{"id":6610,"date":"2025-09-17T00:03:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josephrauch.com\/therauchreview\/?p=6610"},"modified":"2025-12-02T17:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:07:13","slug":"should-authors-rate-their-books-on-goodreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josephrauch.com\/therauchreview\/articles\/should-authors-rate-their-books-on-goodreads\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Authors Rate and\/or Review Their Own Books on Goodreads?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was editing our review of \u201cO Beautiful\u201d by Jung Yun<\/a>, I noticed she reviewed the book on Goodreads and gave herself a five-star rating<\/a>. In the review field she wrote, \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an author myself<\/a>, I was aware of the feature that allows an author to register as a \u201cGoodreads Author\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Despite understanding the capabilities of the Goodreads platform, I was shocked to see Yun\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Of the perception, author Lara Bruni<\/a> wrote, \u201cTechnically, you’re not supposed to. Most would view this as bad taste.\u201d I had the same sentiment.<\/p>\n

When I scrolled through the responses to Yun\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

What Do Most Authors Think?<\/h2>\n

In an attempt to better understand the dynamic, I asked authors in my network about their sense of Goodreads self-review\/rating etiquette. Here\u2019s a rough breakdown of the attitudes and their popularity:<\/p>\n