Should Authors Rate and/or Review Their Own Books on Goodreads?

When I was editing our review of “O Beautiful” by Jung Yun, I noticed she reviewed the book on Goodreads and gave herself a five-star rating. In the review field she wrote, “I gave my own book five stars! But I spent five long years with this story, so of course I love it. I hope others will too.”

As an author myself, I was aware of the feature that allows an author to register as a “Goodreads Author” and rate and/or review their own books. To my knowledge, Goodreads is the only platform that allows authors to exercise this option. Amazon uses an algorithm to take down reviews from users who seem to have a connection to the author, so I’m sure their algorithm would also remove reviews from the author. Most book review sites seem to function similarly.

Despite understanding the capabilities of the Goodreads platform, I was shocked to see Yun’s review and rating. She was the first author I had seen who actually exercised this privilege. Before this instance, I had assumed all authors would decline the self-review option because of the risky optics.

Of the perception, author Lara Bruni wrote, “Technically, you’re not supposed to. Most would view this as bad taste.” I had the same sentiment.

When I scrolled through the responses to Yun’s review, however, I was again shocked to see 100% positive comments. No one lambasted her for reviewing her own book and rating it five stars. No one called her out on the absurd logic of implying that a book deserves a star for every year the author works on it.

It’s possible that Goodreads moderators removed negative comments, but I think this possibility is unlikely. I see lots of mean Goodreads comments, and they rarely disappear.

What Do Most Authors Think?

In an attempt to better understand the dynamic, I asked authors in my network about their sense of Goodreads self-review/rating etiquette. Here’s a rough breakdown of the attitudes and their popularity:

• 65% — rating is never OK, but using the review field for helpful commentary is OK
• 15% — rating is OK, but reviewing is not OK
• 10% — neither rating nor reviewing are OK
• 10% — both rating and reviewing are OK

Regarding the first and most popular attitude, poet Eryn McConnell responded, “I sometimes review if I’m leaving a content warning behind the spoiler alert. But it’s purely about the presence of dark content and not about what I think of the book.”

Romance novelist Dani Collins had a similar take: “I wrote a dear reader letter in the review space to tell readers why I wrote it etc. and did it pre release. Did not rate the book.”

I’m with the majority on this one. I don’t see any harm in leveraging the review field for useful information. I’m against self-rating because I don’t think it’s fair for authors to boost their own average. Even when the book has so many ratings that it won’t benefit significantly from one more five-star review, self-reviews can come across as desperate.

Perhaps Yun got lucky. I’d be curious to see how Goodreads users have reacted to other self-rating/self-reviewing authors. If you spot any interesting cases, please send them to me.

Goodreads’ Move Away From Enabling Self-Promotion

When I reached out to my community, Canadian author P.D. Workman explained that Goodreads actually used to foster even more self-promotion. Rating and reviewing your own book was on a Goodreads list of ways to engage with readers, according to Workman. “You also used to be able to add your own books to listopia lists as well, which was really nice.”

If this trend continues, self-ratings and reviews might not be around forever. One possibility is that Goodreads management could remove the feature but keep the old ratings and reviews. If you’re an author who doesn’t fear judgment and wants to take advantage of the feature, it’s better to act sooner than later.

What About Giving Yourself a Rating Lower Than Five Stars?

With self-ratings, the assumption is that authors will give themselves five stars on all of their books. How would Goodreads users react to a rating of less than five stars?

I’ve been pondering this question because I’ve written two novels at the time of writing this article, and I would only give my second novel five stars. It’s not because I think my first novel is bad or because I didn’t try my best. I did what I could with the level of skill I had at the time. Now that I look back with my current level of skill and system of star ratings, I would give the book four stars.

If my following gets big enough to catalyze a sizable response, I will seriously consider conducting this little experiment. Do authors and readers only judge five-star self-ratings and reviews, or would any star risk a roast?