.E.]

Exactly. I think books have a long gestation period. Sometimes you don't fully absorb them until months after you've read them. Others you read, love and forget instantly.

[A Voracious Reader (a.k.a. Carol)]

I read just about everything, so I can't say I review a genre I don't like. I don't like poetry, so I don't read it. Period. Why read something I don't like? Life is too short and there are too many books out there I want to read to waste my time on something I know right out of the gate I'm not going to like.

As far as people who only rate a book and don't write a review I will use my husband as an example. He loves to read mystery, history, military, biography. He does not like to write. Ever. He may type up a short sentence about a book (such as 'I love this book.'), but the majority of his books on GR only have a star rating. This is most likely the case for a lot of people. Others may not know what to write in a review and others may only rate to get book recs. Who knows? When I first joined GR I rated many books without writing reviews because I had no clue what I was doing. One day I'll get those written. Maybe.

[Hayley]

As a writer I find star ratings without reviews, whether 5 star or 1 star, to be rather frustrating, as someone else noted. If you loved it, tell me what you loved about it. If you hated it, tell me why. Star ratings mean so little because some consider 3 stars to be a great rating while others consider it horrible. I've read 3 star reviews where the reviewer talks about all kinds of great things about the book, and really liked it, but if someone else only looked at the 3 stars without reading the review they might think it's not good.

Personally I wish you could leave a review without the star rating, but it would seem on most sites that's not possible.

Also, there are so many LEVELS of novel. What I mean is, I'm rating Margaret Atwood's newest on a different scale than an unknown indie author. The star rating system ignores this difference. (For someone who rated Wuthering Heights as 2 stars and Twilight as 4 stars, you can see my problem with star ratings minus the review. In no way do I consider Twilight to be a better book than Wuthering Heights, but I do hold Wuthering Heights up to a much higher standard than Twilight.)

Anyway, so much to say on this topic!

[Judith]

I have to agree. I wish you could review without rating a book. The why's mean more than the stars. But that said, I'm just happy when someone--anyone-- takes the time to go to the bother to record their reaction. And I understand that not everyone feels comfortable writing. They know what they like or don't like, but don't feel comfortable explaining it.

[Dormaine]

I agree with a lot of what most of you are saying. I wont write a review if I cannot finish a book it because I don't this that is fair.

If a book is poorly written, the story line didn't follow through or I simply didn't like it, it's best to give an honest review. A bad review is necessary for so many reasons plus one of those reasons may be why another would read the book.

[Skye]

Judith wrote: "I have to agree. I wish you could review without rating a book. The why's mean more than the stars. But that said, I'm just happy when someone--anyone-- takes the time to go to the bother to rec..."

Agreed. And some people (on Amazon) give ratings for speed of delivery or just any comment! And others think that one star means great rather than five stars meaning great.

However, after I review and rate, I look at the average and I generally am in consensus.

[Susan]

As an author, I'd rather see a thoughtful review than a specific number of stars in a rating.

As a reader, I find reviews more helpful than stars, especially if someone really loves or really hates the book. And I've bought books before simply because a reviewer absolutely hated something about the book (and complained about it in great detail) that appealed to me.

I've written one DNF review. It was a book that felt well written, but the plot and characters didn't appeal to me even after several attempts at slogging through it (which was more about personal preference than it was about the writing). So that's what I put in my review. I think I gave it three stars so as to be neutral.

If the spelling/editing/writing were awful, I probably would just stop reading and move on with my day.

[Lisa]

I agree with Judith. People have all sorts of reasons for posting stars, or reviews, or both. I would much rather have either one than nothing at all - which is what most people do. So if a portion of people will only leave stars, I'd rather have that than zero feedback.

Lisa

[Angel]

I just had to do a review that had no stars. I could not finish it, and went to great lengths to explain to the author and other readers just why I could not. I tried to be as thorough about the problem, nearly all of which were major editing/formatting problems.

I never actually got past the first chapter due to those two major problems. Lack of editing and atrocious formatting problems.

I will admit, before today, I did not realize I could leave a review with no stars. I have 4 other DNF's that I will be going back to set to no stars, as I don't think it's fair for me to actually rate something I could not finish at all, when there is a way to post just a review without a rating.

Just my $0.02.

[Lisa]

Angel -

I would gently counter that if you made a legitimate effort to finish the book and were blocked by its issues that it does deserve a low star rating. You are helping other readers know that they also would probably face this same issue. That is a valuable thing for them to know, before they invest their time, money, and peace of mind in this item.

If you're at a restaurant and a server brings you inedible food, you don't have to eat the entire plate of it before you can report on that issue.

Lisa

[Thomas]

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