Spin
I got a severe two-star Amazon reader review of my new novel, Anything Goes. And that got me to thinking about the way we authors deal with those. One instinct is to persuade friends to flood the site with five-star reviews praising the story, in an effort to undo the "damage" of the bad review.
Politicians do that a lot. They use spin to deal with damage. I know writers who are quick to criticize politicians for spinning their publicity, who think nothing of spinning the critical material about their own books.
What gets damaged is truth. What if the review of my book actually catches its weaknesses and is intelligent, discerning criticism of a book that fails in some respects? My task, as an author, is not to conceal the criticism but learn from it. If the review points to weaknesses, that is my opportunity to grow. It is also my obligation to recognize that not all my books are good; some of them don't please readers, or have severe problems. Another is to consider the prospect that I am aging, at the end of my writing life, and am not producing material that equals what I was writing at my prime of life. I have far fewer brain cells than I did at age forty.
That said, the Internet is also a destructive medium. There is a new word I don't quite understand, "trolling," that has to do with ruthless negativity or criticism, and it largely stems from the reality that Internet criticism can be anonymous. A person of that sort can unload caustic comment anonymously, his name and address unknown to the world.
I have often thought that the way to deal with that is to require commenters to own what they say; let them sign their criticism or comment with their real name, a real address, an identity that can be tracked by anyone. To say things anonymously is to avoid the consequences of criticism, and is a coward's ploy to intimidate others. In other words, most of those who troll anonymously are plain cowards, whose words should be dismissed because the author won't make himself known. If there is one thing wrong with the Internet it is that it's a coward's playground. Since most publishers don't require that comment be owned by a traceable person, our best recourse is to dismiss all comment that appears over a pseudonym.
That said, I do hope other readers find some value in my new novel.
Politicians do that a lot. They use spin to deal with damage. I know writers who are quick to criticize politicians for spinning their publicity, who think nothing of spinning the critical material about their own books.
What gets damaged is truth. What if the review of my book actually catches its weaknesses and is intelligent, discerning criticism of a book that fails in some respects? My task, as an author, is not to conceal the criticism but learn from it. If the review points to weaknesses, that is my opportunity to grow. It is also my obligation to recognize that not all my books are good; some of them don't please readers, or have severe problems. Another is to consider the prospect that I am aging, at the end of my writing life, and am not producing material that equals what I was writing at my prime of life. I have far fewer brain cells than I did at age forty.
That said, the Internet is also a destructive medium. There is a new word I don't quite understand, "trolling," that has to do with ruthless negativity or criticism, and it largely stems from the reality that Internet criticism can be anonymous. A person of that sort can unload caustic comment anonymously, his name and address unknown to the world.
I have often thought that the way to deal with that is to require commenters to own what they say; let them sign their criticism or comment with their real name, a real address, an identity that can be tracked by anyone. To say things anonymously is to avoid the consequences of criticism, and is a coward's ploy to intimidate others. In other words, most of those who troll anonymously are plain cowards, whose words should be dismissed because the author won't make himself known. If there is one thing wrong with the Internet it is that it's a coward's playground. Since most publishers don't require that comment be owned by a traceable person, our best recourse is to dismiss all comment that appears over a pseudonym.
That said, I do hope other readers find some value in my new novel.
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