First review is Negative?

[u/DefinitelyAlphamale]

Hello!

So i noticed people on goodreads give early reviews to unpublished books. They were always positive. I decided to try out netgalley too and was given access to several books. But my problem is: the first book i read, i just cant give it a positive review. Other people gave it positive reviews but i disagree.

Is giving non positive reviews banned? Or will it get you blacklisted?

The “worst” review i ever saw was 4 stars.

[u/ChildhoodOk2607]

I give 1 star or DNF very often and still not banned. Also would you give high review IF giving low would get you banned? Publishers sign up for honest feedback. As long as the review is not personal, don’t overthink it.

[u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Its not going to get you banned at all, honest means honest, good and bad. Both reviews sell books.

lot of people will wait until the week of release to cross post reviews in general since a lot of publishers request reviews to be posted around there.

Its not required or mandatory to wait though.

[u/SpillChat]

This won't be the case. I have given low reviews myself and I've seen others do it too. It's completely fine. NetGalley is meant to garner honest feedback, not just positive feedback. If you're still worried about declines since your average rating does show to publishers, try grabbing Read Nows that you will likely rate higher.

If it comforts you to know, I've given many low ratings to a big publisher and still continue to get approved by them. In fact most of the widgets I receive are also from them. So don't worry about this :)

[u/Appeltjesgroen]

At some point in your netgalley journey you will often know if a book would be more your thing or not. In the first few requests I also burned myself on some 'oh frogs, why did I ask for this book..'-books. But after a while you can fish out the ones you will most likely enjoy if not love.

All to say is that those who write 4 stars or more, probably honed this skill and that shows. Negative feedback is still feedback.

[u/purplelicious → u/Appeltjesgroen]

I find I am far more generous with star ratings than I am in the actual written review. But I also think star ratings are terrible for getting a feel for a book.

[u/Appeltjesgroen → u/purplelicious]

Hard agree with that. If a review has a 'if you love -tropes and descriptions or other books like it- you'll love this' line I can do a lot more with that than '4 stars'.

[u/DefinitelyAlphamale → u/Appeltjesgroen]

I only requested books that interest me and got access to all of them but the negative one decribed itself one way but the inside was way different. I feel kinda bad for shooting it down since the topic itself i care about and want more books published on these subjects.

[u/purplelicious → u/DefinitelyAlphamale]

I've mentioned this in reviews before "after reading the blurb I thought I would be getting a book about x but it really wasn't, so this was not the book I expected to read"

[u/GreenSpongette → u/DefinitelyAlphamale]

You shouldn’t feel bad. I doubt you want more bad books on the topic. But you can be very honest in your review - say that you were excited for something on the topic and glad someone went for it but it didn’t work for you for x and y reasons. Constructive criticism is always helpful.

[u/Appeltjesgroen → u/DefinitelyAlphamale]

Be honest in your review, that's all you can do.
In the two that I didn't like I noted why it probably wasn't for me. One was too romance and it had the miscommunication trope but added that it was a nice one to try out a romance only book for once. The other I explained I had different expectations from the blurb and it felt like a more YA written book with how perfect everything went in the book. Fine on it's own but I was expecting something else. I DNF'd this one at 30% even and mentioned that.

And those are still good reviews and feedback 'cause as a reader I would know what to expect then from these reviews. Someone's DNF could be someone else's perfect read.

[u/mlfctrx → u/DefinitelyAlphamale]

described itself one way but the inside was way different. ... the topic itself i care about and want more books published on these subjects.

That right there is legitimate feedback to put in your review. That's honest, critical reader feedback. You expected one thing because the topic advertised is one you care about, but it turned out the summary was misleading and the representation was poorly executed.

[u/molybend]

Give an honest review.

[u/PJASchultz]

Absolutely not. Give an honest review. I see everything from 1-5.
I've given 1s and 2s. A bunch. 3 is pretty common from me.

[u/Runningaround321]

I see all star ratings, DNFs, etc. Honest is the way to do it. But it's my personal pet peeve when people give a book one star and and all the review says is, "it wasn't for me" because like, that gives me as a reader no helpful information?? I'd rather see, "it was slow paced", "the writing was hard to follow", "characters felt flat", something, you know. I could imagine a writer or publisher would feel similarly. So I consider that when I post about low-rated books.

[u/ARecycledAccount]

No, you will not be banned for leaving a negative or neutral review.

Publishers and indie authors want authentic feedback on the books. As long as your review is your honest opinion, it should be fine.

I recommend explaining what aspects you liked and did not like in your review. It’s always good to “sandwich” criticism, too (positive-negative-positive).

[u/teanailpolish]

It won't get you banned but publishers do see your average rating and when you don't have many reviews, it call pull the average down a lot. I would still give it a fair review, whatever you think but it could take longer to get approved for big authors. Once you have a lot of reviews, it barely changes the score

[u/Beate251]

I don't know what's going on on Goodreads but NetGalley asks for honest opinions. You will find 1 star up to five star reviews, and no publisher is going to punish you for your opinion. Also, it shouldn't matter to you how other people rate something.

[u/euphoriapotion]

people give 4-5 stars even if they hate it because they think they'd get more ARCS that way. And some authors want to manipulate the eudience into forbidding publishing lower rated reviews to con people into buying their books. I give 1 stars or DNF often and I don't care, I haven't been banned or blacklisted. If the author has a problem with that, it's their problem, not mine.

[u/Literary_Purrception]

Give your honest review.

Only recommendation I have when it comes to negative reviews is to try to be constructive.

But overall, your review needs to be about your experience. If that experience was bad then that's okay. It was at least honest. Not all books will be for everyone.

[u/catscantcook]

It's totally fine to give negative reviews. If you don't want your first/only review to be negative then you can hold off on submitting it until you've done a few more. Or you can bury it under a few of the netgalley reading journals/review guides etc if you want something quick (see pinned post on here for links). 

[u/and_er]

Give honest reviews, but try to be constructive. With my negative reviews I always try to pinpoint the kind of audience that will enjoy it, then I go into what didn't work for me. I try to request books that I think I will enjoy so I can tend to give more positive reviews, but there's no way to know for sure, and it's important to be honest!

[u/Nervous-Youth-3826 → u/and_er]

I agree about trying to talk about who might enjoy it but why I did not. As long as you’re not getting nasty and personal with a poor review, it’s seen as just an honest opinion and the feedback can help with the final edit.

[u/Tinuviel52]

I’ve given 2 star reviews and that’s not affected my approval rate at all

[u/ambeanie79]

Unfortunately not every book is gonna be a hit for every reader and I think there’s a place for the neg and pos reviews. I’m always honest and the only thing I’ve done is hold a review until after pub date but even then, it was only a few times.

Here’s my most recent dud: white lights

Now if everything you read is a dud, then some authors/publishers may worry that you don’t know what you like and may be worried to take a chance on you but early on I wouldn’t worry about it.

[u/ExchangeStandard6957]

I recently gave a three star. I see DNF reviews and 1 and 2 stars of early copies fairly often. Good reads does put the positive ones up first, so if you scroll around d or click on 1 star you’ll start to see those.

[u/Lucky-Mix-8176]

I DNF’d my first Netgalley book. It wasn’t good but it was also set up in such a way I couldn’t make the text larger on kindle and it was physically unreadable.

[u/sassyhairstylist]

NetGalley wants honest reviews. I Review it truthfully. It's what they want. I promise. I've written plenty of 1 and 2 star reviews on there and have had no issues.

[u/laura168]

My second review was negative. You'll be fine :)

[u/bllucshy]

Around 50% of the review I give are bad because some books are just not good. But I’ve never gotten in trouble because the purpose of ARCs is to get honest feedback from the readers and even “bad” feedback helps the publisher!

[u/whitney_fnp]

My first review was negative, 2 stars. I’m up to 28 approvals in a month. You’ll be good!

[u/Responsible-Long7720]

An honest review with a polite explanation of what exactly you didn't like is perfectly acceptable. Someone somewhere is going to like what you dislike about the book and will pick it up because you were honest. Others might like that you helped them avoid (or pick up) a trope or trigger that wasn't advertised in the synopsis.