Thursday, March 28, 2013

4.0

I always get a little bummed when one of my stories dips below 4.0 on Goodreads. I think some part of my mind still equates that sort of point system with a grade point average. Through most of junior high and high school I had a 4.0 or higher, mainly because most of those schools weighted the grades based on the administration’s definition of difficulty. So I could conceivably get five points for trigonometry, but only four points for art history which is balls. Let me tell you that being able to recognize artists and styles and time periods by looking at a painting is at *least* as cool as being able to calculate sines and cosines.

But I’ve gone off on a tangent.

The point is that four stars is not perfection. A book’s rating is not a grade point average. I won’t fail to graduate with honors and disappoint my parents if a few most of my stories drop below 4.0.

Last time I checked, only two of my books had a rating of 4 stars or above. And what a weird pair--Paul’s Dream and Want Me. On the spectrum of my writings, those two occupy opposite poles. Paul’s Dream is one of my better written books and leans a little closer to traditional romance, so I get that. Want Me is also one of my better written books but oh my god it’s a dark, twisted, muscle theft story. I figured the theft alone would turn a lot of the readers right the hell off.

The first edition of Want Me was self-published, though, and only available in print. The price point was around sixteen bucks and I think that probably kept new readers from trying it. In other words, if you bought the book you were generally (a) already familiar with my writing or (b) specifically looking for a muscle theft story.

And the reviews for Want Me were freaking great. Almost all of them had some variation of “Oh God this is so creepy WHY AM I STILL READING IT???” which is pretty much one of the most awesome things ever. XD

The second edition of Want Me comes out next week in ebook format. I’m guessing that means its overall rating will plummet to around 2 or 3 stars. But that’s okay. It just means that readers feel strongly about it (in the case of 2 and below) or they think the story is about as good as most of the stories they’ve read (in the case of 3 stars).

Don’t get me wrong. Four and five stars is a rush. But I once got five stars on a book because Ace was strong and sensitive, then one star on that same book because he was weak and unstable. So I try not to take scores too seriously. It’s all relative, and I never took physics in high school. ;)



Note:While preparing this post I had to link to my Goodreads page. Turns out Want Me has already dropped below 4.0. XD

click here to learn more about Want Me
Want Me will be available April 2nd, 2013 from Loose Id.


3 comments:

Katrina Strauss said...

My highest rated books are my lowest selling titles. Which means all three people that read it, liked it! LOL

The more people are buying, reading, and reviewing a title, the more varied the responses, with the ever changing GR scores tending to settle around an average of 3. At least this has been my personal experience and observation!

Anonymous said...

Don't let it get you down. I'm a regular GR user and I can say for sure that the ratings reflect nothing - unless you're trying to measure how far you've penetrated the fangirl legions.

I've seen complete thrash, and I really do mean irredeemable literary dump, getting ratings above 4.0 while much more deserving books hover around three. It really doesn't mean anything, and if it gets you down you should just steer clear of it because its only purpose will be that - to get you down. The most important thing is that most people do enjoy your books.

So... Cheer up! And congratulations on Want Me's re-release!

Rowan McBride said...

@Katrina Strauss - You know, a lot of my favorite books by authors I aspire to be more like have aggregate ratings around 3. I'm guessing that means you and I are in good company. ;)

@Anon - I think it only gets me down when I lose the 4.0, but I get over it pretty quickly. It also bums me out when the very first review on a new release is a 1 or 2 (which I think has happened with most of my stories >.<), but again, I get over it as long as it doesn't *stay* a 1.

So consider me cheered! I have a release Tuesday, and that's def a reason to celebrate. W00t!

Followers