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Reviews not showing up?
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Anna Carolyn
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Apr 02, 2014 07:33AM
On my author dashboard it says there are 9 ratings, 6 reviews of the book and on the page for the book, 8 ratings 4 reviews. Not a huge deal but if there are 2 more reviews I want to read them!! Any idea why this is happening?
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It can take a day or two for new reviews to show up everywhere.
I've been having this issue lately as well, and it's been over a week that way.
Hi Judy, which books is this happening to? I can refresh your stats, which may clear up the issue.
Now it says 6...but I still can't see them!! Aah! I'm just impatient. But if it's just a delay I guess I have no choice but to wait it out.
Anna wrote: "Now it says 6...but I still can't see them!!"Try filtering by text-only.
Hi Judy, I just refreshed your stats. Everything should look correct now, though the stats graph may take a couple of hours to update.
Hi Ms Anna. My name is B Truly. I'm an author an I'm having the same issues on the dashboard. The Good reads librarian told me the update function is down. That's why we are not seeing the new ratings and reviews.
B. wrote: "Hi Ms Anna. My name is B Truly. I'm an author an I'm having the same issues on the dashboard. The Good reads librarian told me the update function is down. That's why we are not seeing the new rat..."Thank you!
Just refreshed your book for you, Anna!
Aaron wrote: "Just refreshed your book for you, Anna!"Hello, I have the same problems with my book, The Guilty. The 22nd review was posted two weeks ago and the dashboard says 21; plus the dashboard only mentions 34 ratings when there are 37. How do we refresh this?
No problem, Anna. I hope it comes back up soon. They said they didn't know when.
Just refreshed The Guilty, Gabriel! Should be up to date now.
Aaron wrote: "Just refreshed The Guilty, Gabriel! Should be up to date now."Thanks Aaron. You must be a magician.
I am! Just a very specific, website-based magician.
Hi. I think I may be a bit impatient here *lol* because my book's only just gone up, but it says I have 1 review, and it's not showing up yet. Can anyone help? Many thanks.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Clare, it takes a day or two for new reviews to show up on a book's page (unless they are from your friends or people you follow, which show up immediately). Looks like yours has shown up now.
Thanks for the update! I thought I was probably being a bit greedy, sorry :)
Speaking of reviews, has anyone had a good experience with Goodreads giveaways? I awarded 10 free copies (at expensive mailing rates, especially to Canada), with a polite note asking for reviews. I got zero response.It seems to me that rather than supplying strangers with a free book, it makes more sense to ask friends and acquaintances if they would read your work and, in return, commit to writing a review within, say, three weeks. What do others think?
Harriet wrote: "Speaking of reviews, has anyone had a good experience with Goodreads giveaways?"Goodreads giveaways are a competition not a vehicle for garnering reviews. While winners are encouraged to leave a review, they don't have to. In fact they don't even have to mark your book TBR or even read it. Many people enter multiple giveaways simply to win something, a few will use bots to enter every single one and then sell the paperbacks on eBay.
There are numerous Read for Review groups on GR, try finding some for your genre. Please don't have friends and family leave reviews, readers can tell when there is a close association to an author and some of those reviews come across as disingenuous.
I think it's okay for friends and family to review so long as the relationship is disclosed (on U.S. sites like goodreads it's actually against FTC regulations not to disclose). People reading the reviews can decide for themselves if they want to then trust or not. As A.W. said — giveaways mean nothing in terms of guaranteed reviews and are better used for book discoverability. If you want reviews, look for the R2R, read to review, free for review, etc. groups and sections of groups. Asking that review be posted within certain dates is a common practice; asking anything else other than "for an honest review" is not and can offend some reviewers.
Did goodreads stop giving goodreads authors the option to refresh their ratings (not an author and stopped being a librarian so I can no longer tell)?It used to be they could refresh stats/ratings when editing books (a menu choice in righthand column midway down the page next to where they set which edition to be primary /default/featured)—with a caution there were some site bugs where they might have to refresh more than once (sometimes the first hit reset instead of refreshed).
D.A.-bully victims suffer more than a ★ on their commercial product wrote: "Did goodreads stop giving goodreads authors the option to refresh their ratings (not an author and stopped being a librarian so I can no longer tell)? "I just had a look on one of my book pages and to answer your question - yes, there is still an option on the right hand side to refresh the book stats.
Personally though I wish some authors would stop obsessing over reviews, ratings and numbers. They should be writing their next book, not hovering over GR members waiting to pounce when they post something to their book page ;)
I agree, authors shouldn't obsess but it is hard for the newbies. Pity them. Without ratings over 3.75 and 10+ 4 and 5* reviews then the best email reading groups won't accept the book. No place with them = no sales.
Well, I'm no cheerleader for every author; but, I absolutely do sympathies with authors concerned that they see x# of reviews but only y# of reviews are showing in the stats and average book ratings. It does look like a bug/error to be reported. Even the non-obsessed and patient authors will see a site bug when it takes the cache several days to refresh the average ratings (hopefully the recent database migration will improve cache times). And it's not just complaints from authors wanting a refresh to improve average rating.
P.d.r. wrote: "Without ratings over 3.75 and 10+ 4 and 5* reviews then the best email reading groups won't accept the book. No place with them = no sales."I don't agree with this and I think it perpetuates the fallacy that reviews are the #1 selling mechanism. They're not. I've never had my book featured in any review groups or book clubs and yet I have still managed to sell a few.
Are reviews helpful? Absolutely. The best reviews are those they roll in organically over time. Readers expect to see a range of reviews on a book and many now discount 5 stars as meaningless puffery.
I still managed to sell my YA novel when it had zero reviews. It took several weeks for those first few reviews to trickle in, and yet the book still sold. There is far more to selling a book than reviews. I see so many authors fixated on gaining x number of reviews and yet they are ignoring other forms of marketing, advertising and just simply targeting their reading audience.
I suspect discoverability plays a big factor in sales of indie books. And that if an author has difficulty refreshing their ratings details it might be quicker to post over in the librarians group (librarians, authors and goodreads staff can refresh; but, often librarians will get to quicker for you) rather than this one in hopes a librarian or staff member was strolling by ...
Discoverability is a big, big factor and it's easy to get sidetracked obsessing about reviews. My best selling book has the lowest GR average rating of any of my titles. If I had to guess, it's because it'a a light, fluffy, summery read that I suspect most readers don't feel strongly enough about to review unless they are a little dissatisfied. Or think I massively overuse the word "dude".The erratic way stuff posts can look very glitchy, though.
It says 5 ratings, 2 reviews. This is exactly what I see on the page.
Kevan wrote: "I seem to be having the same problem with my second book.Would be great if it can be fixed. Thanks."
If you don't want to refresh ratings yourself, I'd suggest requesting over in librarians group for a librarian to refresh it for you ( they may or may not wander onto this thread and recognize a request posted here).
Kevan wrote: "Can I refresh it myself? Not sure how."Yes you can. Go to the book page, click edit details, then on the right hand side is "Refresh book ratings"
Aaron wrote: "I am! Just a very specific, website-based magician."Dear Aaron,
I have a issue with the reviews and ratings of my book "Unanswered verses"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Some of the reviews and ratings are not showing. Can you please help. It will be highly appreciated.
Warm regards
Tajammul
You're more likely to get a response at GR's Librarians group.https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Tajammul wrote: "Aaron wrote: "I am! Just a very specific, website-based magician."Dear Aaron,
I have a issue with the reviews and ratings of my book "Unanswered verses"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4107..."
Refreshed.
Melanie♥ wrote: "Tajammul wrote: "Aaron wrote: "I am! Just a very specific, website-based magician."Dear Aaron,
I have a issue with the reviews and ratings of my book "Unanswered verses"
https://www.goodreads.c..."
Thanks a lot Melanie. Appreciate it. But some of the ratings and review are only visible when I click on filter. Anyhow, its ok. Thanks again.
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "You're more likely to get a response at GR's Librarians group.https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/..."
Thanks Susanna. I joined the group.
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "You're more likely to get a response at GR's Librarians group.https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/..."
Thanks Susanna. I joined the group.
