Okay, so here’s what I learned

Last week, I ended up accidentally hosting a rather informative and pretty brilliant discussion about… well, a ton of things. Reader-writer relations here on GoodReads, author expectations, reader perspectives, reactions and whether people should have them, fairness, etc. You don’t have to read all of what I’m going to say next—you can just go to that link and read the discussion itself, because everyone has their own take on things, and this is going to be mine.

First, I want to thank everyone who participated in that discussion, and especially Experiment BL626, who really got the ball rolling. I don’t know where you came from, Experiment, but I’m glad you showed up! :)

Now, just to be clear: I know there were a couple of blowups in the past couple of days. That post linked above was not in response to them, and neither is this one. I have no response to them. The discussion in that post was going on a couple of days before the blowups, and continued on sedately and good-naturedly all through them. Basically, we had something like a four day party, during which, in addition to pie and butterscotches, I got some new insight into how readers use this site, and I think it might help others. So I’m sharing. 'Cause I’m just generous like that. ;)

Okay, so the first and most important thing I learned as an author is:

GoodReads is not fair to authors.

Now don’t get excited, readers, because that’s not what it sounds like. Because the thing is—GoodReads is not supposed to be fair to authors. Let me repeat that, because it really is hugely important—GoodReads is not built to be fair to authors. It wasn’t built for us, it’s not geared toward us, it’s not our personal marketing tool. GoodReads was built for readers. If you need any proof of that, have a look at what those stars mean.

5 stars-it was amazing. 4 stars-really liked it. 3 stars-liked it. 2 stars-it was okay. 1 star-didn’t like it.

Now, before we go on, let’s have an up-close look at that last one. 1 star-didn’t like it. Not it was a piece of crap. Not horrible, omg, what were they thinking?! And while I will concede that sometimes a reader means exactly that when they give a book 1 star, and that’s probably what other potential buyers see when they see a 1-star rating, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what the reader is saying. Sometimes, the reader really is saying, not my thing, which… hell, I write fantasy with male/male storylines—I write a subgenre of a subgenre—so of course my books are not going to be a lot of people’s ‘thing’.

These ratings were not designated as a guideline toward objectivity. They’re subjective and they’re supposed to be. (Remember that word—subjective. We'll come back to it later.) Which means a reader can rate a book with 1 star because they had a crappy day at work, their kids are puking on the livingroom couch, and their hamster ran away. Is that fair to the author? Nope. Do they have to care? Well, that brings us to the second most important thing I learned:

Readers get to say whatever they want in their reviews, and they don’t have to care how it sounds to the author.

But, but, but, you say, that’s not fair! To which I say, no, it isn’t. And go re-read that first bolded italicized line.

One of the biggest complaints I see from other authors—and let’s be honest, one I have myself—is that some reviews get fairly personal. And this issue is a lot more complex than it sounds, so bear with me while I break it down a little.

During the discussion last week, I mentioned a bad review I’d gotten over on Amazon, in which the reviewer said the following: The author uses words she does not bother to define or give context to. Kate commented that she was kind of surprised that I took that personally, because she didn’t view it that way. I explained that yes, to me it was personal, because first of all, it wasn’t accurate, and second of all, to say that I ‘didn’t bother’ explaining something in the context of the story—when explaining is something that, as an author, is rightfully expected of me—was a reflection on my intelligence and my work ethic.

But what I regret not making clear in my response is this: how I take that comment is not that reader’s responsibility. How I take anything ever said to me is not the responsibility of the person saying it to me. If it was, I could climb up to the belfry of a clock tower in a clown suit and fuck-me-pumps and start shooting with impunity every time someone said something nasty to me, because it wouldn’t be my fault, it would be theirs. (Whoa, that’s quite a mental picture. Sorry.)

So, let’s see if we can figure out why this is so consistently a problem. I think the first reason is:

To authors, it’s all personal.

No, seriously. Which sounds like an excuse to cry every time someone says something we don’t like, but it’s not. It’s just how it is.

Write what you know is something we all hear bandied about, but not everyone knows what that really means. It doesn’t mean that if you’re a stockbroker, you should write about stockbrokers. It means that to write something authentic, you have to use your life experiences, your feelings, your knowledge, your observations, etc. You have to dig down inside yourself and pull up something you would probably never really talk about, and then you have to use it to inform what you’re writing. It’s not always a pleasant experience. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to finally be done writing Fen, so that I didn’t have to spend one more second inside his head.

So, when an author more or less opens their head and their chest and their guts and lets a reader poke around in there, and when that reader winces and says Ew, gross! that really stings. That still doesn’t make it that reader’s responsibility, but it’s the way it is and I don’t think it’s going to change any time soon. It’s reality, and none of us are doing ourselves any favors by not accepting reality and adjusting our expectations accordingly. Which brings us to the next point:

Authors are going to react to bad reviews.

Whether they do it in the privacy of their basement computer room/hovel or blare it all over every blog they have, it’s going to happen. And readers have to expect that.

But, but, but, you observant readers say, that’s not fair! To which I say, well… it kinda is. I think this is the only point on which I will unabashedly argue for the author. If we want to assume that readers have the right to speak freely and expect to have that right respected by authors, you have to also give authors the same right. In other words: if you get to do it, so do they.

Now, that’s not to say I think authors should. In fact, I really think authors shouldn’t. I’ve never seen anything good come of it, and if you’re an author reading this and thinking you’re going to be different—no, you’re really not. Seriously. You’re not that special and it can only end in tears. All of them yours.

But if you’re a reader, you can’t go on about freedom of speech and then try to stifle someone else’s. If you want the right to say whatever you want without worrying about how it might affect someone else, you have to reciprocate. If an author wants to rant about a bad review you gave them, it’s their right to shoot themselves in the foot, just as much as it’s your right to hand them the bullets.

Experiment BL626 made a really good analogy, in which he compared an author to a business. (Comment #9 on the above link.) And it made a lot of sense. But to take it a step further: if an author is a business, and you’re the customer complaining about the quality of their product, there are effective ways to do that, and ineffective ways to do that. For instance, if I’m calling DirecTV because they’ve tacked yet another hidden charge somewhere onto my HD NHL Center Ice package—which I paid for before the season even started—the first thing I do with the hapless customer service rep that answers my call is tell them, ‘Now, I know none of this has anything to do with you personally. I know you don’t make these ridiculous decisions.’ And I repeat that many times during the conversation, the result of which is usually the customer service rep eventually telling me in a low, discreet voice that yes, it is a stupid policy, and that if I threaten to disconnect my service, they can take off those charges and hey, wouldn’t I like three free months of HBO too? All the while nudging and winking at me.

If I started that conversation off with insults and highhanded ‘I know better than you do because you’re obviously an idiot,’ I wouldn’t get to watch Bill Maher as often as I do. And I’d be paying extra charges to watch the Rangers in HD.

It’s the difference between a scathing review with the possibility of a resulting backlash, and a sincere dialogue with those authors with whom I hear a lot of you saying you like to interact. And if you’re lambasting a book in the comments section for two days, after you’ve friended that author so he/she has to see everything you say whenever he/she logs in, you really can’t expect that author to be happy about it. You are not doing the author a favor by reading their book—to keep with the business analogy, they have provided a product, and you have purchased it; the transaction is done.

The review is a whole other animal. And yes, I will agree that if a reader chooses to review a book, they are doing a favor to its author. Whether they mean to or not. I’d venture to say that most reviewers don’t look at it like that—they do it for their reading buddies and themselves, and if the author sees it and thanks them for it, that’s probably a teeny little bonus. But, see, if that review ends up being OMG, do not waste your time on this book! you can’t really be surprised when the author’s reaction is Don’t do me any favors.

I’m not saying you should watch what you say. In fact, I think I’ve said several times that it’s your right not to. I’m just saying that the way authors feel about their work isn’t going to change, none of them will ever be happy about a 1-star bad review, and that’s just reality. If an author is expected to just face the reality that you hated their book, you have to face the reality that they don’t have to appreciate you saying so.

Which brings us to the next thing:

No matter how nasty it may seem to you, it may seem to the reviewer like the most objective, insightful review ever written.

I have yet to get a bad review wherein I thought the reviewer’s main purpose was to make me cry. Now, I’m small potatoes. Like I said, I write a subgenre of a subgenre, so I don’t get the amount of critique a lot of the more popular authors get. I’ve gotten just enough to be able to speak on what the experience rises in me, but I don’t know what it’s like to have that coming at me on a bigger scale. But still, I’d venture to say that I get at least enough of a statistical sampling to be able to say that, by and large, readers are not out to get authors.

Yes, there are some reviewers who never do anything but badmouth and poke and insult. There’s a small percentage in every group that gives everyone else in the group a bad name. Again, that’s just reality. But most—at least those I’ve seen in my limited experience—are just speaking freely with their reading partners about something that’s stirring their juices—good or bad. They probably don’t even know you’re there. And like Kate in that one comment didn’t see what I was talking about as personal, these readers probably don’t view what they’re chatting about with their friends as a personal insult to the authors they’re talking about. They probably don’t see it as insulting at all.

I mean, look—I’ve got an author friend whom I’ve known for years and years, with whom I exchange stories and critique. You would not believe some of the criticism we’ve exchanged on each other’s stories. If strangers saw some of the marked-up .docs we’ve sent back and forth, they’d probably think we hated each other. I’ve written stories she’s hated, she’s written stories I’ve hated, and you know what? She’s still my best friend. When she rips something I’ve written to shreds, it doesn’t ruin my life. My husband doesn’t leave me, my kids don’t turn to lives of crime, my house doesn’t blow up, my dog doesn’t die, and she doesn’t stomp off in a huff thinking I’m the worst thing that ever polluted the planet with my words. (Okay, I don’t have a dog. Literary license. Shut up.) And none of those things happen when I get a bad review in a public venue, either.

Does it still sting? Well, yes, of course, because as I said, it’s all personal in some way, and knowing someone thinks you’ve fucked up in a big way makes you wince. It just does. But does it mean my friend thinks I’m a complete waste of space and we’re not friends anymore? Obviously not. I can read her wtf were you thinking here, didn’t this guy die two chapters ago? and not curl up in a ball because I know her, I know what her tones mean, I know she’s being purposefully blunt because that’s the best way to be absolutely clear when you’re trying to make a point. And I also know I can call her up and tell her to fuck off, wench, and how many times did you use the word ‘cousin’ in your last manuscript? Like 642 in 21 pages, wasn't it, Ms. Perfect? In the most loving manner possible, of course. (*blinks innocently* What?)

Authors don’t generally know their readers as well as I know my friend. We can’t decipher a reader’s tone, except by what’s on the screen. We don’t know if they’re being tongue-in-cheek, we don’t know if they’re having to alternate typing their review with rending the pages of our book, we don’t know if they’re playing it up for an audience, or if they’re playing it down in case we happen by.

And that’s the point—we don’t know. Maybe English isn’t their first language and their wording is harsher than they meant. Maybe it’s exactly as harsh as it was intended to be. We don’t know unless we actually speak to the reviewer, and we really can’t do that on here. Too many authors who went on the attack in the past have ruined that for us. That’s not fair, either, but you know what? It’s reality. And besides, even if we did feel free to approach a reviewer and open a reasonable dialogue to see exactly where they think we went wrong, that doesn’t mean the reviewer would welcome it. Know why? Because everyone is an individual, with individual reasons for doing what they do, and none of us get to tell each other how to do it.

If we respect nothing else about each other, we have to respect that. Which brings us to the most important point:

GoodReads is about subjectivity, not objectivity.

See? Told I’d make it back to that eventually. And there’s really not a whole lot left to say about it. Everyone knows what those two words mean, and the differences between them. This site is built for subjectivity, which, by its definition, is inherently not fair to at least one side in any difference of opinion. I think we’d all be better off if we stopped expecting GoodReads to be something it’s not, and stopped expecting the readers not to use it in the way it was meant to be used.

Stop expecting objectivity and fairness. It’s not about that and it’s not about us. Even if we sometimes feel like it is. It’s not about what we feel, it’s about the reality of what it is.

Read the link in comment #6 of that other post. It’s important. And no, it’s still not fair, but it’s not supposed to be. Accept the reality of that, and you’ll be a lot happier.

(Also, feel free to carry on in the other post if you have something you’d like to discuss. As you can see, everyone was more than willing to participate in a healthy exchange of ideas, and I really did learn a lot.)