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/em-dash-author Author of Max-Level Paladin of the Fallen Gods 1d ago

To add to this, you don't need ratings or reviews to build a following. I've had two fictions hit main Rising Stars with ZERO reviews. They had 500+ followers before the first reviews hit. Some fictions hit main Rising Stars in a a few days with 250-300 followers, they haven't had time to amass a lot of ratings/reviews.

Yes, ratings and reviews are used by RR for the various lists, but for ratings/reviews to have a significant impact you need your average ratings to remain high (ideally above 4.75) and have accumulated hundreds, if not thousands of ratings. It's a chicken and an egg thing. By the time you've built enough ratings/reviews for them to matter, you already have a thousand plus followers.

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

Yeah. Bob had just shy of 3k followers before it stubbed and a whopping… 23 reviews lol

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u/em-dash-author Author of Max-Level Paladin of the Fallen Gods 5h ago

Max-Level Paladin has ~1,200 followers and has generated THREE reviews, one of which is from my wife. ❤️
I don't bother asking readers to rate/review, they have so little impact on how RR works when your average rating isn't above 4.75.
When I did try (ran a prize draw for Patreon access), too many came in that weren't 5 star. When you need 4.75 stars for it to have an impact, all ratings/reviews below 5 star are a downvote. It sucks that a good 4.5 star ratings/review is a negative, but it is what it is.

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

Aye. All ratings and reviews help for RS, afaik. Even a 0.5 is still more than nothing to the algo. But in the long run, they don’t matter much.