Ratings?

I haven't run into this, but yikes. Like movie ratings aren't bad enough?

If an author wants to do this, their decision, obvs. I just think it's a bad road to start down.

I don't particularly care. People will want to know the content of a book. Some people are concerned about swearing, others about triggers. Ratings are just a form of communication, so long as the standards are objective.

Nerdilydone said:

I don't particularly care. People will want to know the content of a book. Some people are concerned about swearing, others about triggers. Ratings are just a form of communication, so long as the standards are objective.

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Bolding mine.

I put content warnings on the shorts I put on my web site. If a trade publisher ever wanted to put a rating on my stuff, I'd run the other way.

Industries don't have a good track record for distinguishing content warnings from censorship, even when they have good intentions. If an author chooses to add a rating to their work, that's their prerogative, but if it becomes the norm you'll almost certainly see authors pressured to change what they write.

indianroads said:

My issue is, who gets to determine what's offensive?

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The thing is, a good content warning isn't about what's offensive. It's about warning readers about things that some of them might find disturbing. There are some coarse-grained things that are good bets to give content warnings about - explicit sex, violence, language, self-harm, animal abuse, etc.

I don't use content warnings to tell people they should or shouldn't read, I use them to give people some guidelines about whether or not they want to read this particular sort of story at this particular time. And of course you miss things that bother people, and you label things as potentially problematic when they don't bother many people at all, but that doesn't mean it's not worth the effort.

Ratings like PG-13 are pretty useless IMHO (for movies as well). They're too coarse. If you want to get anything useful out of them, you need to dig around and find out more details anyway.

I fear if publishers start using movie-like ratings we'll see movie-like censorship. I might be paranoid. But the idea of leaving content warnings - even more nuanced ones - to corporations makes me nervous.

I’ll probably post content warnings for my new book on Goodreads, ‘cause it has violence aplenty. I appreciate the way content warnings work in fanfic, even if they are kind of spoilery. They give readers a sense of what they’re getting into. Personally, I want to know when an animal death is coming so I can brace for it. Today I actually spent 15 minutes on GR scouring reviews of my current read for that info while trying not to spoil myself too much. (Yes, I’m a wimp about this.)

But no thanks to ratings, especially publisher-imposed ones. In movies, the system has led to this flattening where movies almost have to be PG-13 to get a wide release and make money, with occasional exceptions in certain genres.

I would never allow that on my book. I write for people who are old enough and mature enough not to need to be told what to read.