Authors Whining About Amazon's New Rating System

Sorry, but I see a lot of authors whining about how now you can rate a book instead of leaving a review. I don't see the big deal because I sell wide too so I am used to this. Other retailers have always allowed it where readers can rate a book without a written review. Some of this seems like entitlement to me. I see authors saying they read their reviews to get input or get better, etc. That's not what reviews are for. Reviews are not to help you improve contrary to popular belief. Customers are not your beta readers. Your book should be best it can be before publication and no matter what, not everyone will like it. But customers aren't our editors. Authors should go to critique groups and writing forums if they want folks to give them feedback on what is working and what is not. Even go to your mailing list subscribers if need be but paying customers are NOT our editors. They only read the books and state what they think.

Also, authors are two-faced. On one hand they complain when they get a long-winded 1 star review that includes spoilers, but then bitch about only getting a 1-star rating. Can't have it both ways. You can't complain when a reader trashes your book in a long review then complain when they don't explain why they gave it a 1-star. A reader doesn't have to explain anything to us. Again, they have NO obligation to us.

Some indies are very entitled with this behavior and need to get over themselves. Me, I prefer a rating if someone is going to give me a one star. I'd rather not have a 1-star review tearing my book up chapter-by-chapter. If someone didn't like the book, I welcome the ratings without the review but I don't really care. I don't read my reviews. I stopped years ago. I see no need to read them. People keep forgetting reviews are for other readers. Not us.

But, yeah everyday they are whining and it's the same folks who were whining before whenever they got a 1-star REVIEW. You can't satisfy some folks. Another thing is, this saves authors from being a-holes. I am so sick of authors cutting and pasting customer reviews (yeah, ridiculous) and sharing them on Facebook or forums and blasting the reviewer. They used to do this all the time on Kboards. It's shameful behavior. Then we wonder why it's so hard to get reviews? So having ratings saves some authors from being jerks and makes them go do something productive instead of spending days obsessing over every word a reader who didn't like their book said so the author can go and I don't know...write. They should be glad of that.

Also, we are customers too. Do we always leave a long review for everything we buy? I don't. I don't leave reviews anymore unless I am very passionate about something and usually it's for a product, not a book. The truth is, most readers DO NOT want to leave review. Amazon used to hound them to leave reviews. I get emails all the time from Amazon begging me to review something and I ignore them and don't review. Many readers welcome this because it's so much easier to leave some stars than have to think of something to write.

Also, authors forget that readers are not wordsmiths like us. The common person isn't comfortable writing a review so for whatever reason, they might leave a rating.

But yeah, some indies need to get over themselves. I'm saying indies because I'm not hearing the trade authors whining about this. I know some indies feel like they need reviews but reviews are not that important trust me. They are cool to have  but contrary to popular belief, they don't make or break a book. You can have a 1,000 reviews but doesn't mean anyone is reading the book if you got a million ARC teams. I'd rather have sales and page reads than reviews.

Bottom line is, it's Amazon's playhouse so their rules. I am glad they switched to the rating system. I feel like it will encourage readers to leave more ratings. I don't see it as a bad thing.

But let's stop the whining and focus on what's important, writing. 

Okay, had to get that off my chest. LOL!