Reviews: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Last night, this post at the Bookish Brunette's blog got me thinking about reviews - specifically, 'bad' reviews. If you're an author, you know exactly what I mean. Anything less than three stars and anything worse than 'this is a decent WHATEVER KIND OF BOOK YOURS IS'. Anything where the praise doesn't balance out the criticism. Anything you, the author, think is even a little bit unfair. (It's true, my story might start a little slow, but my heroine is not boring!) If you're an author who reads his or her own reviews, you know the ones I'm talking about.
Some authors will try to tell you they don't mind a negative review. That those two stars help them learn how to improve. I've even heard/seen people say they wouldn't know how to improve without the bad reviews. Other people claim that they value honesty, and because of that, they welcome all input on their work. I don't want to say they're pulling your leg but... I happen to think bad reviews suck. A lot.
Do I need them to learn how to improve? No. That's why I have an editor, beta readers, and sales reports. If my stuff sucks, you can bet I'll hear it from my Editubby (yes, I have one of those; my husband is my editor! ;). If he doesn't tell me - and he will; oh, he will - a beta reader might. And if neither of those people notice, sales will let know that people don't want to read what I'm putting out.
Could I improve without input from any of these people? Yes! If I keep cranking out books, I will improve. In my experience, improvement skyrockets after about book five. Some people don't need that many books to figure out how to write a good one, but I did. (Don't worry, all those drafts are in drawers, and they will never see the light of day).
I cannot imagine feeling that public criticism was necessary for me to do good work. Private criticism is another story. Criticism is helpful; of course it is. I just don't enjoy the public kind. My books are for sale. I make money from them. All public commentary having to do with them affects my sales, therefore a negative review works against my sales. Which brings me to my point about reviews: They are a sales tool - usually a good one, but even when they're not, they are still a necessary part of being a published author.
Do I wish everyone who reads and dislikes my books would just shoot me a friendly e-mail, describing what they didn't like? Of course I do. Do I think that would be the 'polite' thing to do, the most constructive, the most helpful to the author? Yes. But is that reasonable? NO. It's just not. If I want Amazon stars and reviews to help me sell my books, I have to accept that I may sometimes get a bad review. And when I do, I need to try to suck it up and move on.
In my playbook, there are three exceptions to this rule - times that I allow myself anger or annoyance. The first is when a reviewer bashes me. Not the book, but me, the author. Look here and find Stained on the list, and read that review. This reviewer is just a hater; if you read her other reviews, you will see she bashes almost everything she reads, and she seems to enjoy insulting authors. That's rude, and it's unnecessary, and it makes me mad. I get over it, but I stew about it for a while first.
The second instance in which I get my panties in a wad is when I know someone leaving a negative review (because they are using their real name), and that someone is leaving a revenge review. Luckily, since I hate conflict, this is hardly ever a problem; I've only had it happen once. In that case, I got my panties in a wad because our original conflict was initiated by that person, who later felt the need to ice the cake with a negative review. Um, really? Well, okay. If that's how you roll. That review was reported (by someone I don't know) for vulgarity, and is no longer around to use as an example.
The third instance is probably more controversial, but I'm going to mention it anyway because it bugs me. It's when blog tour hosts, ones who accept pay for arranging tours, take an author's money and then the reviewers that they pass the author's books to end up pooing on the book(s), either because they really don't like that genre, so they were predisposed to dislike the book, or because they just plain didn't like the book; maybe the book sucked. This gets me irritated, not at the bloggers, but at the tour organizers. I feel like if you're going to take someone's money in exchange for a tour, which is PR, and which you are being paid to organize, you should only work with reviewers who will give decent or good reviews - that is, three stars and up.
There are so many book bloggers who only give decent/good reviews, it wouldn't be hard for a tour company to find them and stick with them. A simple solution to the problem, if the tour organizer wants to work with blogs that do give negative reviews, would be to have a just-blurb default. And by that I mean that if the blogger happens to dislike a book that is part of a 'professional' tour company tour, he/she agrees (in advance, with the tour company) to just post the book's blurb and a photo of it, maybe a quote or two from it, and a link to where it can be found. Even a Q&A could be substituted in lieu of a review that would, in the interest of honesty on the blogger's part, have to be negative.
If a book sucks, or if a blogger didn't like it, I in no way think the blogger should ever have to say they did, or even say anything positive about it - BUT if that blogger is working with a pay-for-tours company, and the author of the book paid for that particular tour, I think there should be an agreement that only a blurb will be published.
A while back, when I was a green-as-grass new ebook author, I paid someone for a tour and ended up getting a two-star review that encouraged readers not to buy one of my books. A large part of the problem was that the tour organizer who'd taken my money hadn't told me negative reviews were a possible outcome, and it wasn't posted on their site, so I didn't expect it. I was way too new to know how blog tours worked. But even if notice had been posted on their site, I don't think it's cool to take authors' money in exchange for a tour, and then work with reviewers who are unwilling to just not run a review, if the review is going to be bad.
Luckily, there is an easy solution to this, and that is to be careful who you pay to organize your blog tours. (I do mine myself now, but there are a lot of great companies out there if you don't want to take it on).
These days, if I get a review I'm not thrilled with, I try to get over it. Someone read my book, which is amazing and wonderful - and 99 percent of the time, reviewers (even ones doling out two stars) are kind and professional.
When I accidentally uploaded an unfinished draft of Stolen, and it was live on Amazon for about 12 hours, I got two reviews saying how terrible the book was, pointing out that it seemed like a draft rather than a real book... and these reviewers were so kind despite what they were saying, that I wish I still had the reviews, because I'd totally post them here. They were both taken down when my mistake became evident to me and I uploaded the correct version of Stolen, but I have always felt grateful that these people were kind enough to review me gently.
So... what do you think about bad reviews? Need 'em to do good work? Hate 'em? I want to know. It's too hot a topic not to discuss! :)
Some authors will try to tell you they don't mind a negative review. That those two stars help them learn how to improve. I've even heard/seen people say they wouldn't know how to improve without the bad reviews. Other people claim that they value honesty, and because of that, they welcome all input on their work. I don't want to say they're pulling your leg but... I happen to think bad reviews suck. A lot.
Do I need them to learn how to improve? No. That's why I have an editor, beta readers, and sales reports. If my stuff sucks, you can bet I'll hear it from my Editubby (yes, I have one of those; my husband is my editor! ;). If he doesn't tell me - and he will; oh, he will - a beta reader might. And if neither of those people notice, sales will let know that people don't want to read what I'm putting out.
Could I improve without input from any of these people? Yes! If I keep cranking out books, I will improve. In my experience, improvement skyrockets after about book five. Some people don't need that many books to figure out how to write a good one, but I did. (Don't worry, all those drafts are in drawers, and they will never see the light of day).
I cannot imagine feeling that public criticism was necessary for me to do good work. Private criticism is another story. Criticism is helpful; of course it is. I just don't enjoy the public kind. My books are for sale. I make money from them. All public commentary having to do with them affects my sales, therefore a negative review works against my sales. Which brings me to my point about reviews: They are a sales tool - usually a good one, but even when they're not, they are still a necessary part of being a published author.
Do I wish everyone who reads and dislikes my books would just shoot me a friendly e-mail, describing what they didn't like? Of course I do. Do I think that would be the 'polite' thing to do, the most constructive, the most helpful to the author? Yes. But is that reasonable? NO. It's just not. If I want Amazon stars and reviews to help me sell my books, I have to accept that I may sometimes get a bad review. And when I do, I need to try to suck it up and move on.
In my playbook, there are three exceptions to this rule - times that I allow myself anger or annoyance. The first is when a reviewer bashes me. Not the book, but me, the author. Look here and find Stained on the list, and read that review. This reviewer is just a hater; if you read her other reviews, you will see she bashes almost everything she reads, and she seems to enjoy insulting authors. That's rude, and it's unnecessary, and it makes me mad. I get over it, but I stew about it for a while first.
The second instance in which I get my panties in a wad is when I know someone leaving a negative review (because they are using their real name), and that someone is leaving a revenge review. Luckily, since I hate conflict, this is hardly ever a problem; I've only had it happen once. In that case, I got my panties in a wad because our original conflict was initiated by that person, who later felt the need to ice the cake with a negative review. Um, really? Well, okay. If that's how you roll. That review was reported (by someone I don't know) for vulgarity, and is no longer around to use as an example.
The third instance is probably more controversial, but I'm going to mention it anyway because it bugs me. It's when blog tour hosts, ones who accept pay for arranging tours, take an author's money and then the reviewers that they pass the author's books to end up pooing on the book(s), either because they really don't like that genre, so they were predisposed to dislike the book, or because they just plain didn't like the book; maybe the book sucked. This gets me irritated, not at the bloggers, but at the tour organizers. I feel like if you're going to take someone's money in exchange for a tour, which is PR, and which you are being paid to organize, you should only work with reviewers who will give decent or good reviews - that is, three stars and up.
There are so many book bloggers who only give decent/good reviews, it wouldn't be hard for a tour company to find them and stick with them. A simple solution to the problem, if the tour organizer wants to work with blogs that do give negative reviews, would be to have a just-blurb default. And by that I mean that if the blogger happens to dislike a book that is part of a 'professional' tour company tour, he/she agrees (in advance, with the tour company) to just post the book's blurb and a photo of it, maybe a quote or two from it, and a link to where it can be found. Even a Q&A could be substituted in lieu of a review that would, in the interest of honesty on the blogger's part, have to be negative.
If a book sucks, or if a blogger didn't like it, I in no way think the blogger should ever have to say they did, or even say anything positive about it - BUT if that blogger is working with a pay-for-tours company, and the author of the book paid for that particular tour, I think there should be an agreement that only a blurb will be published.
A while back, when I was a green-as-grass new ebook author, I paid someone for a tour and ended up getting a two-star review that encouraged readers not to buy one of my books. A large part of the problem was that the tour organizer who'd taken my money hadn't told me negative reviews were a possible outcome, and it wasn't posted on their site, so I didn't expect it. I was way too new to know how blog tours worked. But even if notice had been posted on their site, I don't think it's cool to take authors' money in exchange for a tour, and then work with reviewers who are unwilling to just not run a review, if the review is going to be bad.
Luckily, there is an easy solution to this, and that is to be careful who you pay to organize your blog tours. (I do mine myself now, but there are a lot of great companies out there if you don't want to take it on).
These days, if I get a review I'm not thrilled with, I try to get over it. Someone read my book, which is amazing and wonderful - and 99 percent of the time, reviewers (even ones doling out two stars) are kind and professional.
When I accidentally uploaded an unfinished draft of Stolen, and it was live on Amazon for about 12 hours, I got two reviews saying how terrible the book was, pointing out that it seemed like a draft rather than a real book... and these reviewers were so kind despite what they were saying, that I wish I still had the reviews, because I'd totally post them here. They were both taken down when my mistake became evident to me and I uploaded the correct version of Stolen, but I have always felt grateful that these people were kind enough to review me gently.
So... what do you think about bad reviews? Need 'em to do good work? Hate 'em? I want to know. It's too hot a topic not to discuss! :)
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