Would You Rather Have NO Reviews Or BAD reviews?

[Angela]

I'm curious. Would you rather have nobody review your book or only have bad reviews?

[[deleted user]]

I'd rather have no reviews than all bad reviews, but I'm okay with a few bad ones mixed in with good ones.

[Dante]

Definitely go with no reviews over all bad reviews. I'd go for having a few bad reviews because they make the good ones look better by giving them legitimacy.

[K.P.]

I'd rather have bad reviews. At least someone read my books. I didn't have to beg or twist someone's arm or throw my doorstoppers at them. So far, only a few brave souls posted bad reviews on my books. the others emailed me and refused to post anything unless it's 3 or higher. meh. I stopped caring whether or not it's bad. I care that I got a review.

[R.A.]

If I had only bad reviews I would un-publish my book and give it another good look. Then I would start over and hope I got good reviews. So I guess if the book deserved only bad reviews, I would be glad to have them in the sense that they made me realize I needed to fix some things.

[Angela]

R.A. wrote: "If I had only bad reviews I would un-publish my book and give it another good look. Then I would start over and hope I got good reviews. So I guess if the book deserved only bad reviews, I would be..."

That is a great attitude!

[R.A.]

Angela wrote: "R.A. wrote: "If I had only bad reviews I would un-publish my book and give it another good look. Then I would start over and hope I got good reviews. So I guess if the book deserved only bad review..."
Of course, the problem is that none of us want to think our books deserve bad reviews, even if everyone else does!

[Jim]

As long as a review is honestly based upon the reader's unbiased opinion of my techinical writing skills and story telling ability , good or bad, I consider it useful in helping me to determine areas in need of improvement and more attention during future writing attempts.

However, if a scathing review is obviously based upon the reader's disapproval of the narrative, merely because it may not align exactly with his or her personal religious, social, or philosophical beliefs, and prejudices, then I discard it as not worth fretting over.

Intelligent, discerning readers will see right through a biased review and ignore it.

[Linda]

You need reviews good or bad if you're self-publishing. You need to know if the work is worthwhile or not. If you're writing a series, it tells you that you need to work on the first book before going on to the next. Yeah it might sting but if it helps you be a better writer, then so be it.

[Abigail]

Okay, I have a question.

Why would you wait for readers to determine if your book is good or bad? Shouldn't you have it reviewed and critiqued *before* you make it available?

If someone buys your book and hates it, they're not going to buy another one from you. (Now, if they hate the genre or subject matter, that's different.)

I wouldn't make a book available unless I *knew* it was good. Granted, I'm not going to please everyone, but I know my reviews will have five stars mixed with the twos.

[Penny]

I think bad reviews only hurt the first few times you get one. Then as you read more reviews you realize the reviewer didn't like the genre or your style of writing. Some people also don't know how to do a review.

As Abigail mentioned the book should have been critiqued for spelling errors, grammar, etc. long in advance of publishing so we should get mixed reviews based on interest.

I think we need both good and bad.

[K.T.]

I'd rather have bad reviews than no reviews.

I'd like to presume these would be bad reviews balanced by good ones (like Abigail above, I don't think I'd make a book available unless I felt it was a pretty solid item), so any potential reader could look at both sets and get a good picture of what's in store for them. I know I always appreciate reading the good and the bad and seeing what makes the difference for people.

If there were only bad reviews (horrible thought!) then that is useful too, though it would be pretty crushing.

[Micah]

Splunge.

[Jim]

Abigail wrote: "Okay, I have a question.

Why would you wait for readers to determine if your book is good or bad? Shouldn't you have it reviewed and critiqued *before* you make it available?

If someone buys you..."

Abigail,

No author intentionally releases a bad book - intentionally being the key word.

No publisher's acquisition team would accept a manuscript unless it was judged to have commercial potential and no publisher will release a book for distribution until satisfied that the end result of the combined efforts of the layout editor, conceptual editor, and author had produced a viable product.

I was absolutely certain that my completed, polished manuscript was worthy of publication just as it was, until two months working with one of the publisher's conceptual editors taught me that it was not yet truly complete nor polished by commerical standards.

An author' opinion of their own completed, polished work is inherently biased. An outsider's opinion is essential to evaluating a completely unprejudiced view.

[Abigail]

Thanks, Jim. Which is one of the reasons to have that editor. :)

[Peter]

Any review is useful no matter what it says but don't take it took hard. I always say that "feedback is only as good as the person giving it, but every piece of feedback has a morsel of usefulness in it." This means that bad reviews are good in that you can use them to get better but don't sweat them because some people are just not going to like your stuff. Use it to improve your writing and it's a winning scenario no matter what.

[Michael]

I don't read reviews, but it's not possible to look at your book without seeing the star ratings.

I would rather have no reviews, than all bad reviews. No reviews means that no one was affected one way or the other, while bad reviews means the person was negatively affected to the extent of spending time writing a review.

Everyone gets a mix of reviews. Even great literature gets bad reviews. There are a lot of idiots in the world, and no matter if you win the Nobel Prize, such people are going to give a bad review.

I disagree that reviews contain any useful information or criticism. If you were to write based on reviews, you would soon end up with a piece of crap. You have to write the story you have to tell. Forget what anyone says about it. (assuming that it's written with skill, you've mastered the craft, and know how to structure a story. Most self-published authors don't know how to do any of that)

[Steph]

Jim wrote: "No author intentionally releases a bad book - intentionally being the key word..."

Apart from this infamous example, of course...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_...

[Jim]

Steph wrote: "Jim wrote: "No author intentionally releases a bad book - intentionally being the key word..."

Apart from this infamous example, of course...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_..."

Steph,

Thank you for sharing the article. I was not aware of this hoax that uncoverd the greater hoax - the vanity press masquerading as a traditional publisher.

By the way, I accessed your profile. Loved the picture; regrettably, too few women wear hats today.

Jim

[Vanessa]

If all you have is bad reviews that is very, well, bad. I think it's ok to have a mix.

[Fallon]

I wouldn't want all bad reviews. I have had 2 5 star and one 3 star. So that's cool. The 3 star let me know what I needed to work on to make me a Great writer. Reviews good and bad help authors. :)