Wait, what? Did I actually manage to post another time without waiting a month? Yup, your eyes don’t deceive you.
This blog post is about bad reviews, as I have received some and had a few things to say about it.
I was thinking about this the other night and thought that I would write about it and maybe an author will be able to relate. Don’t hesitate to start a conversation down below if you think I’m wrong/right, I’d love to have your opinion too!
Now, I’m one of the insanely lucky writers since I haven’t had to deal with rejection from publishers for years. I entered my first contest and, against all odds, won the publishing deal. I can imagine that dealing with rejection from publishers makes you grow even stronger as a writer and that there are a lot of ways to deal with it.
But this blog post is more about negative/bad reviews. First, we need to separate two types of reviews: the constructive ones and the overall just mean ones.
The first one I’m okay with. I actually welcome it. If someone leaves a comment or a review on Amazon telling me what could have been done better, what didn’t work, what did, how I could have developed my characters more in depth, then I absolutely thank this person because it allows me to grow as a writer and to see where I went wrong to correct it.
But the other one, the plain mean one, is just unnecessary and rude. I think, a lot of times, reviewers tend to forget that the author actually reads the reviews they leave on Amazon and that it won’t only be read by random strangers who couldn’t care less. And sometimes, they can be harsh. Reading that your work is “trash” or “terrible” without any explanation to complete it can be pretty hard.
Now, what I recommend, and what I have been doing, is to overlook the comments that don’t help you in any way. If the person took thirty seconds our of their life to log on to Amazon just to write that the book sucks without leaving any constructive criticism, then it is as much a waste of time for her/him than for you to care about it.
Every one is different and will have different tastes and that is completely fine. Not everyone will like the same books, the same style of writing or the same genre. But there is a difference between giving useful feedback and just being mean for the sake of it and not leaving any explanation on the comment.
So if you’re an author faced with some negative reviews, try to focus on the constructive ones and, mostly, don’t forget about the awesomely positive ones you received. Somewhere, someone actually loved your work and this means something.
Alright, I will now go back to my studying for my finals as I still have to fulfill my student duties as well.
Thanks for reading!
Emily