In a nutshell, they matter because without them many readers won't take a chance on a book that is unrated, unreviewed and doesn't even have a ranking. Let alone a book by an author they've never heard of.
When you are trying to market a book it is different from marketing various other things on the internet. It is closest, in my opinion, to marketing music... With the big difference that is fairly easy to provide free samples of the music.
Less easy to provide free samples of a book that entices people to go buy it. You can post to various websites, blogs, forums... But there's no guarantee that people will go out and buy it.
The problem is the issue of "personal taste".
Not everyone likes reading murder mysteries for example. Not everyone is into fantasy books, and even less people are interested in fantasy murder mysteries like Charles Moffat's "The Coven's Wolves" because it is more of a niche topic.
Plus, even amongst those who do enjoy fantasy murder mysteries, how many people want to read a murder mystery involving wolves and a witches' coven?
Now you will note that the book in question currently has 2 ratings, both 5 stars, so evidently people who read it did enjoy it, but it hasn't received a lot of ratings.
And if you go to Amazon and view the book in question there is 1 review, and it is ranking in multiple categories such as:
- Witch & Wizard Mysteries
- Dark Fantasy Horror
But clearly something is missing. So what's wrong with the marketing for this book?
Well, it was released on March 1st 2021, during the pandemic, so that might be a factor. Bad timing.
During the past year and a half it has only received 2 ratings, when really what you want is at least 10 ratings. Ideally 100+ would be even better.
1 review isn't nothing, but again it would be nice if the book had 5 reviews, or better yet 10+. (It is much easier to get a rating than a review.)
And rankings wise what you really want is to be in the top 10 of a category, or the top 100.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference between this book and a book you might find in a standard bookstore:
It is self-published.
It is very difficult for self-published authors to compete with publishing companies when it comes to the issues of book ratings, reviews and rankings. The vast majority of self-published authors don't sell a single copy of their book and then give up on their dream of becoming a successful author.
But not Charles Moffat.
With over 40 published works to his name, the author isn't one of those people who gives up. Just look at the rankings for one of his other books, a coming of age fantasy book: "The Assassin's Trail".
Currently the book has 9 ratings, averaging 4.5 stars. Now that's more like it. It is also ranking in "fantasy anthologies" and "coming of age fantasy ebooks".
So not fantastic rankings, but almost.
Proof that while it is difficult to become successful as an indie author, it isn't impossible.
