We're always reluctant to point out good reviews, 5-star ratings, and our high publisher ranking. First, it sounds like we're bragging, rather than expressing appreciation that someone gets what we're doing and finds value in our admittedly niche approach. Since our books are for specific tastes, we know that the uninitiated can find it incredulous that something that doesn't cater to their particular interests can be so highly regarded. With the internet and the world the way it is, pointing out the positive feels like an open invitation to the negative, a call for the trolls and haters to review-bomb us with their bad-faith takes and sad attempts to feel powerful by punching down. 

The primary reason we don’t have ratings and reviews enabled in the Lightspress.com shop is because of review-bombing. We’ve all seen it; a movie or TV show gets one-star reviews before anyone has even had the chance to watch it because something doesn’t align with a certain bloc’s ideological view. A cadre of angry, fragile straight white men decides that the latest installment of a pop culture franchise has ruined their childhood because now there are women, people of color, or LGBTQ+ characters in it. We can’t leave out the Amazon reviews where people hate a book solely because they were forced to read it, seemingly at gunpoint, when they were in high school, and have lasting trauma from the experience. Or the people who paid for two-day shipping and it took three days to arrive because weekends and holidays exist (harrumph).

This morning we saw that our publisher rating on DriveThruRPG had suddenly jumped from 4.4 (out of 5) to 4.7 because someone, or maybe several people, we don't know, had given several books a 5-star rating. These are all from verified purchasers. While we accept that all reviews, positive and negative, should be taken with a grain of salt, we still love it. We have no access to who they are, but we want to say thank you. Books selling well is one thing, but getting any sort of validation that what we do is useful and valued, especially in the current cultural climate, means a lot. 

I hope you're doing well today.