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Mr. or Ms. One Star
May. 11th, 2025 04:41 pmOne not-fun thing that's happened with my original work is that though at first I received only four- and five-star ratings, lately three of my books have fallen below four stars overall, two on Goodreads and one on Amazon, and I'm afraid people who might actually like those books will no longer give them a chance -- or give any of my books a chance.
The first of my books to fall below four stars was Restraint. It had five stars -- people really liked it -- then out of nowhere, someone gave it a one-star rating (just a rating without a review). This was when antis were at their height. The book is about a teen male prostitute. He's eighteen when the book begins, but the book does reference that he's been at it since he was fourteen. On Kindle, you can tell when someone's read your book. They might just buy it, or if you've made it part of Kindle Unlimited (which I always do), you get paid according to how many pages they read, and you can see how many have been read recently of any given book. There had been no action on that book in years, neither purchases nor page reads (yes, I'm very popular lol), and then out of nowhere comes this one-star rating, so I don't know what else to assume except that they read the description (and maybe one of the two reviews on Goodreads, which inaccurately says he's seventeen at the start of the book), decided any book on such a topic is Pure Evil, and gave it the one-star rating.
But the thing is, my book doesn't treat it as a cool, sexy thing that he's a prostitute; he has a troubled past and suffers from addiction. It's angst and pathos; he's meant to be a tragic character (though I can never resist writing as happy an ending as may be). The book is the story of his journey through it. There are inevitably a lot of sex scenes, but it's about as inexplicit as a book that goes along with a prostitute on dozens of his appointments can be, because I'm just not comfortable writing explicit stuff (thus, writing a book about a prostitute that's fifty percent sex scenes was a challenge, I can tell you, lol). ( spoiler ) So even Mr. or Ms. One Star, had they bothered to read the book, probably would have been satisfied with where things ended up.
The next to go below four stars was The Book of Jonah, and ... yeah, I knew that one was going to be controversial, to say the least. A teen throuple, one of whom proves to be a prophet, with a story that delves deeply into mental illness, religion, bullying, suicide ... okay. I get it. I expected that with that one, and even Restraint, since it's also about a very controversial topic.
But then there's X, which, goddamnit, is the one book I had that I believed was above reproach, if only because it's so beautifully written. I think people have decided it's supposed to be an M/M novel, because it involves a gay romance, but I didn't write it with that in mind; to me it was just romantic literary fiction that happened to revolve around a gay couple. I know M/M is a huge genre on Kindle right now, and the fact that it's a romantic story about a gay couple plus the (awesome, wonderful!!) first review someone did leave also gave that impression, but it doesn't contain what people are looking for in M/M; there's all but no sex, and what little is there is very inexplicit. It just wouldn't have been relevant to the story I was trying to tell to put more sex in there.
I can't help but think there's a little bit of "This book ain't that great" in response to the glowing review that one reviewer left (the only reviewer who ever really "got" one of my books, except for my friend who kindly wrote a review for most of my books on Goodreads), a backlash. Also, on Goodreads people do challenges to do things like "read a book that starts with every letter of the alphabet." Books that start with the letter X are hard to find, so I think that's how most people are finding it (that's how that one reviewer says she found it), and if you're just reading a book to check a box, yeah, there's no reason to think you'll like it, so that could be why so many of them are rating it three stars. But I guess I'll never really know, since they don't bother to leave a review! Maybe you don't like the story, but come on, it's a good book! Also though, again, I know some of the people leaving those ratings aren't actually reading it, and people who haven't actually read a book, I've found, do tend to give it three stars. (Whyyyy rate a book you haven't read???)
I feel a bit better just for having gotten all this off my chest, but it is still very very frustrating. I know sometimes I do write about controversial or challenging topics. For some reason, those are the books that more people seem interested in?? I really don't care if someone hates one of my books. Go ahead, leave a review, and say WHY you hated it. Because when I want to buy something, I always read the lowest reviews, because they give as much insight into whether you actually want to buy this thing as the five-star ones. One person's poison is another person's pleasure. But just rating it down, especially for an author who has so few ratings or reviews to begin with, does no one any good (except maybe the person who gave me the one-star review; I'm guessing that gave them a lot of satisfaction >:-#).
Like, how do you get original fiction to the people who want to see it?? I know how to do it with fanfic: put it on AO3! They search for what they want to see and they'll find your work. Even if you're writing genre fiction, there are groups where you can advertise, although people seem distrustful of anyone who's selling something, afraid their intentions are impure. But it's just really hard to make that connection for literary fiction. I would be most grateful for any ideas anyone has.
The first of my books to fall below four stars was Restraint. It had five stars -- people really liked it -- then out of nowhere, someone gave it a one-star rating (just a rating without a review). This was when antis were at their height. The book is about a teen male prostitute. He's eighteen when the book begins, but the book does reference that he's been at it since he was fourteen. On Kindle, you can tell when someone's read your book. They might just buy it, or if you've made it part of Kindle Unlimited (which I always do), you get paid according to how many pages they read, and you can see how many have been read recently of any given book. There had been no action on that book in years, neither purchases nor page reads (yes, I'm very popular lol), and then out of nowhere comes this one-star rating, so I don't know what else to assume except that they read the description (and maybe one of the two reviews on Goodreads, which inaccurately says he's seventeen at the start of the book), decided any book on such a topic is Pure Evil, and gave it the one-star rating.
But the thing is, my book doesn't treat it as a cool, sexy thing that he's a prostitute; he has a troubled past and suffers from addiction. It's angst and pathos; he's meant to be a tragic character (though I can never resist writing as happy an ending as may be). The book is the story of his journey through it. There are inevitably a lot of sex scenes, but it's about as inexplicit as a book that goes along with a prostitute on dozens of his appointments can be, because I'm just not comfortable writing explicit stuff (thus, writing a book about a prostitute that's fifty percent sex scenes was a challenge, I can tell you, lol). ( spoiler ) So even Mr. or Ms. One Star, had they bothered to read the book, probably would have been satisfied with where things ended up.
The next to go below four stars was The Book of Jonah, and ... yeah, I knew that one was going to be controversial, to say the least. A teen throuple, one of whom proves to be a prophet, with a story that delves deeply into mental illness, religion, bullying, suicide ... okay. I get it. I expected that with that one, and even Restraint, since it's also about a very controversial topic.
But then there's X, which, goddamnit, is the one book I had that I believed was above reproach, if only because it's so beautifully written. I think people have decided it's supposed to be an M/M novel, because it involves a gay romance, but I didn't write it with that in mind; to me it was just romantic literary fiction that happened to revolve around a gay couple. I know M/M is a huge genre on Kindle right now, and the fact that it's a romantic story about a gay couple plus the (awesome, wonderful!!) first review someone did leave also gave that impression, but it doesn't contain what people are looking for in M/M; there's all but no sex, and what little is there is very inexplicit. It just wouldn't have been relevant to the story I was trying to tell to put more sex in there.
I can't help but think there's a little bit of "This book ain't that great" in response to the glowing review that one reviewer left (the only reviewer who ever really "got" one of my books, except for my friend who kindly wrote a review for most of my books on Goodreads), a backlash. Also, on Goodreads people do challenges to do things like "read a book that starts with every letter of the alphabet." Books that start with the letter X are hard to find, so I think that's how most people are finding it (that's how that one reviewer says she found it), and if you're just reading a book to check a box, yeah, there's no reason to think you'll like it, so that could be why so many of them are rating it three stars. But I guess I'll never really know, since they don't bother to leave a review! Maybe you don't like the story, but come on, it's a good book! Also though, again, I know some of the people leaving those ratings aren't actually reading it, and people who haven't actually read a book, I've found, do tend to give it three stars. (Whyyyy rate a book you haven't read???)
I feel a bit better just for having gotten all this off my chest, but it is still very very frustrating. I know sometimes I do write about controversial or challenging topics. For some reason, those are the books that more people seem interested in?? I really don't care if someone hates one of my books. Go ahead, leave a review, and say WHY you hated it. Because when I want to buy something, I always read the lowest reviews, because they give as much insight into whether you actually want to buy this thing as the five-star ones. One person's poison is another person's pleasure. But just rating it down, especially for an author who has so few ratings or reviews to begin with, does no one any good (except maybe the person who gave me the one-star review; I'm guessing that gave them a lot of satisfaction >:-#).
Like, how do you get original fiction to the people who want to see it?? I know how to do it with fanfic: put it on AO3! They search for what they want to see and they'll find your work. Even if you're writing genre fiction, there are groups where you can advertise, although people seem distrustful of anyone who's selling something, afraid their intentions are impure. But it's just really hard to make that connection for literary fiction. I would be most grateful for any ideas anyone has.
