Review Group discussion

So, the ratings on Amazon and Goodreads don't really mean the same thing, according to some. For example, Amazon considers a 3-star rating a critical review, but on Goodreads it means "liked it"!

I came across a blog that does a good job of comparing the ratings systems. You can read it for yourself here: https://www.jzacharypike.com/blog/201...

Just a little information that might be of use when deciding how to rate books we're reading and reviewing.

Personally, as they are both on a 5 point scale and both affect my overall rating average the same, I would not change my scoring from one site to the other.

Just because one site chooses to call a 3 "liked it" and one site calls a 3 "critical" does not change the math.

I consider both a critical review.

I suspect Amazon reviews are higher on average than Goodreads reviews not because the majority of users are rating books differently from one site to the other, but because Amazon's more stringent requirements in order to leave a review weed out people who haven't bought $50 worth of merchandise in the past year from their site, and also those who aren't following community standards.

On GR, if you report someone leaving 1-star troll ratings on all your books, nothing is done, even if you can show it's obvious inappropriate behavior. For example, I had screenshots of one person who left low ratings on thousands of books in the course of a week, trying to make GR's leaderboard for leaving the most reviews/ratings. They were searching for authors alphabetically by name, looking up all the Martins, all the Michelles, all the Mayas, all the Kats. But even when I could clearly demonstrate to GR that this behavior likely had no correlation with the user having read my books, GR refused to remove the ratings. On Amz, that sort of troll behavior (negatively rating 3,000 books per week) is more likely to be flagged by their bots and the user banned.

I don’t change my reviews either. Ultimately, my impact is low to the popular books. For indie books, I may have more impact on score, but I also leave longer reviews that clearly highlight strengths and weaknesses from my perspective.

Good discussion. Thank You.