Handling BAD Book Reviews

We all love it when someone takes the time to write a nice book review. But when someone takes the time to leave a less than steller review…our feelings are not so grateful. I have come across the honest truth that there is not a lot of information on how to handle crappy book reviews. 

We know you can just ignore them and never look, but that’s kind of impossible, especially if you’re a newbie author or you don’t have a lot of books out. A huge author can most likely ignore them. I highly doubt that John Grisham looks at his reviews unless he’s maybe getting all one stars on a new release and his publisher calls them to say “Hey you know this is not looking good.” 

So I kind of wanted to talk about how to handle book reviews from my point of view. First off, there are days when I go to my 9 to 5 job, and I’m in not a great mood because I just received a bad book review. Often I stumble upon it in the morning before I leave for work. Most people don’t understand you’re having a bad day because you received a crappy book review. Most authors that I know do not work 9-5 jobs, so stumbled upon them at work is rare. 

Second, Goodreads will actually alert you if you try to comment on one of your reviews. The system can detect the number of stars and reminds you that is not a good idea to comment. Yes, it’s such a common thing that they have created an alert for it! 

So far, you have the option of ignoring, both impossible for me. You? 

What should you do? This is what I’ve done. I will look up reviews from my favorite books and view the lowest star reviews. This reminds me that everyone can have an opinion, and it happens to your most beloved books. 

Another option is to visit some celebrities Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts and read comments. Not all of them are nice. I’ve read some pretty horrible comments on Faith Hill’s social media posts, and I don’t see her replying. 

Yet another option is to comment on those who left a NICE review. On Goodreads and Amazon you can LIKE a review. I’ll go as far as to comment, thanking them in more detail.  

Remember, most of all, someone took the time to comment, good or bad, your book caused them to take time out. Focus on those good reviews, read them over and over. Print them out and post them up, anything to keep your mind from wandering back to that one bad review. 

If all else fails there are always French fries and wine!!