For the most part, it’s a bad idea to read your reviews. One, they’re just someone’s opinion and not necessarily indicative of the quality of the work, good or bad. Two, writing, like any art, is subjective. As a writer, you have to remember that and not take anything personally. And three, it’s much too easy to get caught up in what someone says, whether it’s positive or negative. But as any writer can attest, no matter how glowing the reviews, a negative review has a way of embedding itself in your DNA.
Not that I don’t read any reviews. I give a look to those from places like Kirkus and Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post in hopes of a good review that yields a nice, juicy blurb.
Those are always fun. And I’ll read reviews on blogs that have requested a review copy or for which I’ve authored a guest post. As for the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and random blogs that show up in my Google alerts? I do my best to avoid them.
But sometimes, you can’t help it.
While checking online for local bookstore locations where I might be able to swing by and sign stock copy, I came across a reader review about Fated that gave it one star and included the following gems:
Could it be the worst book ever written?
Completely mindless.
Worst use of $$ I’ve ever spent.
Ouch. But at least they read the book to the end because they didn’t believe it could be that bad all the way through.
Aah, another satisfied customer.
And then there’s the blog that listed Breathers as one of the most disappointing books of 2010 (even though the book came out in 2009). For the most part, the blog explains in detail why Breathers failed to live up to expectations, then finishes with this:
As a result — and due to Browne’s at-best serviceable prose — Breathers fails to elicit either laughs or sympathy. It’s horrifying, but not, I suspect, in the way that Browne intended.
Can I have some salt with that knife wound?
These are just a couple of examples of the criticism that authors expose themselves to when they get something published. That doesn’t mean we have to believe it. Or take it personally, which isn’t an easy thing to do. The trick is to try to have a sense of humor about it and realize you can’t please everyone. But if you please yourself, then you’ve done your job.
And if that doesn’t help to make you feel better, you can always respond to your bad reviews like this:
I’ll be in Orlando in mid-March for the 32nd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA for short) from March 16-20, along with a signing on St. Patrick’s Day, before heading west for two more signings (info below).
