A question about how people approach book reviews on Amazon: If I like a book a lot, I'll typically give a four star review. To me, that's a very good book. If I leave a five star review, which is more rare, then the book hit me so hard I woke up naked in an alley wondering who I am. That seems a reasonable approach. If everything I like is five stars, then five stars loses its ability to distinguish the truly extraordinary. I read an exchange on social media, however, where an author argued that four stars on Amazon are a negative for authors. Is that true? How do you approach book ratings on Amazon (if you do at all)?
a) I don't typically review things, just to be upfront as regards the next statement... b) I don't hold a 5 star review in anything - be it a book review or an eBay seller rating, etc. - as something that indicates the engagement or experience was akin to speaking with God. Perhaps that does kill the idea of being able to denote the truly transcendental from the merely awesome, but a 4 feels like a 15% tip when I usually give 20% for good service. I realize that's circular logic and my example doesn't really explain my reasoning, but only presents another venue wherein I do the same, but... yeah.
I always do 20% as well, though in exceptional cases I'll do even more than that. I suppose I've overthought the star rating thing, just in terms of feeling a need to have room for the truly extraordinary. My subjective viewpoint has been: 1 star -- bad 2 stars -- below average; didn't like. 3 stars -- above average; I liked it fine but nothing special 4 stars -- very good; I'm glad I read this 5 stars -- holy $!%@# I'll may have to revise that so as not to do a disservice to authors I really like.
I haven't read any such books and I don't want to . But, technically, there are no ratings for "exceptional". If you leave "empty" stars that means something's lacking in the book hence writers taking offence when you liked the book but gave only 4 star rating. It's about as annoying as when people don't click properly and you end up with one star and text that says "great book, highly recommended!" underneath . Five stars is "I liked it just fine" and there's no measure of how much you liked it. Four stars is already "there was something I didn't like." There's no rules about it but that's what it would mean to most people and that's how ratings work in general.
I certainly do think there's always going to be a level of subjective take on these things and that more than one point of view can easily be valid. For example... I've been indulging in fanfiction lately and the place where I post my stories allows readers to either leave a kudos (analogous to the "like" button"), leave a comment, or both. The prevailing culture at the site is that leaving a worded comment is a higher praise than merely clicking the kudos button, but I have to admit to a certain level of egotistical greed as a writer - I'm only human - and I want the reader who likes the story enough to leave a worded comment to also click the kudos button. I want both, dammit!
I like Goodreads' system because there's actual hovertext giving the "interpretations" of the stars (1=did not like it, 2=it was okay, 3=liked it, 4=really liked it, 5=it was amazing), but even there I think people tend to be pretty generous with the stars... I'm stingier, but even at that I can't see a 4-star rating HURTING a book. When I see a book with only 5-star ratings on Amazon, I assume they're fake reviews.
Yeah, any book with mostly 4 star reviews (or even a 4 average over several 3-5 star ratings), I'd consider to be a highly recommended read and would be likely to check out myself.
I haven't done any book reviews yet, anywhere, but if I were to do it I'd follow @Steerpike's approach. I'm a local guide on Google maps, and I rarely ever give a place 5 stars. Someone said above that giving 4 stars meant that something was missing and agree with that; it's the very reason I give most places 4 stars at the most. Those that get 5 stars do have something most don't. EOTD authors will always prefer 5 stars over anything else, but if someone gives fewer stars it (generally) means they could have done something better. Same way as getting critique doesn't mean that your story is bad, but that it can be better.
I really wish Amazon would dump the 'star system' altogether. If I'm interested in buying something ...book, DVD, appliance, etc, I read what the reviewers actually said. So many of the one-star reviews are just 'I hated it,' 'Don't waste your money,' etc. Giving absolutely NO reason whatsoever for their 'opinion.' Unfortunately, many of the 5-star reviews are equally unhelpful. 'I loved it.' 'The best thing ever,' etc. Where are these people coming from? You'll never know. They could be genuine, or just trolls trying to trash or promote a product. The reviews that go into detail and explain what the reviewer thought of the product—and WHY— are the only ones that matter.
Netflix finally dumped the star system. I give five star reviews on everything I like. As far as I'm concerned, it's a vote of confidence. A five star review basically says, "this content was priced correctly, and I'm happy with my purchase. Would buy again." If something would only get 2-3 stars because I didn't finish it, I just don't leave a review--unless I recognize it was of acceptable quality, just not for me, then I'll still leave five stars if I remember. If I buy media that I don't like, I just don't finish it, and I forget about it, unless it really pisses me off, and that's rare.
Yeah, I'm more or less the same. The only thing I leave less than 5-star reviews for are appliances and goods, which reflects how I think they work, etc. Books of fiction? Well, it's a matter of taste, isn't it? Ditto films on DVD ...unless the DVDs themselves are faulty. I would only give (and have done) sub-5 star reviews for books if I feel the buyer is getting ripped off by misleading listings, etc. Or the content (mainly of non-fiction reference books) simply doesn't live up to the promotional hype or the price charged for the book
I'm usually most interested in the 3 star reviews actually - the 5 stars I interpret to mean "loved it" or "perfect", and the 1 stars to mean they hated it. But 3 stars tells me they have a something positive and negative to say, and I'm very interested in that. It gives me a more balanced opinion. I tend to gravitate towards the negative reviews first - to see if the negative points bother me - because if they don't, then the positive reviews will be more relevant to me too. But if the negative points are things that really bother me, then no matter how much someone else might have loved the product, it won't matter to me because what it's lacking would be something that's a deal breaker for me. For example, one time I was looking at non-branded Jenga (because actual Jenga was expensive). There were 5 star reviews but I wasn't interested in those. I was interested in the 1 and 2 stars that told me the bricks had splinters, and that they were the size of a little finger lol which made them impossible to actually play with. I was looking up Jenga in order to play with it with my 3 year old daughter. Both of those negative traits were of utmost importance to me. So it didn't matter to me that the game functioned, that there were a lot of happy customers - these two (splinters and too small for little hands) were deal breakers for me. Anyway, for myself, on average I give 4 stars if I was satisfied with the product. The moment I see 3 stars, I interpret that to mean "meh" or "it was fine or did the job, but there's definitely something lacking and could be improved". For me 4 stars means something was good, but not wow. What bothers me is actually people who give 3 stars and then say, "Oh the thing was perfect! Just what I wanted!" And I'm like, so why the feck didn't you give it at least 4 or 5 stars? But I guess that's the same mentality as the author that was complaining that 4 stars hurt a book.
Ironically, I try to avoid reviewing fiction because it's so subject to the Your Mileage May Vary notion that unless it's particularly novel or structurally atrocious I feel that it is even more subjective than most. Generally I review other products and non-fiction I've read. Five stars denotes the following, if applicable: It's exactly as described Service was good (particularly in the case of third party sellers) The product is good quality It's had a substantial impact on my outlook or how I do (relevant activity) compared to before. For example, I have a Nanguang mini studio, but I cannot use it in the flat due to space and logistics with the lights. However, Amazon basics had a light box that did the same thing and was much more self-contained and suited to my purposes. Naturally I reviewed this highly and detailed this point. As an example with third party sellers, the one I bought my boyfriend's birthday present from had gone all out on packing the two tabletop games I ordered to make sure they arrived intact. I do my best to make sure my reviews across the board are substantial, explaining why I pursued it and how it rates for my personal case.
I think Amazon tells you what its stats mean. At least, they used to. And this doesn’t track with that. So the site itself is portraying your rating differently than you intend.
I like @Steerpike's rating system. Most books are good, solid average, and 3 stars should not be a black mark. 1 or 2 stars means it is poorly written, or terrible layout, SPaG, 4 means very good, and 5 something really special. But like @jannert said, the text is important... why did you grade the book as you did, why did you like it? And I do have to say, reviewing a book for someone I know is much harder to do than to review a stranger's.
It’s one of a couple reasons why Amazon’s star system is relatively worthless. If people can’t agree on the scale, it has no value. I agree with the sentiment above that the written portion of the review is more important.
Seriously, when you suggested I go by the meaning of the stars, I was stunned. I had never even thought of, or considered the idea that, Amazon’s opinion on how they work matters. Of course, it should. You are right. I’d just never considered it. lol
I didn't even realize that the Amazon star system was basically used as a pass/fail grade. When I've ranted that what self publishing needs is a decent review system, I didn't realize that the Amazon system was THIS bad.
Ideally, yes I doubt many people look at it, though. A lot of people view anything less than 5 stars as a slam.
Personally, I ignore five-star reviews and mostly read the low-rated ones. And I've often bought a book because of something someone complained about in a one-star review. But thanks to so many promo sites demanding that books have a rating of four or above before they'll let a writer run a promo, anything other than five stars has come to be seen as bad, and lead to massive ratings inflation that makes the reviews useless to many of us. 'This is the best book EVAH! Just like this author's other ten books this year! Five stars!'
