By conversing via Twitter, Blogs or other social media outlets I get some of my daily thought ideas. Today’s random thought is book ratings. We usually like a book and give it a number of stars, five stars being the top honor. But what if you could actually design your own rating system? What if next to stars were skunks. How would you feel if a reader rated your book 5 skunks? How about 5 leeches? That’s really a blow to an author. To know his/her story sucked to the 5th degree. Even worse, combine a skunk with a leech, to let you know you stunk and sucked at the same time. That’s a little demoralizing to say the least.
I personally wouldn’t mind if I could just get a review. One that is logical and intelligent, not “Your story stunk like a dead skunk locked in your trunk.” Although such a review could lead you to be the next Dr. Seuss. Imagine reading this in preschool.
“EW’s book is worse than a nook crook, it’s a dead skunk, in the trunk. Stunk much it did in the trunk, it sucked like a plucked duck run over by a truck. It was like a leech between my teeth as I bathed on the beach.”
Imagine the tales you’d hear at the dinner table from little Johnny and Suzy. Johnny comparing your strips of fried liver to that of the shape of a leech, and Suzy wanting to check between your teeth. Then my books would be outlawed and burned in the streets. So you can see, keeping book ratings simple is in the best interest of us all.
How about sound affects like Ross Perot’s great sucking sound as the nation races towards debt hell or a snorting sucking pig. Okay, those are just bad ideas as well. Now if you had icons that represent good and evil, how are you supposed to react to that? If Satan gives it 5 evil icons, then you connected with him.
The point to all this random neuron firing is very simple. Authors live by ratings and reviews, but we don’t want to beg or be a nuisance. After you have completed a story, give us your honest but civil rating and review. When we authors see our story from your perspective, we learn, we grow and we, hopefully, write better stories in the future. They may still stink or suck, but maybe not to the 5th degree.
