I noticed something about the overall rating for a book on Amazon. The one that needs to stay at 4.0 for some advertising sites to work with you. It’s. a simple fact:
It’s utter bullshit.
Seriously, you can’t get a real idea of the book unless it has over 1,000 reviews. This is because it’s an average. Remember in school how that one bad grade would destroy your GPA and it seemed to inch up with every higher grade. Even perfect grades seemed to have less effect than that one bad grade. Maddening to say the least and it doesn’t paint you as a bad student. Just had one bad grade.
I’ve had three or four 5-star reviews recently for Beginning of a Hero. Overall went from 4.0 to 4.2. Today I got a 2-star and it went back down to 4.0. One negative review just undid the progress of multiple positive reviews. So, why focus on that overall as a customer when the individual reviews might be more positive than negative?
Legends of Windemere 
Interesting. When I look at rankings, whether buying books or software, I like to see the distribution. How many 5 star reviews, how many 4 star reviews … If I see that the majority of reviews are 4 or 5 star, then I’ll ignore the lower starred ones. The consumer shouldn’t just rely on the average ranking.
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That’s the smart way to go. The overall is an average as my dad explained. He got curious and did the math on my reviews once. It goes for the middle, so a lower rating will have more of an effect than a higher rating. As he said, the overall is a terrible way to view quality because of this flaw.
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I know… My rating is up and down and all around. It seems either people LOVE my book or they HATE it. Weird. It goes down to four, then it’s 4.7, then its 4 again….
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I wish mine would jump up like that. I have over 20 positive reviews (maybe over 30) and less than 10 negative reviews. Those negatives really did a number on the rating because it’s an average. So, you don’t get a good idea of the quality/opinions unless you look at the division.
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I’m beginning to think there is no good way to rate a book. It’s like food. Just because one person loves pizza doesn’t men the next person won’t hate it.
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Only good way is to be honest. People listen to the opinions of others.
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I also do as 1WriteWay does. Some of the lower ratings are based on delivery (“this book arrived late”) and should have been deleted, yet remain. I’ve read many reviews where reviewers chastised other reviewers for giving a book a lower rating, especially if the reason for the rating has next to nothing to do with the writing.
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It’s funny how the deliver reviews or Kindle issue reviews stay, but 5-stars that are suspicious are deleted. Such an odd world.
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My general view of amazon, as a whole, is general bullshit. With as much as the company fights with and demonizes the traditional system, I’m not surprised here. I knew one seller who had 99% approval rating, and all it took to ruin his business was one person who gave him a 1 star based on something beyond his control, taking his rating to 89%. Nobody bought from him after that, Amazon wouldn’t investigate, so he discontinued business with them.
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Amazon is always on the side of customers because that’s where the money comes from. You have to make a big enough stink to get anywhere. As a self-published author, I work with them and am thankful for the chance. Yet, I do know that I’m at a high risk with some of their programs.
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Have you tried Smashwords?
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I was on there before I went with KDP Select, so I’m Amazon exclusive now. I couldn’t get any sales on Smashwords no matter how hard I tried.
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I was on there before I went with KDP Select, so I’m Amazon exclusive now. I couldn’t get any sales on Smashwords no matter how hard I tried.
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I rarely pay attention to reviews. Although I get book ideas from Ionia’s reviews. I read a book synopsis and if it sounds interesting, I download the sample. If I can get into the book reading the sample, I buy the book. I might be weird though. Synopsis and book cover are the first step in my mind.
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That’s the way it should be. There are so many tools out there to confirm you’ll like the book, so it’s surprising that people don’t use them more often. True, you might be the one person not to like the book, but you can avoid a lot of bad books by doing research.
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For books, I never look at the reviews – they are so subjective! I prefer to give the author a chance to snare me, as opposed to relying too heavily on fans or detractors.
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A risk taker. D must be proud.
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Indeed he is, but shh, don’t tell me that. It might go to my head. 🙂
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I always view negative reviews, both as reader and writer, as helpful evils. As a reader, they can frequently reveal some “truths” about the book that aren’t revealed by the cheerleading five star reviews. As a writer, they reveal the fundamental reality that everybody is not going to like what I write and a well-written/reasoned negative review can help me understand if it was something I could do something about.
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True. At least this one was entertaining to read.
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Often a negative review will encourage me to read a book. I tend to seek out the unusual and bizarre in fiction, and if someone tells me that she or he didn’t like a book because it was too weird or too hard to understand, I take that as a recommendation.
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And when the first review is 1 or 2 stars, the book scarcely gets noticed until a good review comes along…
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That has to be an author’s nightmare. I’m lucky that hasn’t happened to me. Though I’ll be ending the day with great news.
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It’s easy to publish and hard to sell, but nigh on impossible to get lots of reviews! Unfortunately, we have to take the good with the bad, when we do get them 🙂
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Yeah. A few reviews is all you need to get the ball rolling. Just have to hope it rolls in the positive direction.
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I have been getting puzzle games for my Kindle, and I have noticed that a lot of them have one star reviews that have to do with the reviewer having problems downloading or running the game, often on platforms other than the one the game is written for. (Amazon’s App Store will check compatibility for Kindle devices, but not for other Android platforms.) So people are rating a game poorly not because of the quality of the game, but because it’s not written for their Galaxy Tablet or whatever.
So I will generally look at one star reviews and see if they actually review the game as a game, and not just rant about the reviewer’s inability to find software that works on their particular device.
Catskinner’s Book currently has a rating of 4.4. I have 26 reviews, 13 fives, 10 fours, and 3 threes. I think that’s pretty amazing, but it makes me wonder about sites that will only promote books with an average rating of 4 or higher. It would only take 4 one star reviews to drop me below 4.0, which means that four people who hated it could outvote the thirteen people who loved it. Considering how common revenge reviews are on Amazon (and how hard they are to expunge) that doesn’t seem right.
Also, my sales rank is currently #235,017, (that’s actually up quite a bit from what it has been–somehow four people have bought it so far in August–twice the sales from January through July). Beginning Of A Hero is at #2,081–so obviously a lot more people are buying that. I’d think that sales rank would count for much more than reviews to a promotion site.
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My point exactly and that ‘non-review’ issue is getting worse on Amazon. They’re complaining about customer service issues that the author has nothing to do with. Congrats on selling some books too.
Speaking of rankings, I’ve got a new headache with Amazon. They dropped my books from the Top 100 Books lists. Not the Kindle eBook lists, but the book lists. I was in the 30s and 50s too. Odd that I would plummet like that in an hour where I sold some copies. Either an issue happened or indie authors are no longer allowed on those lists. I didn’t see anyone else get dropped that I was hanging around, but they were all traditional published. I’m supposed to get an email from Amazon to explain this.
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I just checked, and it looks like they’re redoing their genre lists again, so this may be just a temporary thing. I couldn’t find a section for Fantasy in their Book list at all.
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I’m terrified when they do this. I just want to hide under the table because those lists are what’s keeping me going.
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Eh, those lists are what keep Amazon going, too. Guys like you are the cornerstone of the new publishing model, you’ve got a solid product that has a clear fan base. Amazon makes money when you make money, they’ll make sure readers can find you.
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I hope so. There are times that it feels like they’re listening to the vocal minority who don’t care for self-published books. I think that’s where the 5 and 4 star eliminations came from. I heard that Amazon is making a few publishing companies too, so I wonder if they’re going to try to pick up any of the popular indie authors.
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I tend to look at the review rating spread, if I pay any attention to the reviews at all – to be honest for the most part if a book looks interesting to me I buy it and see for myself because people’s taste varies so much – someone might love something I hate and vice versa. Still I understand your frustration with the process. Regardless of how I myself buy books I’m sure I would/will feel the same if the same thing happened to me!! 🙂 😉
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The author perspective is a rather crazed one. 😉 Though, I do understand that it’s the only way to go. This post is more to tell authors not to take the overall rating to heart because it’s the spread and individual reviews that are important.
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Cool, good message to get out there then. So many things to learn in this self-publishing journey – you make a terrific guide for us all Charles!! 🙂
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I try. Might have more info to give tomorrow, but might not be good. Amazon is changing some of the Top 100 systems. Might be only in Fantasy though.
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😦
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I don’t even look at the rating for books when I read it. If I find the cover appealing, the blurb on the back hooking me in, and the first three pages grabbing my attention, I’ll more than likely buy the book–even it’s a paltry 3 or two star rating. I learned a long time ago my tastes are different than what other people’s tastes are, and it makes no difference to me what the ratings are.
Unfortunately, it is a big deal to an author or any other type of producer, so my point may be moot.
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I think authors and publishers should look more at the individual spread than the overall. The overall is very misleading because you can have over 20 5-stars and get trashed by 3 1-stars.
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I wanted to ask you if you would be interested in submitting some writing to the Community Storyboard that Ionia Martin, myself, and others are running. We’re asking for guest posts from various artists and I think your interest in zombies would be a great post to spice things up. Let me know what you think.
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Hey Charles, thanks for thinking of me. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to pass. With the upcoming release and promotion of Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse, my rigorous blogging schedule, and family commitments, I have to be selective with how I utilize my time. However, I will keep you in mind should a good chunk of my time should happen to free itself.
Thanks again for thinking of me!
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I understand. Time is precious and limited for all of us. Though, if you want to post an excerpt from your book with the sales page once it comes out, feel free to contact us. We have a few authors doing that over the next few weeks. Only if you have time of course.
Good luck with the promotions. Looking forward to reading about your success. I know one guy that loves zombie books, so I’ll send him to your book when it goes live.
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Once again, thanks so much for the opportunity. I’ll put you on the list for release info!
Oh, yes, and thank you for your support!
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You’re welcome.
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I will look at reviews, particularly the spread. If there are outliers, I drill down into the comments and may dismiss them if there isn’t a good reason for a negative review, such as 1) there is no “meat” to their comment (e.g., “Didn’t like it” or “Not for me” Why?), 2) they say they don’t like the genre (Why read it if you already know you don’t like it. I don’t think that’s fair to the writer), or 3) they didn’t finish the book.
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