Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Do you use a rating system on your blog? How do you feel about using the rating system provided on sites like Library Thing and Amazon? When looking up information on a book you are interested in, do you use the ratings provided by these sites (or similar sites) to help you make the decision on purchasing the book?

My answer: No, I don't use a rating system on my blog. I originally thought about doing that, but then decided against it. I do keep a journal for my own use with ratings (1-5 stars) just so I can remind myself if I liked a particular genre, author, series, etc. On my blog this year, I decided to give a "Great Book Alert" medal for those books that I truly thought were outstanding. I thought it would be fun at the end of the year to look back and see which books I loved the most.



As for all the sites with ratings, I admit that I do read them. I don't make my decisions of whether to buy a book or not because of the ratings. In fact, often I don't read the ratings and reviews until after I finish a book. I like to see if people felt the same way I did. I tend not to read the reviews before because I've noticed that sometimes people give away a plot point and I don't like spoilers for my books. I like to be surprised. That's a pet peeve of mine - I feel reviews should be a basic outline of the story and the reviewer's opinions of it, not the entire story so there's no point in reading it for yourself.



This was a fun question, thanks for posting it Wendi. If you want to join Tuesday Thingers, click the button above.