Bad Reviews Are Good ?
"Any press is good press", is an old promotional maxim that can generate some weird stunts in the media.
Some authors have capitalized on bad press, even manufacturing it; most cringe at the thought.
I found two authors who like bad reviews. Not just tolerate but like them :-)
My book's not been around long enough to draw negative reviews though I'm sure they'll come.
I have had beta readers who couldn't "get into" the book and a number of nitpicky grammarians but many authors I respect have praised the book.
So…
How does an author learn to like bad reviews?
Mike Mullin, author of Ashfall, gives a good account of his first one-star review in, Why Bad Reviews Rock. My take-away was, "Even a bad review means someone cared about the book enough to talk about it in public."
Mike then goes on to describe some cogent reasons for sharing and linking to those reviews.
There's also a great comment stream after the post :-)
Mike also points his readers to Jay Lake's post, [publishing] Reviews.
After Jay links to a bad review and shows his basic optimistic attitude, he says: "…even when a reviewer just says, "Nope, not for me, didn't like it at all", that's ok with me. Because I believe right down to the bedrock of my writer's soul that the story belongs to the reader. It doesn't matter what I intended, or thought I executed on the page, or what any other readers thought. If a reviewer (or any reader) doesn't like the book (or story), that's their experience of it, and they cannot be wrong. It's their experience."
"It's their experience.", reminded me about a post I wrote back in January, Rewriting While You Read ~ We All Do It….
Have you or a writer friend gotten "bad" reviews?
Do you think sharing them is helpful?
Have you learned a few writing "lessons" from bad reviews??
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Tagged: author, bad review, book promotion, book review, Jay Lake, Mike Mullin, review, Reviews and Criticism
