What do Amazon Ratings Mean?
Depends. Are you an author or a reader?
For most of my life, I have gone through life reading books on my Kindle (for as long as Kindle has been around at least) and leaving an honest rating on Amazon, thinking I was doing my duty to other readers by helping them identify their next best read. But what if I’ve been selfish? What if I’ve been doing it all wrong?
What Do the Ratings Mean to Amazon?
I recently read an okay book. It was in the genre LITRPG, which I had never tried before, and this particular book had a 4.5-star rating with over 1200 ratings logged. I’d heard a lot about the LITRPG genre, but I couldn’t find anything concrete on Google that defined exactly what it was. It seemed like a Fantasy genre, and I like fantasy, so I gave it a try for free on Kindle Unlimited. When I was finished, I was willing to give it a 3–4 Star rating (I hadn’t decided). I started reading past the ending about the author, and this is what he wrote:
Please review the books you’re reading when done, especially if you like them. Not just for me but for all authors you want to keep writing. Your reviews and ‘how you review’ have a direct and immediate impact on our livelihoods. I make just enough off of these books to pay to write the next and at some point, I will have to reach a place where I can either earn a little or give up writing. — Wolfe Locke
I had never thought about my ratings in this way. I am impacting the livelihoods of these authors. Maybe this book isn’t my cup of tea, but this author spent time and money putting this out there, and maybe there are others that will love it.
I was stunned by this revelation.
What is the Meaning of the Stars?
The author (Wolfe Locke) wrote the following about the meaning of Amazon ratings (according to him, but I have no reason to doubt him, because it makes sense):
5 Star — This was a good/great read
This is the only rating that pushes authors towards more exposure because of the messed-up way Amazon ratings work, as I’ll explain below. It you want a story you like to be successful and continue, consider this one.
4 Star — This was acceptable/mostly good
This is still counted as a positive review but being below a 4.5 average reduces a book’s discoverability. Once a book dips below a 4.5 average, Amazon starts to censor it. This is a soft negative as it’s below that 4.5 threshold.
3 Star — Needs Improvement/Bad/NDF (I don’t know what DNF means)
This is outright considered a negative review by Amazon. Below a 4 Star average, authors can’t even PAY to run ads for their books. Which means the book starts to disappear.
2 Star — This was awful
It takes two 5s to get back to a 4 average. This is reserved for DNF because of how badly written the content was or how bad the editing was.
1 Star — This person should not be allowed to write a book again. This is no different than storming into a manager’s office and demanding a clerk or waitstaff, etc, be fired.
Unfortunately, it takes five-5 Star reviews to offset the damage of a single 1 Star review to get back past that 4.5 threshold.
For most books, a single 1 Star review during launch will kill a book. So be careful how you rate, and be sure to rate if you want a story to continue. This is a call to action in general for any author, not just for my books. Anything less than a 4 is a vote against an author saying, “Stop writing.” I don’t believe it should be this way, but unfortunately, Amazon does.
The Amazon Reader
I often look at the number of reviews in a fiction book before I purchase it, and then I go straight to the 1–3 Star and read what someone didn’t like about it. Most of the time the reviews are petty — bad spelling and grammar (annoying) or unoriginal (what is?) or not the reader’s cup of tea (like my reviews).
What allegiance do I owe to readers that come after me? If I put 1–3 starts, what am I saying? It wasn’t my kind of book, and if other people like the books I do, then they won’t like it. But what about the people who do like this kind of story? I feel like I would be doing a disservice by assigning this book not to be advertised and promoted for them to find and enjoy.
Sounds selfish. I don’t consider myself selfish. At least I didn’t use to.
My Future Ratings
On the other hand, I don’t like to be fooled into buying a bad book either. And I don’t want to waste my time with an author that doesn’t respect me enough, as the reader, even to use spellcheck.
So, I decided to do the following for all my future Amazon ratings.
5 Star — A good to a great story with good spelling and grammar. If I have problems with the story (because I’m a developmental editor, I always have something to say), I’ll add in the comment some things that might help the author make their story better.
4 Star — Just not a good story with good spelling and grammar. A story that is not well told, but I will leave comments on why I thought that.
3 Star — Bad story and bad spelling/grammar
1 Star — If the author lied to me in his book description and this is not the book I thought it was (I find this is mostly in nonfiction books)
In Conclusion
So, in conclusion, support authors who are doing what they love. Write helpful comments to make them better writers. If you can tell that they are trying, give them a chance and rate them a 5 or at least a 4. What do you have to lose, really? Is it any different than clapping for this Medium article?
