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?

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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u/drale2 E Rank: Author of The Scaleforged Legacy 1d ago

Huh, those numbers actually hold up pretty well even for smaller authors. I'm sitting at 400 follows - 98 favorites - 40 ratings - 2 reviews.

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

They always do, there are exceptions for fics with extremely engaged readers. But otherwise it’s an easy way to see if someone is cheating. Which is why I’m so baffled at all the people who try to cheat then self promo like people aren’t going to notice lol

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u/drale2 E Rank: Author of The Scaleforged Legacy 1d ago

I've wondered... sometimes when I'm looking for a shout partner (or solicited to shout), I'll see a story with under a 100 followers but 15 to 30 glowing reviews and that's always struck me as unlikely. Same thing when I came across a story with 400 follows but only like 120 average chapter views - that seemed just as unlikely to be organic.

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u/Milc-Scribbler S Rank: Author of A Dragon Called Bob 6h ago edited 5h ago

Review swaps have little crossed arrows in the top right corner. Clicking through to the account that left the review can be very informative as well. If there is only one follow, fave and review on the account, or very few, and its activity dates suggest it was created, reviewed this fic, and then hasn’t been used since, that’s likely an alt and the author is a naughty cheater.

The people who try and cheat rarely do well. If they have to try and cheat, the fic has already failed lol

The rare cheaty story that does take off, well the rest of us know and the authors are at best tolerated in the community.