This may come as a surprise to you (insert sarcasm here), but as an author, I sometimes have this horrible feeling that all my hard work has been for nothing. In the dark hours of night when I have nothing to do but listen to the sound of my own breathing, a sickly fog starts to creep into my mind and whisper things like:
Your book stinks.
No one is going to like it.
You shouldn't have bothered.
It's terrible! I feel like Gollum in Return of the King in which he tells himself nobody likes him and he doesn't have any friends.
Well, Friday, I felt like the cosmos were working together to prove me right. I went on Goodreads to check out how many readers had entered my giveaway. My jaw almost literally hit the floor when I saw my book rating: 1.8 stars.
WHAT?!
I only have 4 and 5 star reviews!
I checked, and checked, and checked again. Yep, I still only had 4 and 5 star reviews. I thought maybe it was just a technical glitch, so I walked away from the computer. Two hours later I came back.
1.18!!!
I wanted to cry. I shrieked and called my husband over. He was confused and a little heated up about it. "You need to email them," he told me forcefully.
"No, no, no. It'll be fine tomorrow," I said with the end of my sentence curling up into a question.
Well...Saturday it wasn't better. It fluctuated varying degrees of awfulness. It was as low as 1.18 and as high as 1.4.
And 1.4 is where it stands today.
I emailed them last night, totally horrified that I had to ask them, "Could you please make me look like I don't suck?" But really, it's not a good thing to have it look like your book is less than 2 stars. It hasn't been released yet. At least give people a chance to read it before they decide to throw me down the stairs!
Goodreads responded and said they're moving the code that calculates ratings from one place to another and have had a few things go awry.
Yeah, like my book rating!
They said I just needed to be patient.
In the meantime, I biting my nails hoping no one really looks at the one little red star. I can just hear it now, "Wow, this must be really bad."
It's not! I promise it's not that bad! It's actually pretty good, if I do say so myself.
So spread the word - as in, just keep in mind - The Gifted doesn't deserve 1 star. That's a technical glitch. AKA, the universe playing a hideous, horrible joke on me.
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4 comments:
I never pay attention to the Goodreads ratings, because I figure they're surely skewed in a case where the book hasn't even been released yet. Most people with ARCs will leave an actual review, so the ones who just star it? Whatever.
I hope they get their code fixed soon! It's been wreaking havoc with my currently reading shelf lately.
I also had a similar problem a few days back. Emerald Destiny (to be released in May) now has a 2.50 rating. I also couldn't find the "1 star rating" which brought it down. My eyes practically popped out of my head when I saw it, much like yours probably did with the case of your book. I agree, I hope it's fixed soon... and don't worry, your book is still on my to-read list, no matter what Goodreads says.
eek! hope this get fixed for you.
The same thing happened with "All About Daisy". Mine only went down to a 3.2, though. It was frustrating but at least it seems to be fixed now (At least on my end).
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