THE Group for Authors! discussion

...you send a book to a reviewer and they never review the book? I sent a print book out to a Goodreads member who requested it for a review and she isn't even responding to emails now.

If they haven't responded in a week move on.

I agree with James, but don't assume the worst about your reviewer. Life is complicated. Reviewers find God and move to Tibet, email SMTP servers get blacklisted or redirected into spam folders, mailmen get hit by buses just before delivering your book, or maybe the reviewer's fiancee ran off with a strumpet named Cynthia and this is her revenge. Could be worse. The reviewer might have landed in an asylum for the criminally insane with a compulsion to give everybody a one-star rating.

How long have you been waiting, by the way?

I would bet she didn't have time to read it yet or didn't like it but didn't want to leave a lousy review because you'd know who wrote it. (I have never personally left a terrible review--I think I'd feel too bad for the author). I wouldn't harrass her--since you don't know her, she could get annoyed and intentionally write a bad review just to spite you. I gently e-mailed one reviewer whom I'd mailed a copy of my book to and she wrote me back that she'd brought my book with her on vacation with full intention of reading it and accidentally left the book at her mother-in-law's house on vacation! She promised me she'd get it the next time she visited her in-laws. Give her more time, but I wouldn't push. A bad review is worse than no review!

Not so true on the "bad review is worse than no reviews" front. See my blog. But, I do agree that it isn't worthwhile to harass a would-be reviewer. It's always bad form.

If you've already politely inquired as to whether the reviewer received the book, and you don't get a response in return, it's best to let the issue go and move on. There are many reasons why a potential reviewer drops out of view and doesn't write a review for you.

Don't worry, though, there will always be other reviewers willing to critique your work.

A.M.

Jon wrote: "I agree with James, but don't assume the worst about your reviewer. Life is complicated. Reviewers find God and move to Tibet, email SMTP servers get blacklisted or redirected into spam folders, ..."

LOL Jon, that made my day!

Thanks for the advice everybody. It's been two months and I know she got the book because she let me know she got it and thanked me. Which is fine, some people take longer to read books than others. I know I suck at doing reviews that's why I never agree to do them. The only thing that really bothered me was that she didn't respond to my email checking in with her. I guess I'll just chock it up to maybe she hasn't been on Goodreads and move on. Its just annoying when you've sent a print copy and haven't received any feedback.

Cynthia, unfortunately it happens all the time (to me, anyway). I've learned to be happy with a 25-30% review rate when I send out requested copies, but I only do e-books now.

Ken wrote: "Cynthia, unfortunately it happens all the time (to me, anyway). I've learned to be happy with a 25-30% review rate when I send out requested copies, but I only do e-books now."

Yeah Ken, I think I'll stick to e-book copies.

A.M, I was curious about your statement that a bad review is NOT worse than no review. Since many places that advertise (Book Bub, ENT, Fussy Librarian etc) won't take a book with a rating average of less than 4, I think one lousy review can really pull down someone's rating. I'll admit, if I see a book with only a 4.2 rating, I am less likely to buy it than a 4.9 rating. Can you explain to me why you feel even a lousy review beats no review at all... Thanks!

My favorite explanations (beyond lack of discoverability being a huge hurdle for indie authors and beyond readers being suspicious of a lesser known book having nothing but glowing reviews and ratings while knowing full well what their own most used star ratings and what averages they usually see on such books):

What Harvard Business Review says http://hbr.org/2012/03/bad-reviews-ca... :

"Good reviews, as expected, increased sales across the board, with gains from 32% to 52%. For books by established authors, negative reviews caused a drop of about 15%, on average—also not surprising. But for books by relatively unknown authors, bad reviews caused sales to rise, by an average of 45%. This held even when the criticism was extreme: After one particularly scathing review, for instance (“the characters do not have personalities so much as particular niches in the stratosphere”), sales more than quadrupled.

The reason? Our analysis showed that by making consumers aware of a book they would otherwise not know about, even the harshest review can be a boon.""

Book Riot at http://bookriot.com/2015/06/10/dear-a...

"...You know who looks terrible in an author-versus-reviewer shouting match on Goodreads? The author. Always the author. Because an amateur reviewer on Goodreads, even if they post an awful screed, has nothing to lose in the situation. Even when the author isn’t behaving in a completely unhinged fashion as in this latest example, the author is the one with the professional identity to uphold. When it does go off the rails as badly as we all know it can, it’s the author who will lose sales and face..."

From author Jennifer Crusie on buzzfeed's new editor's policy of no negative reviews from her blog post "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad Reviews" at http://www.arghink.com/2013/12/05/don...

"…readers need bad reviews, or more to the point, honest reviews. So I think this is a big mistake on Fitzgerald’s part. I think it’s entirely within an editor’s right to say, “Your reviews must be cogent, civil, and well-argued,” but not to say, “Your review must be positive.” Huge difference there.""

Huffington post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephan...

Forbes article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/...

iO9 http://io9.com/bad-reviews-may-actual...

A point/counterpoint type of article from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/boo...

ETA: And it's very telling if you go for some of the unscrupulous* paid review packages that there are algorithms to determine the exact percentage of good/bad/neutral reviews to promise successful promotion campaigns that have pricing levels based on their purported effectiveness for generating sales -- so you pay them to post on consumer review sites not just glowing reviews but also the "right mix" of bad reviews to get readers to believe the glowing reviews and buy the book.

*by "unscrupulous" I don't mean all paid reviews -- just the ones mixing in with consumer/reader reviews with no disclaimer about the payment [rather than on the professional review sites and in the editorial descriptions sections (on sites that have those sections)].

Snippets that make good food for thought from Dear Author at http://dearauthor.com/features/letter... :

"…The “I’m not going to buy” mantra stems in greater numbers from the author’s response to the review than from any negative review.…"

"… a bad evaluation, presumably, can jeopardize one’s career. But we know from many years of experience, that negative reviews don’t crater careers…"

"…Under the author paradigm, publishing a book is one of the greatest achievements ever. (This is not to say that it is not a great achievement but that it is not valued the same by readers). Under the reader paradigm, the book is a commodity of entertainment to be valued, weighed, and judged like so many other products that they spend their time and money on. The book as an object is not necessarily special..."

I could quote more about author/reader paradigm but you can go to the link and read for yourself rather than my going on long enough to be a copyright infringement.

And the inimitable author Jim C. Hines http://www.jimchines.com/2013/09/us-v... :

"...But “I worked hard on this” doesn’t exempt you from criticism. Those harsh reviews aren’t about anyone being out to get me. It’s not an Authors vs. Reviewers thing. It’s people taking the time to express their opinions because they care about this stuff..."

Sally,

I think D.A. covered the arguments for all reviews having positive results for a new author - whether good or bad - pretty well, and there's not too much for me to add here.

However, I will say this: I'm less likely to read a book by a new author if the book has no reviews than the book that has a mix of good/bad reviews, but the plot sounds interesting. Books that have all or almost all good reviews are suspect to me, because to put it honestly, someone somewhere will hate your book. This is true for every writer on the market.

It doesn't matter if 20 people had a transformational experience while reading your book. At least one person thought the plot was lame and/or the characters were totally fake. This is the life of a writer.

Bad reviews happen. No reviews makes me wonder why no one has read the book. And, in some instances, a scathingly bad review amongst glowing reviews can make a reader buy the book just to see which opinion they will share.

As to your comment that you are apt to buy a book with a 4.9 rating over a 4.2 rating, I can only encourage you to broaden your horizons and give some of those 4.2 rated books a chance. You may find you've been missing out on some real gems by judging books by a number.

A.M.

Thanks for the meaty answer, D.A and A.M! Since I've never received a 2 or 1-star review, and only 1 3-star review, I'm going to hang on to these comments to assuage my ego when I get slammed with my first scathing review!!

Sally wrote: "Thanks for the meaty answer, D.A and A.M! Since I've never received a 2 or 1-star review, and only 1 3-star review, I'm going to hang on to these comments to assuage my ego when I get slammed with ..."

If that 3-star review was on goodreads, hang on to the fact that the goodreads suggested rating scale is not the same scale as the Amazon suggested rating scale. Three stars here means the reader liked your book. On Amazon, "like" is a 4-star rating--and most readers who review ration their 5-stars to their utter favorites of all time on both Amazon and goodreads.

(goodreads assumes most readers choose books to read they at least expect to like while Amazon's scale has to accommodate every product they sell, not just books and not just readers.)

Not that the promo companies insisting on a certain average rating seem to care that there is a scale difference or that if an indie book has a decent number of ratings that the book is already more discovered than a book with no ratings (or even a single 5-star rating).

It might be better that a reader was moved enough to write a perceived as negative review or even just rate low than that they had no reaction to the book. Some readers just don't review if the book was so bad they abandoned too soon to feel they read enough to justify rating/reviewing or if they only had bad things to say (because not wanting to repay a free book with a bad review, because just don't say anything if can't say something nice, because not wanting to get into any drama with an indie author after crap they've seen online, because vile upload pretending to be a published book wasted all the time they were going to spend on it, or because ...). ...

ETA: typos and to add that I'm personally suspicious of a much rated, little known book with a 4.9 average on goodreads -- most here are in the 2-3.5 range and most readers (on all book sites with 5-star scales including goodreads and Amazon) just extremely seldom give 5-stars. For most readers to give you a 5-star rating is for them to compare you to all time favorite reads from Charlotte's Web to Pride and Prejuduce to Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Shining or even Twilight (not that every author wants to be compared to Twilight).

Promo sites want nearly 5-star ratings; some readers smell a rat if you are getting them, particularly if getting on goodreads where a 4-star rating means reader loved your book and is the equivalent of a 5-star rating on Amazon. Many top bloggers and reviewers have seen so many book pages they get a good impression of what are the normal ratings for a similar book and are even quicker to smell a rat.

Absolutely, Sally. I have gotten a two-star review, and although it stung for a day or two, I recognized that when we set our work free into the world, it's open to all to love or criticize. It's a good policy to check our egos at the door, lest they get bruised.

And, as one friend said to me, reviews are simply opinions, and opinions are like bum holes - everybody's got one! Take heart in that. :)

A.M.

2-stars by goodreads suggested scale = "okay" (which isn't very clearcut or illuminating but at least isn't saying they disliked or hated it).

Bad reviews happen. Can't please everyone.

Cynthia wrote: "Bad reviews happen. Can't please everyone."

So true. And while it is a sign of bad breeding to complain to the reviewer, a C-note spent wisely at Marie Laveau's in New Orleans can give the slighted author some degree of solace in the knowledge that the reviewer, wherever they are, dares not venture to far from a toilet, nor risk passing what they think to be a mere bubble of gas.

This industry/art form isn't for the faint-hearted. Early in my career I made the mistake of responding to a bad print review and I immediately regretted my unprofessional behavior. It's been more than 10 years, but today I still think I should have kept my mouth shut and put it down as a learning experience. What was said about the book was true. It was my first novel and boy does it show. I've taken that moment in life and applied it to what I'm writing today - and revising the first novel for a new edition now that the rights have reverted back to me.

Soo true, D.A. Reviews, good and bad make for interesting reading!

I almost long for a bad review. I've never gotten one. It seems the people who have been compelled to write reviews of my books are kind-hearted. I've gotten a few 2 star ratings on Goodreads, but they weren't accompanied with reviews.

E.n. wrote: "I almost long for a bad review. I've never gotten one. It seems the people who have been compelled to write reviews of my books are kind-hearted. I've gotten a few 2 star ratings on Goodreads, but ..."

I'll trade you one of mine!!

Had a two star review from a reviewer who didn't understand what was written. In addition she never completed or read a quarter of the way. How disappointing....

E.n. wrote: "I almost long for a bad review. I've never gotten one. It seems the people who have been compelled to write reviews of my books are kind-hearted. I've gotten a few 2 star ratings on Goodreads, but ..."

The print review was the only truly bad review any of my writing has received and I'm amazed. My writing isn't for everyone (yeah, we ALL say that. :) ) because I'm not interested in commercial success (yeah, it's true) and I've settled into writing what I want to write to please myself and my small but interesting fan base.

Jon wrote: "Cynthia wrote: "Bad reviews happen. Can't please everyone."

So true. And while it is a sign of bad breeding to complain to the reviewer, a C-note spent wisely at Marie Laveau's in New Orleans can ..."

Jon, another zinger! Now I want to read your work :)

Cynthia wrote: "Jon wrote: "Cynthia wrote: "Bad reviews happen. Can't please everyone."

So true. And while it is a sign of bad breeding to complain to the reviewer, a C-note spent wisely at Marie Laveau's in New ..."

You're in luck. I currently have seven short stories on my blog ("short" ranging from one page to 35 pages). Go to http://jonetheredge.com

Don't feel bad; I received a one star review with the comment to paraphrase: "I did not order this book and I do not have time to read it."

I guess it was his way of getting back to Amazon, but unfortunately I got punished.

C'est les vie (or something like that.)

http://thetrialofphilliswheatley.net

Over the past month I have received 800 plus hits from KOLL. Pretty much out of the blue but the only reason I can detect is that I started advertising my two books on Kindle. Anyone else have any ideas why this would happen.

Jon wrote: "Cynthia wrote: "Bad reviews happen. Can't please everyone."

So true. And while it is a sign of bad breeding to complain to the reviewer, a C-note spent wisely at Marie Laveau's in New Orleans can ..."

Ah, Jon, I've been missing your wit. Glad I caught this one! :-)

Ah, Kristi. So you're the one.

Ronald wrote: "http://thetrialofphilliswheatley.net

Over the past month I have received 800 plus hits from KOLL. Pretty much out of the blue but the only reason I can detect is that I started advertising my two..."

I've been experiencing the same jump in my numbers, even though it's loaned copies, and not sales and the pages read count is pretty high, too. It doesn't put me on any lists, though.

Jon wrote: "Ah, Kristi. So you're the one."

:-*

There are reviews on a book that comes out in March 2016? A friend is being targeted by a blogger/reviewer and her friends. The publisher put my friend's next non-fiction book on Goodreads with no cover photo. Now there's a review of "pass" by the blogger/reviewer and a one-star rating by a friend of the blogger/reviewer. This is for a book that will not be for sale for over 6 months!

The same blogger/reviewer put a "pass" on my only novel and her same friend, plus one other "liked" this "review."

Now I know you all will say never engage a reviewer, but save your breath. We've learned our lessons. Here is the the back story.

The reason for the targeted bullying is the blogger/reviewer wrote a three star blog review for my friend's third novel that said nothing and was full of typos. The author asked her if she liked it or not on Goodreads. At the same time, I tweeted the reviewer to say a review should provide feedback to justify the rating. She replied to me saying she reviewed for readers not writers. I replied my comment stands as her review was not helpful to anyone. Her friends started harassing me on Twitter, and I spent the day blocking them. A friend of the blogger/reviewer took tweets out of order and put them on another site.

Meanwhile, the blogger/reviewer and her friends had a heyday making fun of my friend on the Goodreads comments for her review. Both my friend and I were pretty embarrassed, and got a tongue lashing from a fellow author. As I said, lesson learned.

I thought that was the end of it, until my friend's unreleased book was targeted. Goodreads won't act on reviews of an unreleased book. I'm of a mind to gather all my author friends and ask them to pull their books from Goodreads. As it is, the fact that Goodreads allows ratings without reviews is a thorn in my side, as it's of no use to anyone. It's a magnet for sock puppets and bullies.

Suzan wrote: "I tweeted the reviewer to say a review should provide feedback to justify the rating."

So you and your friend targeted the reviewer, saying they had to read/rate/review to your specified criteria, and then you wondered why the blogger and their friends took exception to that?

*head desk*

A.W. wrote: "Suzan wrote: "I tweeted the reviewer to say a review should provide feedback to justify the rating."

So you and your friend targeted the reviewer, saying they had to read/rate/review to your speci..."
Hey, I was clear we learned out lesson. No one's saying we don't understand her taking exception. But rating an unpublished book is going beyond the pale. Goodreads allowing this implies they have no problem with sock puppets.

Sally wrote: " I'll admit, if I see a book with only a 4.2 rating, I am less likely to buy it than a 4.9 rating. "

Wow. I've never before ever seen someone say they make purchasing decisions based on an averaged rating. These are people you don't know, whose taste you don't know.

I think you're missing out on a lot of good books. And someone rating a book a 3 on Goodreads means they Liked It. Hardly the kiss of death. And an average of 4.2 is GOOD.

Many people don't hand out 5 star ratings like candy, a book has to really be something special to get a 5 star rating from me. Most books just are not the best of the best, IMO, and that's ok.

Suzan wrote: "The reason for the targeted bullying "

Um. That's not "targeted bullying". It's not bullying at all. Rating a book isn't bullying. Shelving a book "not interested" isn't bullying.

"I tweeted the reviewer to say a review should provide feedback to justify the rating."

No. Consumer reviews are not author feedback, and consumers don't have to "justify" their rating.

I notice you've posted ratings without any review to "justify" the rating. So, nice double standard there.

Suzan wrote: "But rating an unpublished book is going beyond the pale."

All those authors who send out ARC to gain advanced buzz would probably disagree with you.

Goodreads allows it, so your complaint there is with Goodreads. Doubt they'd change that though. Authors would hit the roof if readers couldn't rate/review in advance of release.

Goodreads allows ratings to show interest/lack of interest in a book, even one not yet released.

"Goodreads allowing this implies they have no problem with sock puppets."

No. Goodreads is clear sock puppet ratings/reviews aren't allowed. And they remove them when they come to their attention and GR confirms they are actually sock puppets.

Perhaps you don't understand what a sock puppet actually is, because it has nothing to do with a person rating a book before it's released.

Suzan wrote: "There are reviews on a book that comes out in March 2016? A friend is being targeted by a blogger/reviewer and her friends. The publisher put my friend's next non-fiction book on Goodreads with no ..."
There are many things you don't seem to understand about Goodreads, but one of them is that you can't pull your books once they are published. You can cease to be a member, but your books will remain.

The vast majority of avid readers may occasionally recommend a book to an acquaintance, but never post a formal rating or review on a literary or vendor website.

Those who choose to post ratings and reviews do so to share their personal, and therefore subjective, opinion of a book with other readers. Therefore, an author should not obsess over consumer ratings and/or reviews and never comment on them or contact the readers who post them.

GR has said repeatedly that ratings and reviews in advance of publication are OK.

In fact, the authors who distribute Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) to whip up enthusiasm and early reviews, would probably be very angry if they were discontinued.

As would the hordes of fans of some authors who joyfully rate 5-stars in advance of publication.

Also, in re: "sock puppets" - the term does not mean what you seem to think it means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpup...

Hi all - we appreciate the feedback on the book page. It seems like this conversation has run its course, so I'm going to close this thread.

Suzan and anyone else here: you are welcome to write to support @ goodreads dot com if you have any concerns or further feedback on our policies. We are happy to look into specific cases and evaluate them against our guidelines.