Aug 27, 2012

The uselessness of starred reviews on sites like Amazon

 

Starred reviews

I submit to both Goodreads and Amazon and both require star reviews.  I find this almost useless as a measure of judging a book or recommending it. 

First the reviewer is given a continuum of emotional reactions from, I hate it = 1 star all the way up to, I love it = 5 star.  So that’s all that the star system really is, it’s not a cut and dried comment on quality, it’s an emotional reaction or it should be.

This is the spirit in which I generally use the system.  Which can lead to confusion when I might give a book a 2 star (I didn’t like it) but talk about how good it might be technically. Or who might like it. But you need to know about my likes and dislikes to interpret that information. You don’t get that from reading Amazon reviews, there is no community around the reviews and least not that I have experienced.

You’ll note I don’t star the reviews here.

The trouble with readers

The trouble is of course that it’s not terribly clear to a reader that this is what the stars mean, on Amazon in particular, mousing over one of the stars only give you a decimal rating ie 1.0 to 5.0.  I think this creates a good deal of confusion and leads readers and authors to settle the on 1 star =shit, 5 star = best book ever written, interpretation.

Authors have no right really to get cranky at someone’s feelings about their book (not openly anyway) not everyone likes the same things, has the same experiences or views things the same way.

People dislike the classics, have done since they weren’t classics.  Good books should evoke emotional reactions. If they don’t then we might as well be reading cornflakes packets. But is this what most reviewers(and I use that term broadly) are doing?  Are they looking at it and saying this is a shit book and I hated it, in giving it a one star? Are they saying I hate the author? Are they saying look at me, I have an opinion?

Getting cranky at misinterpretations, and hate fuelled messages I think is another matter though.  It appears to be happening more that one star reviews are the space in which readers come to grind their axe against the author, rather than the work.  So incensed, are they that the author held a gun to their head and forced them to read such a crap book and then go and comment on a site that you have to sign up to.

What to do?

I have been checking out a few different ways I might present reviews on this site.  Including something similar to the way in which SF Signal formats their reviews.  But honestly I don’t know what way’s best.  The shorter more formulaic reviews are easier to do if I am trying to keep up with the review load but I don’t know if they entice readers to read them? 

I have had some feedback from listeners to Galactic Chat that seems to indicate that talking to authors about their books enables listeners to get a better sense of what the book is like and whether they should buy it. 

So fire away readers let me know what you prefer i.e. set word limits, formatting, , star ranking (don’t you dare),whatever you want?


Did you enjoy this post? Would you like to read more? You can subscribe to the blog through a reader,by Email or Follow me on twitter.

Comments (12)

Loading... Logging you in...
  • Logged in as
I think the star ratings on Goodreads or Amazon are a pretty good indication of whether the person who bought and read the book got the book that they were expecting.

If something is marketed as romance and romance readers buy it and it's a good romance, the ratings will be high.

If something is marketed as romance and romance readers buy it and it's an excellent exploration of some historical period but the romance is sidelined, or there's no happy ending, the ratings will be punishingly low.

To me, a five star rating really means that the kind of reader who is most able to appreciate the book has been successfully found and the book delivered to them.

That's why the Goodreads system of having your friends' ratings and reviews preferenced, when they are often likeminded readers, can be so successful.
1 reply · active 655 weeks ago
So that's viewing the ratings as a whole, not individual reviews?

I have stopped looking at Amazon reviews for my own purchases. I do like the way Goodreads works and a couple of your reviews/opinions have gone toward me purchasing. They do seem to facilitate community around the review.

I have been thinking of using the SF Signal format seen here http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012/08/review-f... for the blog. Though I am not sure if staring them on the blog works
I do like to see a star or some other kind of ratings so that I can see at a glance whether it was a loved it or hated it kind of reaction. The difficulty is when the rating reflects something other than the reading experience.

The other thing that can be a bit difficult is that assigning a rating is so subjective and so often depends on exactly how the reader felt as they closed the book. That can some times mean that I may be tempted to change the grade after a couple of days of thinking about the reaction.

My recent post Sunday Salon: Enquire Within at MWF
1 reply · active 655 weeks ago
I am thinking mood icons in that sense might be better
1. Offended my sensibilities
2. Found it hard going
3. etc
4.
You can rate without stars on Goodreads. I often prefer that when my opinion of a book can't be easily summed up.
1 reply · active 655 weeks ago
Does that then appear in the community reviews I wonder.
I don't do stars on my blog and am seriously thinking of stopping doing them on Goodreads, having seen one-star ratings for such classics as Lord of the Rings and five-star ratings for the latest badly-written paranormal romance. If you just take it as a personal reaction, fine, but a lot of people do take it seriously. As for Amazon, have you seen that article about the guy who sells five-star Amazon reviews to self-published writers? You're not supposed to, but he does it. He says if he sees twenty great reviews online and a negative one he goes for the negative one, because that's probably a real review by an actual reader.
My recent post Off To The Festival!
3 replies · active 655 weeks ago
Just finished reading it actually.

Feeling a bit demoralised over the whole point of reviewing actually. =/

Hope you enjoyed the festival
Hey Mick, thanks for dropping in. Hadn't heard about Jeremy Duns will add him to my RSS feeds. Thanks for the comments on reviews too it all helps
The only thing I want from reviews I read is to know how the reader felt about the elements of the story and why they felt that way, the format doesn't bother me though I am unlikely to read any thing over say 1000 words. I don't pay a lot of attention to star ratings unless I am familiar with the reviewer/blog in which case it becomes a convenient shorthand.
1 reply · active 654 weeks ago
Do you think its worth including a synopsis? I tend to do it for the blog but it seems a bit superfluous on Amazon or Goodreads.

Post a new comment

Comments by

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...