Authors rating their own books on Good Reads

[Pixie]

J.D. wrote: "Pixie wrote: "J.D. wrote: "Pixie wrote: "J.D. wrote: "Pixie wrote: "Oh.. I hope my comment didn't sound harsh. I hadn't meant for it to if it did. I don't think I got the meaning of what I was tryi..."

I'm personally not a fan of the Kindle, but that's just me. I have a few friends who stand strong by theirs lol but I've tried out both the Kindle and the Nook in demos and through various friends before and I just really liked the Nook better between the two. Haha. I still love my print books too, though. I think it's just because I'm a natural book collector. I have a huge collection. Lol.
With the Literati you can buy books from the Kobo book store (which is partnered with Borders) or you can download ePubs and PDFs to your computer on Adobe Digital Editions and transfer it to the device.
So basically I can get everything except for Kindle format. Ha.

And I think we've got a bit off topic now. :D lol

[Sarah]

I don't see how one positive rating by the author makes a difference. It really doesn't bother me. Even presidential candidates vote for themselves. It just makes sense.

[Tracy]

I rated (rated only) my own books...I didn't realize it was an issue. Goodreads asked me to list my books, then asked me to rate them, so I did. Of course I gave them all five stars. Why wouldn't I? I think they're marvelous! D'uh!

I had no idea readers resented this. It says clearly on GR that this is my own rating. I suppose I could remove the rating if GR allowed that. I suspect not.

I don't rate or review my books on Amazon for the reasons already mentioned -- it's not open and above-board...and Amazon didn't ask me to.

Which brings me to a related topic: Authors rating and reviewing other authors books. I have rated the GR books on my shelf, because you can't really get away with not rating them when you list them.

But I don't review other fiction books and never have, although I know authors do. I think the practice is a dangerous one -- closely aligned with commenting about reviews in any way, shape or form. I was training (and learned by sad, explosive experience) that commenting on my reviews in public is a HUGE no-no.

For similar reasons I avoid reviewing (commenting) on other authors' books.

And now I think I'll try to find a way to remove the ratings on my own books.

An author *should* remain neutral, to my mind.

Tracy

[Mstanyamatt]

Keta wrote: "Jacqui,

It's been a while since I've had to list one of my books on Goodreads as I have help with that now, but thinking back when I did list them, I can't remember if you have to rate them as you..."

Thank you both. Self-reviews ought to be questioned not only for readers, but for fellow authors, publishers, and reviewers.

[Kevin]

Hi! I ended up here because I was trying to find out about Goodreads's policy on author ratings and reviews , as I was trying to set up a personal bookshelf of recommended books on the same subject as mine.

I'm new to GR, so just feeling my way around, though I published my first book a couple of years ago. I needed to explain how my own book differs from some of the classics on my shelf, so a review seemed the logical choice. But, like many of the contributors to this thread, I'm not really comfortable with the idea of having to formally rate my own book.

It sounds as if it is possible to write a review without giving a rating: but if some authors do this and others rate theirs (typically at 5 stars) then those who don't are disadvantaged, in the critical early stages at least. I would have been inclined to suggest that GR should automatically disregard the rating element in author-published reviews: but there's a problem with that too.

I, like other UK authors, suffer from the problem that, whereas reviews on Amazon.com are automatically copied to the UK site, they are never copied the other way. (So I have 5 5-star reviews on Amazon.co.uk and only 1 on Amazon.com.) So the ability for an author to copy and paste reviews, and especially ratings, from other sites is a really great feature. But that also presents a risk of bias, firstly because the author can be selective about which reviews to post and secondly because, in my perception at least, a 3-star rating on Amazon is more akin to 2 on GoodReads.

So should GR allow any ratings on author-posted reviews? As long as they do, I think I will continue to use the feature, being as honest as I can about my bias toward my own books. And, for now at least, I think I will aim to include all my Amazon reviews and ratings.

But, on balance I think author-posted ratings probably should be suppressed. What do others think?

[Justice]

Hey guys. Just would like to say that I agree a lot with Keta's first post. I am not a writer, just an avid reader but if I was a writer, I would feel a little too much like RJ Ellory if I rated my own work. For those who don't know, he's a decent writer but he's the one who got caught by Amazon praising his own books on multiple fake accounts and then on top of it, he starts putting in bad reviews about his rival authors lol. And Amazon reported all of this to the media. Talk about a shitstorm of bad luck.. Anyhow, there are exceptions of course but I just think the readers deserve fair reviews. Period.

[Rola]

As long as the author's not trying to hide the fact that its them giving the book a five star rating, then I personally don't see problem. They're simply trying to give themselves and their book a good reputation (who would't want that).

[Marc]

it's an utterly ridiculous thing to do. What author realistically is going to rate their own work anything less than 5-stars and if they were honest enough to do so, what does that say about the work they've put out that even in their eyes it's not of the standard where it could earn 5 star reviews?

Just let readers judge your books.

You can upload books without having to rate them BTW

[Phil]

I did rate my books thinking that I should be confident in my narratives. If I can't give myself 5 stars who can? However, after reading this thread, I've changed my mind.

I erased my rankings, which you can do by the way. Just click on your book's page and hover over the rating. A link will appear that says, clear rating.

I don't think it's wrong for authors to rate their books. If Goodreads did not like it, I'm sure it would be simple to stop us from doing it. Having said that, enough readers appear to be offended by it that I think it's a bad idea.

If my books are as good as I think, my solitary 5 star review shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things.