{"id":773,"date":"2021-07-06T17:54:15","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T17:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/?p=773"},"modified":"2021-09-10T20:39:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T20:39:36","slug":"your-ratings-are-noticed-and-appreciated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/?p=773","title":{"rendered":"Your ratings are noticed and appreciated."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry\">\n<p>Some of you who read my stories leave a star rating on Goodreads or Amazon. Probably once a day, I check to see if there are any new reviews and\/or ratings.\u00a0 I memorize the number of both, and when I refresh the page and see that the number has increased, it&#8217;s like getting a surprise gift.\u00a0 I always notice these and I sincerely appreciate them, regardless of the star rating\u2014negative reviews help me grow as a writer. One cool thing about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/\">Goodreads<\/a> is that, unlike Amazon, star ratings without a review are not anonymous. I always make a point to &#8220;like&#8221; these ratings, because it&#8217;s important to me that you know I noticed. However, some of you have your accounts marked private, so I can&#8217;t interact with your rating at all. And honestly, my first instinct is to send you a Goodreads friend request just so I can say thanks, but I have to restrain myself\u2014that&#8217;s probably a little too in-your-face.\u00a0 I want to, though.\u00a0 I want to ask how you heard about it, what made you decide to take a chance of it, what your favorite parts were.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"giphy-embed\" src=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/3ofT5JfhISfBF1BhOo\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s just that there are so many books out there, you know?\u00a0 At the end of all my stories I acknowledge there&#8217;s an ocean of them out there.\u00a0 And you dip a bucket into that ocean and pull up a few dozen books, and for most people, that&#8217;s probably every book they&#8217;ll read in their entire lives.\u00a0 A bucket of books out of millions.\u00a0 Out of hundreds of millions.\u00a0 So to think that in that vast expanse\u2014to think that someone passed on an award-winning book, or a book that&#8217;s all the rage, or a book written by someone that anyone would know, to instead spend an hour reading something that a nobody wrote, it just feels great.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;ll just settle for this: I see you, and I appreciate you. It&#8217;s always a thrill when a friend or family member reads anything I write, but it&#8217;s a special kind of awesome when someone I&#8217;ve never met or interacted with scoops up one of my stories and then takes the time to leave a rating. Thank you for your time. You are wonderful.<\/p>\n<p>My books on Goodreads:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/32795130-the-waypoint\">The Waypoint<\/a> (A novel)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/44906678-trial-period\">Trial Period<\/a>\u00a0(A short story)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/50915541-all-around-the-watchtower\">All Around the Watchtower<\/a>\u00a0(A short story)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/57842988-advance-screening\">Advance Screening<\/a>\u00a0(A short story)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My books on Amazon:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B01M5GKBQM\/\">The Waypoint<\/a> (A novel)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B07QCJDCXG\/\">Trial Period<\/a>\u00a0(A short story)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B084FC4672\/\">All Around the Watchtower<\/a>\u00a0(A short story)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B093FD2T6H\/\">Advance Screening<\/a>\u00a0(A short story)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of you who read my stories leave a star rating on Goodreads or Amazon. Probably once a day, I check to see if there are any new reviews and\/or ratings.\u00a0 I memorize the number of both, and when I refresh the page and see that the number has increased, it&#8217;s like getting a surprise &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undinestudios.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}