This is probably just me being egotistical or an ass, but am I allowed to be bothered by silent readers?

Like, don't get me wrong, I appreciate anyone who chooses to check out my story. That's not the issue here. And I don't mind if they don't enjoy what they're reading; that's fine, my stories aren't for everyone, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

But why can't you tell me why you don't like the book?

A little comment telling me that my story isn't original, or the characters are flat, or the plot is unbelievable - is that too much to ask for?

And vice versa - if you like the book, can't you tell me what made you like it?

I live for constructive criticism. Sometimes I might not agree with you, but usually I'll at least see it from your side and think, okay, maybe I should reconsider where I'm going with this if more than one person agrees that it doesn't work. And if people enjoy what's happening, I know to keep doing that to make my writing exciting and engaging.

Not that I tailor my plots to what the people want - this just helps me see what's working, and sometimes an outside perspective helps when I'm stuck on where to go with a story.

So comments are much loved by me; unfortunately ninety-five percent of comments I get are like, in response to a joke someone else made in the comment section.

I... Okay, this really is coming across as me being an absolute ass. I'm really not ungrateful for the attention my stories get, I swear. I'm thankful to each and every one of my readers, even if I don't always have the time to show that. But it's hard being a fanfiction author - where you're writing stories for both your own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others in real time - without proper feedback. I can't always ask my friends on this site to read over my crap, so I rely on the readers to tell me if they liked what I wrote.

And people don't even vote to tell me that.

Is it difficult to press a button after you've read the story? And that's just if you liked it! If you hated the chapter I'm not expecting a vote, but it would be nice if you commented why it sucked so badly for you.

...I might delete this later, because it just sounds like me whining and being pretentious or whatever, and I don't want people thinking that I'm a prick who doesn't appreciate the fact that a lot of my stories have done as well as they have.