I've been researching series orders and connected books, and have noticed a few times the author on GoodReads or elsewhere giving her own book five stars. I'll be honest: I pretty much always roll my eyes when I see an author giving each of their books a five star rating, not the least of which because it's disingenuous.
But I also ask myself (every time I see this happening), would I give my own books five star ratings? Would I rate every example of my own writing five stars?
Nope, probably not. Definitely not.
I probably should, because as the author or co-author I should be the best emissary for my books. But in each case, and this goes for books published elsewhere and entries published here, I can see things I would change or do differently, things I wish I'd known when I was writing them that I know now. I can't read entries on the site without wanting to make edits and rearrange paragraphs. Books are subject to the same wish to continue to revise. But I can't. It's done. I can't find every copy in every store and make changes or fix things, so I let it go. It's not something I have control over. I still want to edit things, though. Constantly!
So would I give them 5 stars? No, probably not. I have 5 star amounts of pride for each one and I can explain what each book is about and who it might appeal to, but is each one absolutely five-star perfect? No, unfortunately. I always look at my own writing and think of all the ways I can do better next time.
So when authors give each and every book they've written 5 stars, I confess to being very confused. Is that a promotional rating? Is every book they've written 5-stars-of-awesome? I honestly have a hard time believing that a writer might feel that way about every book. Not even the most talented writers can get it perfect every time.
I'm guessing it's the expectation that an author is the best representative of her work, and therefore must promote each one as the best. Promotion doesn't make a lot of room for self-evaluation or self-criticism. It's not effective to say, “This isn't the best one of my books but I hope you buy it.”
When I see five-star self-evaluations for each book, I look at it from the perspective of having written books, and whether I could do the same. When I see the five-star lineup when I'm book shopping, I ignore it. What about you? Would you give everything you've written or done 5 stars? Do you have any reaction when you see an author giving herself top ratings for each book?
Thank you to BigStock for the image!
There is no way I’d give myself 5 stars or any for that matter (well maybe 3 3/4 if arm twisted since I question and reevaluate everything I do). For my debut book I followed the advice of a friend and put it up with no rating just to let people know that yes, I wrote it. That was good enough for me. Of course I love the story and it touches my heart, but each time I think of it I also think of things that I’d like to change. I’m a writer and I could do that forever. I think if you get to the point where you feel your work is perfect then you’re stepping into dangerous territory.
I cracked up when Amazon sent me an email asking me what I thought of my own book. I laughed at the computer and took a picture to save it (new pubbed author and all) while I said, “You’re nuts if you think I’m doing that mess!”
I’m always suspicious of books (say on Amazon) I’ve never heard of having all sorts of five star reviews. Then the reviews turn out to be very short and very similar, compare the author to another established successful author (like so-and-so writes just as well as Tom Clancy), and the reviewers can’t wait to read the author’s next book. Yet none of the reviewers go into detail about why they so friggin’ love this book. No mention of characters or events from the book, which makes me think the reviewers have no idea what the story is about in the first place. So then I check on the customer’s other reviews, which are about two to four books or products (if that). Either that, or the customer gives five star reviews to absolutely everything they have ever read. Must be nice to never get a hold of a bum book.
I find an author reviewing his or her own work unsurprising, but distasteful. And this is regardless of the rating given.
However, I bet it would be pretty hilarious to read reviews from an author who’s been writing for a long time and is willing to take a honest look at what she wrote, say, 30 years ago. Considering how much the romance genre in particular has changed, that could be interesting as well as entertaining.
The closest thing I’ve seen to that is the beginning of a few reissued books by different authors (I think JAk was one of them?) where the author said, basically, “I’ve grown and changed so I revised this book and now I’m pleased to present it to you, my loyal public.” I was not impressed with the results. The updating tends to seem awkward to me—and really, why wouldn’t it? Presumably, if the author has learned anything at all from years of writing, then she wouldn’t write the same kind of book any more. So the result you get is this weird Frankenstein’s monster of a book that is mostly rotting corpse (Sorry to all you folks who love the old skool stuff!) with some rosy new bits awkwardly stitched on, which just makes the whole thing look worse.
And now I’ve both gone off on a tangent and grossed myself out with the mental image I’ve created.
My guess is that when an author does this, it’s less a self-assessment than an effort to boost the overall rating of the book. Authors who are new to goodreads may not be aware that the site is extremely public and everything one does there is visible to everyone else. Even just clicking the “like” button on something generates a broadcast to one’s friends list.
I would never review my own book. That would feel like a terrible breach of the promotion/critique border. And I can’t imagine giving something of mine 5 stars. A “best I could make it at the time”? Sure.
On GoodReads, I’ve chosen to only review books that I think are terrific. Even so, some are rated more highly than others. In each case, I explain what I valued about the book.
I did give my books 5-stars, as a joke. I wrote “what’s with authors giving themselves 5-star reviews?”
BUT, this year, after much thought I removed all my reviews from Goodreads, including the jokey ones I’d written for my own books.
I’m an author first and foremost. I need to pour my energies into writing my books, not raving about others or myself. (As much as it pains me, becasue I want others to rave about me, in a quid-pro-quo, lorum ipsum dolor, dominatrix ad nauseum manner).
I am utterly, disgracefully happy with my books. I am so proud of them. I can’t help it, my children are PERFECT. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what I think, so I deleted them a few months back and the world hasn’t stopped spinning.
Laura, if I were recommending a book to you (and I’m incredibly flattered that you want to try one), I’d pick Table for One. I think you’d enjoy the food.
That’s interesting about the latest book being the favourite. I do think I’m improving as a writer, but there are still some books I’m prouder of than others. The one I’m currently writing usually veers between most loved and most hated, depending how it’s going.
This is why mass ratings don’t mean a whole lot to me. I’ve read 200+ books this year. I’ve enjoyed these books. How many got 5 stars? Eight. Eight were so amazing and memorable that I believed they should get what is basically a perfect rating. Most of the books I read (120+) got a 3-star rating. I enjoyed them. But when I see all the 4- and 5-star ratings posted by others, I wonder what a normally enjoyable book is for many readers.
Certainly no author should be rating all their books 5 stars. It’s not honest—or possible—to be that remarkably perfect all the time, no matter if you are an author, doctor, scientist, teacher, truck driver, baker or whatever. It’s just not happening.
Thats why I come here for my book recommendations! I don’t put much stock in star ratings like that. Even if they are genuine ratings, it says nothing about taste. Just because someone else (author or no) gives a book 5 stars does not mean I will like it. I much prefer written reviews where I can get a sense of what the reviewer likes about a book. That way I can judge whether i might like it too.
K.M.‘s is the comment that most closely reflects how I feel. There’s no way I’m rating my own books, responding to reviews, or rallying my friends to write reviews. The tiny percentage of authors who have tampered with the book rating/reviewing ecosystem have created a atmosphere of suspicion and distrust against authors in general, and I see that reflected in this blog post and comments.
It makes me sad because just about every author I know is a genuinely good person with the best of intentions. Food for thought: I panicked when a couple reviews were posted on Amazon of my book that sounded paid for. The reviews followed the exact same “criteria” offered here for what constitutes a paid-for review. But I had nothing to do with the reviews, have never heard of the reviewers, and am not at liberty to do anything about it. (Nor would I even if I could because authors tampering with reviews is the worst idea ever.) It’s frustrating to me that savvy readers like those who’ve posted comments here might see those reviews and assume the worst about me and my motives.
I think readers are correct in taking reviews with a grain of salt and correct to be suspicious of authors rating their own books, but I ask readers to remember that the vast majority of authors aren’t trying to pull one over on them. Most of us are extremely grateful to even be in the position to call ourselves published authors and share our life’s passion with readers.
Let’s remember that the best way to combat the few authors who’ve spoiled the soup is by encouraging all readers to share their opinions of the books they read in public forums. The more readers talk about the books they’ve read, the less power dishonest reviews (and dishonest authors) hold.
I don’t rate my own books (book actually). That’s cheating.
I have reviewed books twice. The first time was for the late Ron Gorow’s ‘Hearing and Writing Music’ on Amazon. At present count, it got a ‘161 out of 163 found this review helpful’. The author was so grateful that he shipped me a free copy of the second edition.
I won’t mention the second time I reviewed a book, but the book reviewed there was very good, too. So far, I haven’t found a fiction book worthy yet.
What I DO happen to do is to relentlessly and shamelessly PROMOTE my book. I’m doing so now. It’s name is ‘Bad Trip’, and it can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Trip…
Here’s the book’s description, which some of you might actually like:
Michael Clark has grown rich by using recombinant DNA to make and sell illegal drugs. But one of his new ‘products’ turns out to be at the center of an ancient Incan drug cult, whose purpose is to bring back the Great Old Ones, and to destroy the world in the process. Now, he must do everything in his power to keep this from happening. Even if means losing his life to do so.
Enjoy the ride, which includes H.P. Lovecraft, romance, Jorge Luis Borges, true love, Pico Della Mirandola, fine wine and Cordon Bleu cuisine, Dr. John Dee, haut coutour fashion, a zombie apocalypse of half a million on the beaches of L.A., and the Great Old One Itself like a bat out of R’lyeh, rising from the Santa Monica Bay on Midsummer Night. And, of course, The Book.
I’m sorry if I repeat what anyone else has said, but I don’t have time to read all the comments. I don’t rate my own books, and paid reviews and their ilk annoy me a lot. But, I want to point out that ratings on GR, and I think Amazon, are about how much you liked a book, not judging/rating the writing quality. I could comment further on that, but I want to stick to that point.
And also I want mention that I don’t see anything wrong with writer “friends”/critique partners reviewing your book, if you didn’t ask them to—isn’t that what the quotes from other authors on many books are, or actually, from what I understand, those are solicited. I’m an author and a reader and I ought to be able to express my opinions, if I do so in a respectful and above-board way (for instance, if I beta-read something, I say so in the review.)
Happy Holidays!
Personally, I see no problem with this. Why? Because I don’t know the author’s journey to tell their story, nor do I know if they truly feel it was the very best they could do. Sure, there may be a word choice they wish they had made or sentence they wish they’d tightened, but overall, they may feel tremendously satifised with the final product. Truth is just about any story someone can think of has already been written. The struggle is to get readers to afford you an opportunity to tell your story. Not to mention, twenty five-star reviews can be easily dismissed by a few people’s one-star opinion. And I admit to being guilty of shying away from books with ratings of this nature when it’s just as possible the people trashing the book are people who don’t want the author to succeed. I think I’m more worried about the author who doesn’t think too highly of their work. Quite often, I tell my children they are the smartest kids I know (they are straight A honor students, btw) and sowing that positivity into their thinking encourages them to strive higher instead of doing their work in half measures.
I don’t think authors should rate (or review, or even edit) their own books, period.
But the star thing can be tricky. I rarely give out 5-star ratings on Amazon because, under their system, 5 stars implies to me that the book was nearly perfect, and “A” grade,” if you will. To me, the Amazon ratings read like 5=A, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F. But I often give out 4- and 5-star ratings on Goodreads because they define 4 as “I really liked it” and 5 as “it was amazing.”
So I see their ratings as more of a personal preference, whereas I see Amazon’s as more objective (for me, at least). I can love a book and enjoy the hell out of it (a 4- or 5-star by Goodreads standards) while at the same time recognizing that it’s not a great work of literature or even a great example of its own genre (a 3-star by Amazon standards).
I rate every book that I read so that I have a personal record of likes and dislikes, but I don’t write a review for every one. Usually just for the ones I insist EVERYONE go out and read and the ones that made me sorry I wasted my time.
I read at least one 1-star review each, too, just to gain some perspective.
If you’re going to make a habit of jumping into random online communities to PROMOTE your book, you might also want to take a few lessons in PR. Please be aware that real self-promotion is more than just copy/pasting the book’s description from Amazon into an unrelated discussion.
Bad PR will get you worse results than no PR. I make a habit of one-starring poorly-written books, it’s best not to draw my attention to them.
You need an editor. At the very least, you need someone to show you how to format an ebook. Self-publishing is easy but that doesn’t mean all self-pubbed books are sub-par quality as a result, that’s solely up to the author.
Oh, no! The plucky but world-weary heroine has fallen into the trap of the Big Bad Troll, and has actually responded to said B.B.T!
Somewhat seriously, though, I thought that I was on point for the topic, and added an additional topic for discussion: whether it was proper for an author to promote his/her book in the course of a comments discussion. Silly me!
I’ll grant you that my book is at present poorly formatted. I’ve been learning whole bunches of four-letter words like ‘http’, ‘html’, ‘java’, ‘ruby’, and ‘juto(h)’, and have been emitting many more four-letter words that I do know, while reformatting it. But ‘poorly-written’? Moi?
Actually, I’m just here lurking most of the time, and between reading SF reviews here that convince me that I’m finally going to have to read Lois McMaster Bujold, I’m here to enjoy the smart, bitchy snark here. Do please keep up the good work, Ms. Vega.