Let's Discuss: Rating on Goodreads

 

So the other day...or it might have been awhile ago and I just wrote this down as something to write up when I had time, lol, I was on Goodreads and was noticing all the ratings on books that haven't even released yet. Now I know some people get ARCs and will read and review them on Goodreads early, I tend to wait until a week before release day, but that's just me. But it made me wonder how soon do you rate an unreleased book on Goodreads?

Rating on Goodreads

I guess it just amazes me when you can see some people giving all the stars or 1 star to books on Goodreads that aren't even out. Heck, sometimes you see it on books you know have no ARCs and you just wonder why are people doing this? I get that they have their reasons. It could even just be they want to bask in the limelight of giving 1 star to a greatly anticipated book that the bookish community is salivating for!

Or maybe readers have their favorite or not so favorite author and they just want to help or hinder their ratings on Goodreads. Dozens of possible reasons really! Really I feel like there's too much psychological details to factor in and analyze and I so don't want to get into all that!

For me though, when I am blessed to get an ARC and I read the book however early I don't like to post my review on Goodreads right away. I've seen people post ARC reviews MONTHS early. Like they are posting it 4-6 months before the book even comes out. Now I haven't really seen this happen lately, but in those early blogging years, I saw it a LOT! And when I saw it, I promptly skipped over the book review even if it was for a book I wanted to read or wanted to know more about. If you're posting it super early, I have no interest to have my hype being built up even more and then being forced to wait another 4-6 months. Goodreads likes to do this when I lose contests for these ARCs. "Don't worry, you can still read the book"...in 4-6 months when it releases, is what they leave out!

I basically post my review of ARCs on Goodreads a week before it releases. Usually on a Monday, so there's plenty of time to get a preorder in, should it be needed! I usually write myself a note in my planner to then post my review on Goodreads (although every blue moon, I have been known to forget but that was probably before I had a planner!) the same day my review goes live on my blog. And when I post my review on Goodreads, THAT'S when I will rate the book!

I don't know why I don't rate it when I mark it as read when I finish it. I usually go in, mark it read then write when I plan to post my review. I guess I just got in the habit of not rating it until then either. It's always insane when you see books that are nearly a year out or that were literally never published at all with so many different star ratings.

I mean, how can someone give a book that doesn't exist a star rating? What drives me insane is when these books that don't exist have all this information and a fake release date. I mean, come on! I was following that author religiously, I read the series, I was soooo anticipating the release of these books and was excited by the proposed date, but the date came and passed and no book ever released! Now yes, some of these might have been self-published authors, but some Goodreads pilot or whatever we call these people who can add that information onto the website wrote the info in somehow! They had some kind of gossip or knowledge that they wrote that the book was "released" some years ago when I know for fact it wasn't!

But honestly, that's a different kind of rant! Today, I wanted to know when you as a reader decide to rate a book on Goodreads, most particularly if you happened to read an ARC. Do you give it your stars rating super early or do you wait closer to the release date? For that matter, when do you post your ARC reviews?

I get having a need to post early to give the book exposure, but sometimes (especially in those early days) I feel like people posted them too early. Like the book isn't even on my radar yet as there's still 5 months to go until it's released. Yes, I might have the title on my list of books that I'd like to buy for the year, but I won't go looking for information too early because then my hype will get lifted and I'll be reduced to waiting an agonizing 5 months instead of just 5 months. Ignorance is bliss after all!

So back to my original question, how soon do you rate an ARC on Goodreads? 

 

*funny side note for some reason I typed GOOREADS like 6 times. Guess I was typing too fast! I caught a few as I typed but just changed like another 3 of them! Lol.