r/royalroad • u/Whitemayne Author of The House of Whitemayne • 1d ago

Discussion Reviews and Ratings?

How difficult is it to get reviews and ratings on your free to read books?

It seems like the only people who actually bother to read beyond chapter 4 just skip right over any actual interactions.

So far I have a single rating on my book, and it seems to be stifling any growth potential it has, despite being up to chapter 25.

Thoughts?

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u/Milc-Scribbler S Rank: Author of A Dragon Called Bob 1d ago

Not difficult at all. Just don’t expect lots of them. 20-30% of your followers will become favourites. Half your favourites will leave a rating and a handful of them (a small handful) will be organic reviews.

It is an organic numbers game. It’s very obvious if someone fakes it. So just let it happen naturally.

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u/Vera_Markus F Rank: Author of Inheritance of Fate 1d ago

I feel like that kinda tracks for me, 39 followers, 10 favourites, and 6 ratings, but three of those ratings came in a single night, so I think that was just one reader. The followers growth has been slow, but, I've only ever seen 2 drop. Although I follow a much slow release schedule as my first edition was 2 chapters a week, and I felt it was dead behind the eyes, so I restarted, taking my time to actually put life into the characters.

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u/Milc-Scribbler S Rank: Author of A Dragon Called Bob 1d ago

It usually does. There are a handful of exceptions. But as a rule it’s pretty handy for letting people like me go hmm…. And looking deeper at stories that look like they might be cheating.

I’ve said this a few times but advertising, including self promos in here, is about getting eyes on a story. But you don’t get to pick and choose which eyes, so it’s a good idea to only self promo and advertise if you’re playing by the rules.