I got my first negative rating on Royal Road

[PBJ_Time]

Gotta say, I'm not entirely bummed because I've got a better rating on this site, but man, that was still a kick in the balls.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

All the reviews look very positive - better than the ones here even. Was the negative rating given without explanation?

 

[PBJ_Time]

All the reviews look very positive - better than the ones here even. Was the negative rating given without explanation?

Yes, without explanation. My rating went from 4.5 to 3.8. They didn't leave a review, and I mean on Royal Road, not on this site.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Right - I was looking there. Really hate it when people leave perfect (5) or "horrible" (one) star ratings with no comments.

 

[Dragon_SAMA]

Ohh just some time ago I experienced the same thing as I got my first 0.5 rating without any explanation.

Right - I was looking there. Really hate it when people leave perfect (5) or "horrible" (one) star ratings with no comments.

 

[Gray_Mann]

Gotta say, I'm not entirely bummed because I've got a better rating on this site, but man, that was still a kick in the balls.

Just don't do what every other whiner on SH does and create a thread to cry and complain about it, and then go into a lengthy diatribe about how they were wrong and you were right, they didn't get your vision, they just don't understand what you were trying to do, they just didn't like it because (insert cope reason here) etc. etc. etc. etc.

It's really pathetic when people do this and it happens far, FAR too often. It used to be funny when people did this. Now it's just sad.

 

[Corty]

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

Yep, I feel you there. I know I got two less-than-stellar ratings/reviews on my Villainess, Retry! story on RR. One's a three-star review, which is okay, guess, and one's a two-star review, which hurt some more. They stated their reasons for it, so I could make changes (along with the feedback I got on SH's forums), but yeah, giving such a low rating without an explanation sucks.

 

[Ruti]

Yes, without explanation. My rating went from 4.5 to 3.8. They didn't leave a review, and I mean on Royal Road, not on this site.

To be fair, its Royal Road. Standards there are WAY higher then on SH.

 

[JayMark]

It's a Royal Road rite of passage for new indie authors, because the established players need to keep you out of the rankings and prevent eyes from seeing your work. It means you're doing a good job and someone on a ranking list is afraid you might do to well.

It's also really sad that some people can only find validation in their lives by trashing the hard work of others for some arbitrary reason so shallow it couldn't fill a thimble. But that's them, we move on and keep writing.

 

[BLIGHT_ZERO]

It's a Royal Road rite of passage for new indie authors, because the established players need to keep you out of the rankings and prevent eyes from seeing your work. It means you're doing a good job and someone on a ranking list is afraid you might do to well.

It's also really sad that some people can only find validation in their lives by trashing the hard work of others for some arbitrary reason so shallow it couldn't fill a thimble. But that's them, we move on and keep writing.

really? damn thats crazy.

 

[Ruti]

thats crazy.

I mean, they are fully willing to send false reports, and the mods are to egoistic to like, actually verify if a novel actually has what was reported before deciding to attempt to take action

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Yep, I feel you there. I know I got two less-than-stellar ratings/reviews on my Villainess, Retry! story on RR. One's a three-star review, which is okay, guess, and one's a two-star review, which hurt some more. They stated their reasons for it, so I could make changes (along with the feedback I got on SH's forums), but yeah, giving such a low rating without an explanation sucks.

Heh - I have a single, 3-star review between my two works... and it basically says: "You did what you claimed you set out to do. That's not my cup of tea" in about 10x that many words.

 

[HungrySheep]

It happens often on RR.

 

[Puji-Maki]

Congratulations, I guess. Welcome to RoyalRoad initiation.

 

[beast_regards]

Did you, by any chance, ever interacted with their forums, or worse, engaged in something called Review Swap?

 

[Seaspecter]

Did you, by any chance, ever interacted with their forums, or worse, engaged in something called Review Swap?

I made that mistake when I first posted there.

 

[BLIGHT_ZERO]

I made that mistake when I first posted there.

spill the tea sis.

 

[Seaspecter]

spill the tea sis.

I posted my unedited poorly formatted novel on Royal Road a month after I started writing and then asked for people to do reviews on it. That went about as well as you could expect it to.

 

[beast_regards]

A merely posting on the Royal Road earns you at least one, if not more, anonymous drive-by low rating. Of course, that is assuming you didn't encourage interaction. Those are merely participation prize.

If you do encourage interaction, it's usually one of those unremovable reviews from the freshly created accounts, which mods pretend they are not seeing. You normally can't rate down the story by complaining that it contains words, or letter "a", or characters, or images, or toucans, and so on. But those mysterious accounts that appear out of nowhere only to bomb your story, those can. Because they are magic.

And then, there is the biggest mistake - Review Swap. You see, if you do a Review Swap, you will be rewarded by an automatic 0.5 star, which is considered completely valid. Since you need roughly 20 more 5-star ratings to compensate (or Good Bye Visibility). If you try to get back through more review swaps, you need more 0.5-ratings, appearing miraculously, usually in batches. But with twenty half-stars, you now need 400 top reviews.

Of course, you can decide to not do Review Swaps, but no one tells you they are essentially the suicide pact.