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Wesley wrote: "I recently agreed to review an ARC for an author.He asked for a review after I read the book and wrote the review. I read the book and wrote the review, sending him a copy as he requested.I recen..."
The author in question obviously did not truly want an unbiased opinion; he wanted a third party to promote and praise his work, regardless of the worthiness of praise or promotion.
My advice: scrap the author's re-interpretation of your original review and avoid future communications with the author.
Author here.Tell that author to shove his 'suggestions' up his arse. If he wanted a friendly press release, he shouldn't have asked for a review.
Given that you've got a book blog, I don't see why you shouldn't post your review. If he gets upset about it, that's just tough tits for him.
It would be dishonest and unscrupulous to post a review that was basically written for you. It sounds to me as though you have three options:1) As Michael suggests, just post the review. This author did ask for a review, after all; you're only complying.
2) Post the review that was rewritten for you with a large, bold notice that the author rewrote it. You give him what he wants without a breach of ethics.
3) Convey your regrets that his request violates your personal code and offer him the choice between no review or one of the two options above. Return the book if you like, but bear in mind that you are under no obligation to incur personal expense.
Wesley,Jim is correct. Disengage.
I would not post the review, either. First, the author has broken basic decorum and doesn't deserve it. Second, it might prompt irrational behavior.
Better to simply disengage. If the person persists, spam their emails or write them a short note saying you are no longer interest in conversing with them and leave it at that.
Wesley wrote: "I recently agreed to review an ARC for an author.He asked for a review after I read the book and wrote the review. I read the book and wrote the review, sending him a copy as he requested.I recen..."
That's a very obnoxious thing for an author to do. I've written reviews and then read the other reviews and then wondered if these reviewer read or understood the book because the review was so far off. Still, a reviewer is entitled to his opinion. On the other hand, reviews that attack the author are rude and unprofessional. I think I'd give the author a "take it or leave it" choice.
I agree with everyone above. I am an author AND I accept review requests from other authors, for my blog. I would never ask anyone to change their review, nor would I want anyone to ask me to change mine.If I write a review that is 1-2 stars, I try to be diplomatic. If this author can't realise that you're being honest, at their request, then they don't deserve to hear from you again. Review, only if you want people to know what you think, otherwise, you have every right to hold back your review.
Ditto to all of the above. I can't imagine an author making changes of this kind. You should publish your review as you wrote it, not only because of ethical considerations, but also because it is in his best interest to have an honest review out there. I have had a few bad reviews on my work, but they actually validate the glowing 5-star reviews even more. Readers know that what they seeing is real when they see that. If his reviews aren't good enough, he should look to his books, not his audience.
Wesley wrote: "I recently agreed to review an ARC for an author.He asked for a review after I read the book and wrote the review. I read the book and wrote the review, sending him a copy as he requested.I recen..."This must certainly be distressing for you, and I'm sorry this happened.
From my perspective as an author and editor, I'd suggest you consider options. First, unless you agreed to allow the author approval/editing rights before you release the review (and from what you've written, that seems unlikely), you're under no obligation to accept these "suggested" revisions.
Would your review of this book be published via your own blog, or had you agreed to simply send the review to the author to use as he liked? If you had originally agreed to post your review to your own site, you have the option to do just that. Post your review as you wrote it, which fulfills your original agreement.
If, however, you agreed to send the review to the author for him to use as he liked, you can't be sure the author won't edit your review once it's beyond your control. You could decline to release the review to the author. You'll have to be watchful to see if the edited review turns up with your name attached. Of course, you could forestall that by notifying the author you've declined to release the review and that he does not have your permission to use your words in any form, for any reason, in any medium.
Perhaps other reviewers have standard language (or even a form) they use when agreeing to review ARCs. Might be worth your asking. And let's hope this type of author doesn't come your way again!
Susan wrote: "Wesley wrote: "I recently agreed to review an ARC for an author.He asked for a review after I read the book and wrote the review. I read the book and wrote the review, sending him a copy as he requ..."You're absolutely right Susan, as a reader I have a set way of reviewing my books that took me a while to formulate, so it would definitely be noticable if someone nicked my method and tried to make it seem like it was my review.
I think this is a brilliant suggestion. Good luck to you in resolving this Wesley. Let us know how you get on.
Thanks everyone so much for the feedback everyone.I assumed when he asked me to see my review in advance it was out of curiosity. This was probably naive on my part, but I know that if I was an author I would be eager to hear what a reviewer had to say.
Part of me wants to post the review (as I wrote it, without his "suggestions") and put a note at then end of the blogpost saying that the author made edit suggestions but I didn't make them. (This is probably not the nicest). Another part of me just wants to send the book back to the author and wash my hands of it. Frankly I don't want to give him any publicity after all this shenanigans.
Again, and not to be redundant since this has been said 10 times already, but this was completely inappropriate on the author's part. It would be a kindness on your part to refer the author to this thread (or any of the bazillion other such threads) with a soft warning that they will shortly find themselves on an 'author behaving badly' list if they continue such behaviour. Not necessarily from you, 'cause you don't strike me as the retaliatory type, but definitely someone will take the appropriate offence and eventually air the laundry, so to speak.
Wow. Yeah, it sounds like he expected good praise and when he didn't get it he changed it up to fit his liking. I've never heard of someone doing that, it seems low to do to me. I myself have called out a review after a bad review but eventually I learned from the mistake and later realized you can't please everyone.I suggest you just kindly tell the author while your thankful to have read the book you think it'd be best if the review wasn't posted because he didn't agree. The thing about reviews is you have to be willing to be as accepting to the bad as you are to the good. Believe me I learned the hard way. Theres no shame in liking the negative reviews in fact those are sometimes more honest. Hopefully this author will realize that soon enough.
He should get the choice of getting the review as you wrote it, or no review at all. What he's trying to do is barely any better than writing his own review under a fake name. I wouldn't recommend as some of these posters suggested, though, as far as making a comment on your review that he suggested changes. If he has no sense of etiquette like this shows, there's really no telling how badly he would react to a public shaming like that.
Shaun wrote: "He should get the choice of getting the review as you wrote it, or no review at all. What he's trying to do is barely any better than writing his own review under a fake name.I've seen a number of people recommend this, not posting the review. I understand the sentiment, but I adamantly disagree. By not posting it you've allowed the author to bully his way into avoiding a bad review. That's still getting the result he wants, no bad reviews. He needs to take his lumps like the rest of us and better he learn it now than latter.
What makes the whole thing more ridiculous is that the bad reviews are as important as the good ones. They provide wonderful insight for the author as well as potential readers (and are not always off-putting). But in this sockputtet ridden market, they also provide important legitimacy.
Wesley wrote: "I recently agreed to review an ARC for an author.He asked for a review after I read the book and wrote the review..."Wesley, I appreciate that you've held back from identifying the author. I'm curious to know, however, if this is the author's first book. Can you tell us?
I wonder if there's a discussion somewhere on Goodreads that helps new authors understand the whole review process. Sounds like this person needs to learn a few things about this side of the writing world!
The problem with "authors" who have not spent time in the old time honored way of learning to write--read and critique groups,( not your friends and relatives) writers workshops with pro authors, submitting short stories and getting plenty of rejection letters is they don't learn it isn't all praise. If an editor sent you any type of critique back with a rejection letter it was an honor that they took the time to do so and thought you had talent even if they were brutally honest. Of course that wasn't true of the late Marion Zimmer Bradley whose motto was"if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen." She had a stock of harsh rejection letters kept on file which we found out when we compared notes at writers workshops."You should not want to make your editor want to lose her lunch!" "You are supposed to suspend disbelief not take it out and hang it by the neck until it's dead!"
Of course some people will not get your genre so it's best to keep to read and critique groups that are familiar with your genre and the same with reviewers. The same stories panned so harshly by M.Z.B. were often published elsewhere after a little more polishing. Writing is re-writing. It's also subjective. Sometime's there would be a handwritten note on the bottom of the page of the publisher--I liked it--after M.Z.B.'s rant. They did not agree about many stories but the editor won over the publisher (Rachel Holman was her name I think.) If not for her little postscripts I would have thrown in the towel. I tried read a book for review that turned my stomach. I did not finish it but sent a note to the author that humor was subjective and I could not do justice to this book so perhaps it would be better to find another person to review it who had similar tastes.
L.H. wrote: "Wesley,Jim is correct. Disengage.
I would not post the review, either. First, the author has broken basic decorum and doesn't deserve it. Second, it might prompt irrational behavior.
Better to ..."
I think I would say something like "I'm not going to change it. Do you want it posted or not?" and leave it at that with maybe a short explanation of how it would affect the integrity of the review. Obviously, the author has some lessons to learn. Better sooner than later.
Ellen wrote: "The problem with "authors" who have not spent time in the old time honored way of learning to write--read and critique groups,( not your friends and relatives) writers workshops with pro authors, s..."Ellen, that's a great point about workshops with writers who share your genre. And definitely find people who are not emotionally connected to your work--which leaves many friends and family out.
In our household, we collected lots of rejection slips along the way and we celebrated every one. I appreciated every single one, even the photocopied generic 'not right for us' messages. And I absolutely treasured the personal notes and letters, because it meant somebody took the time to connect with me and express their opinion. And those opinions helped make me the writer I am today.
ETA: To bring this back to the OP's dilemma, may I ask if the ARC you were invited to review is a genre in which you usually work (either as a writer or reviewer)?
Susan wrote: "Ellen wrote: "The problem with "authors" who have not spent time in the old time honored way of learning to write--read and critique groups,( not your friends and relatives) writers workshops with ..."Then there were the novel writing classes through Writers Magazine with a pro author of your genre. "Write it again! This time do it right. My first three novel manuscripts are still sitting in my computer as "practice novels." I may never publish them unless I can finally stand to look at them again and rewrite them "Once more with feeling." They are not yet up to professional publishing standards and many first novels are not. It's called learning to write a novel. Too many people are self-publishing their first novels before learning anything about writing one. I think I wrote at least a hundred short stories before trying the novel and they are different writing forms. One has to learn them both.
I feel some of the reviews my books have received have been amateur but you get what you get. You should not rewrite your review to please the author.If I knew you did that I would never send you one of my books simply because I know readers would never take your views seriously.
Sadie wrote: "Shaun wrote: "He should get the choice of getting the review as you wrote it, or no review at all. What he's trying to do is barely any better than writing his own review under a fake name.I've s..."
Susan, it is not the authors first book, it's at least his 3rd!
Kelly wrote: "that's just plain crazy :)"I think that's what I'm going to go with. It's not worth compromising the blog's integrity just because the the review wasn't as glowing as he wished.
I recently got an email from the author "suggesting" changes that I make. He takes out huge chunks of my review and adds a bunch of stuff that I didn't write. So now the review is hardly anything that I wrote and it's not an honest reflection of my feelings of the book. (I feel like I was very even handed and even generous of my review).
I don't know what to do about this. I feel like I'd lose integrity if I posted this review that the author basically wrote. Should I send the book back with a note about how I'm sorry that it didn't work out?
Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!