Should Writers Ever Look at the Comments Section?

By Samantha Ladwig

“Do you ever read the comments?” I’m always asked – usually towards the end of a session – when I teach a workshop on pitching.

For a long time, I said, “No, and you shouldn’t either.”

My experience with comments is that, if I’m not prepared for the negative ones, looking at them at all, even if they’re overwhelmingly positive, sucks the initial excitement out of the otherwise pleasurable experience: an editor accepting a draft, taking and shaping it into something...