Reviews of my books

 I read them. All of them. I hate them. And love them. They are a mystery, validation, a curse, and everything in between. 

As an author, I’m not permitted to write reviews for books on Amazon - it’s against their terms of service. Obviously, they don’t want me writing reviews for my own books, and the same goes for books by other authors. Doing so would be a conflict of interest - I could leave a scathing review for a competitor to sabotage their reputation and sales, all to my benefit. So, that’s a big no-no. 

I have no problem with that. I don’t need to comment on other authors’ books. I’m good to just read them and move on. Truth be told, most of my readers feel the same way. An average book, for me at least, will draw between 100 to 150 sales and 500 to 700 borrows through the Amazon Unlimited subscription service. Out of those readers, I get less than 30 ratings and less than 5 reviews, usually much less. In a 5-book series, the first book gets the most ratings and reviews, and each subsequent book in the series gets less, bottoming out around 1 review (thanks Al44!) and maybe 10 or so ratings. So, well over 95% of my readers don’t comment on my work. 

Which is fine. I get it - not everyone is interested enough to comment, or even leave a quick star-rating. We’re all super busy and who needs another thing to do in their life? It’s completely understandable. 

What isn’t fine, or at least what I don’t get, is the reader who leaves a negative rating. A bad review, while painful, is at least somewhat useful. I can learn from what turned them off. I can try to do better. And I do. Really, I do. I make every effort to deliver a quality product because I know how it feels when you shell out hard-earned money for an experience and are disappointed. It stinks. I try to avoid doing that to people.

But getting back to negative feedback, what I don’t understand are 1-star ratings. Okay, someone really didn’t like my book. That’s fair - I’m not for everyone. But why not just move on? Don’t buy anymore of my books. Do you have to stick it to me with a crappy rating? That doesn’t tell me a thing about why you didn’t like the book? What’s the point? I don’t get it. 

Okay, enough ranting. I’ve been wondering about this for a long time but the conventional wisdom is, ‘don’t make a fuss about it.’ Don’t even read your reviews, which I don’t know who does that or how they do it. I guess if you’re getting hundreds or thousands of reviews (I wish!) that’s maybe doable, but at this point in my career, with so few reviews coming in, I read them all. Over and over and over again. Heaven help me! Lol! 

Best,

Lena