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Several weeks ago, I wrote a post called “Three Big Ways to Support Your Favorite Authors.” The three big ways, each subdivided into more specific actions, were: Buy the Book, Promote the Book/Author, and Go Above and Beyond. Today I’ll dig deeper into one facet of the middle “big way” – Rate and Review.
Opinions are ubiquitous on today’s social media. Before buying or exploring something new, consumers often seek out the experiences of others. If you’re looking for info on a local plumbing contractor, you may check out the Better Business Bureau site, but more likely you’ll head over to Yelp. For restaurants, perhaps UrbanSpoon or OpenTable. No doubt you’ll end up on Tripadvisor if you’re looking for information on travel destinations. Seeing what other buyers have experienced helps you decide whether to take a chance on a new restaurant or a new travel destination.
In the book world, this feedback comes in the form of ratings and reviews on places like Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Other sites allow ratings as well, but these three have the biggest reach. Depending on the site, you can enter a rating without a review or a review without a rating. Entering both is best practice.
People evaluate ratings and reviews in two major ways:
1) Number: Most people are driven by volume. If a book has hundreds or thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of ratings and reviews, they assume that a lot of people have read the book. That’s a pretty good assumption, especially when you consider that only a small percentage of buyers will take the few minutes necessary to leave a review. My Tesla book, for example, has 371 ratings (and 63 reviews) on Goodreads and 39 ratings on Amazon. This despite Tesla having sold nearly 100,000 copies and has been translated into four languages. Most bestselling nonfiction books sell fewer copies than fiction books, but readers seem to short-change nonfiction ratings and reviews as well. Therefore, every rating and review counts, especially for nonfiction!
2) Relative ratings: Most sites include a rating system (often in the form of stars) running from 1 to 5, with 5 being you really liked it. The meanings of the number of stars vary somewhat by site, but obviously authors benefit most from people leaving 5-star ratings. Most sites also have a nice little bar chart showing how many ratings per star level. The screenshot below shows the bar chart for Lincoln: The Fire of Genius on Goodreads as of this morning. The number of ratings is small because the book has only been out for a few weeks and people need time to read it. The main point here is the graphic. Potential buyers will look at the relative bar lengths to help them decide if previous readers generally thought highly of the book, keeping in mind that people have varying mental scales of what different star levels mean. I’ve seen people leave glowing reviews on books but give it 3 stars because that’s the highest number of stars they give for any book. For most readers, the average ranking (4.50 in the example below) and the relative bar lengths are what people use to help them decide.
There is a critically important point potential raters/reviewers need to know – your review does not have to be long. I’ve heard some people say they didn’t leave a review because they didn’t have the time to write a long, insightful, analysis of the book. While a long review that points out key attributes can be useful to future readers, most potential readers are more interested in the overall feeling they get from the average rating and bar chart shape. Some dig deep into insightful reviews, but most want some quick overall feedback, knowing intuitively that different people will have different views on the book and different review styles. The fact is that the number of ratings and the average rating of all reviewers is more important to most potential readers than reading through a lengthy, analytical review. You should write whatever you want, of course, and if that means a long review, by all means do so.
If you don’t feel like writing a long review, write a short one. I’ve seen reviews like “I really loved the information and style of this book and highly recommend it.” It may not provide a lot of analytical information, but it joins all the other reviews in helping potential readers make the decision to pick up the book. That is, after all, the purpose of the review – to help others determine whether to read it or not. A short review gives more information to potential readers than no review. You can even leave a rating without a review on some sites. All ratings matter.
There is another important consideration of leaving a rating and review, even if it’s a short review (or even a rating without a review). Every time someone interacts with the book – likes, ratings, reviews, comments, liking other people’s reviews and comments – it triggers the site’s algorithm to push it up the feed. On Goodreads, for example, there is scrolling feed similar to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. When you rate a book, it gets a bump. Any time you interact with the book those interactions show up on the feeds of all of your friends. The more people see it – and the more of it people see – increases the chance that they will act to obtain and read the book. Again, all ratings matter. As do likes, reviews, comments, Q&As, etc. Other review sites have similar algorithms. As I mentioned in the earlier post, there are several ways you can help promote the authors you like. Leaving ratings and reviews is a critical one.
This is especially important early in the process. Each Harry Potter book has millions of ratings, but nonfiction books tend to get fewer ratings and a smaller percentage of readers who take the time to rate and review. It’s a fact of the writing life that is frustrating but real.
Bottom line: I hope you read Lincoln: The Fire of Genius and my other books. I hope you like them. If you do, please take a few minutes to leave a rating or review on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble (and whatever other rating media you use). You can even write it once and simply copy and paste it to the other sites. It makes a huge difference in the success of a book. It only takes a minute. It doesn’t have to be long. In fact, you don’t have to write a review at all on some sites – you can just leave a starred rating. [Hint: We all love 5-star reviews, but it’s up to you]
Authors appreciate readers! And reviewers!
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius is available for purchase at all bookseller outlets. Limited signed copies are available here. The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. If you read the book, please leave a review and/or rating.
You also follow my author page on Facebook.
David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.
His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.