Getting this off my chest…

I don’t write posts like this often. I try – valiantly try – to use my so-called platform to bring a little joy and happiness into people’s lives each day.

But every now and then, something happens, and I have to rant. Today is one of those now and thens.

Writers are told – often – not to read their reviews. Reviews are for the reader, not the author of the book. I call bullshit on that and always have. I actually enjoy reading my reviews – even the ones from people who didn’t like the book, because I always think I can learn something from them that may improve my writing. Does that happen? Truthfully, it has. Often? Nope. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still get a feel for what readers want or what they don’t.

So, I checked into my account this morning to see if any new reviews were put up for my newest Heaven’s Matchmaker book, PERFECT MATCH. I also checked the other books in the series, MIX and MATCH and LOVE MATCH, just in case anyone had read them recently.

This is one of those days I wish I could listen to that sage advice of not reading your reviews.

Nothing bad was written about the books – which I wish had been because it would explain something to me. What I found was a 1 star on Mix and Match, no written review, just a rating. Same thing on Love Match and Perfect Match. I went into the metadata and found the 1 stars were from the same person for all three and all posted on the same day. I clicked on the name of the reviewer. Don’t know her from Adam, but apparently she doesn’t like what I write. Okay. I get that. But if you gave the first book a 1 star, why bother reading the second and then the third??

So, the little detective in me went into a deeper dive.I swear if I wasn’t a writer I’d be a private investigator. For Amazon to post reviews, you have to meet some criteria- $50.00 in purchases in a few months, and actually buy the book to leave a confirmed purchase review. I don’t know how this got past the Zon algorithm, but the one-star reviewer didn’t purchase the books. Did she get them in KU? Maybe, but the first two haven’t been in KU for a bit of time now, so the only one she really could have was PERFECT MATCH. So she didn’t buy them, didn’t get them in KU. I didn’t sell them to her on my website and I know I haven’t met her at a book signing because I would have recognized her picture and/or name.

So. What does this tell us, my peeps? What conclusions can be drawn from this data?
This girl has not read my books, but knows me or knows of me and doesn’t like me, so she has tried to review bomb my series to bring my rating scale down. While this may not seem important to the average writer, to a writer, it is. Because reviews – good ones – get the book noticed. If you have 50 reviews or more on Zon, they push your book out to people who ordinarily might not see it.

Now, review bombing is done for several reasons. Is the reviewer working solo or on behalf of a rival author? I sincerely hope not, even though I know someone – personally!- that happened to. Usually, when this happens, it is someone from a street team or a friend of another writer whom the person perceives is competing with you. We’ve heard stories about this happening for years – last year a trad author had her publishing deal stripped and her book pulled from release because she went on other author sites, review bombed them with 1 stars and then set up fake accounts to give her book all 5 star reviews.

Ridiculous? You bet. Nasty? Yup. Illegal? Unfortunately, no. Which is why I decided to do a little detecting with the above reviews because I smelled a smelly fish, so to speak.

I just want to ask this person, “B**ch! What did I ever do to you???” Or the author you are working for ( and I sincerely hope this is not the case!) Common sense would tell anyone with a brain that if you didn’t like the first book, you won’t like the second. Or the third. So why waste your time reading and then 1-starring them?

Ah, the wonderful, joy filled life of a writer in these trying times.