A Bad Review
Someone's put it in writing—your book sucks.
How do you deal with it?
1. Do what you have to. Give yourself fifteen minutes to rant, feel bad, laugh hysterically, punch a wall, or have a drink. After that, shut it down.
2. Don't complain to anybody except your best friends (or my substack peeps, that's you!) Because if you share with anyone else, they'll think you're nuts and won't understand. You don't have a terminal disease, you didn't lose a job or a spouse, and they'll want to suggest you seek professional help.
3. Hire a hitman. But why should the hitman have all the fun? Then the idea of prison garb, lousy food, and packing on pounds brings me back to reality; then I get pulled back the other way; I would actually have time to write because I'd be locked in a cell, with a pen and a notebook, rather than having to market books. Of course, I might have to fight with other women over trivial matters like who used the last piece of toilet paper or got the bottom bunk. Get real, Kay. Writers don't kill readers over bad reviews. Sounds like a good plot for a book…probably already been done.
4. Refrain from responding or replying to the reviewer, no matter how badly you want to engage. DON'T DO IT! Don't. That was the advice from other writers across the board in every forum and Facebook group I approached.
5. Handle a book review like a negative performance review from a boss. Fortunately, I never got one of those. If I did, who knows what I would have done? No one likes to be told they aren't doing a good job. In the case of writing a book, it's a more subjective thing, and in the romance genre, even more so. There are so many kinds of romance; what one romance reader thinks is super sexy, another one finds unacceptable. Another reviewer wrote: "It wasn't my jam, but it might be someone else's." Remember, it's one person's opinion, only one.
6. Control your reaction. Don't let it get under your skin. I'm from the nuke them, leave no survivor's school of thought. I'm sure you're nothing like me. The thing is, there's nothing to be done at this point but move on.
7. Learn from it. Some reviews offer helpful criticism. Take notes. If a few reviewers say the same thing, the ending moved too fast, you can consider the following: the reviewers are reading and copying what the first reviewer said because they are lazy, or they believe the ending moved too fast. This is good to know because it’s info your beta readers didn't point out to you.
8. You don't have to decide anything right now. Allow yourself time to digest the criticism. Write it down. You and your editor can revisit it later on a re-edit of your book or when you write the next one so that history does not repeat itself.
9. At the same time, don't give a reviewer more authority than you do yourself. Do they know more about writing than you? Yes, some readers understand a lot, and some of them are frustrated writer's themselves, but at the same time, you're the person with the guts to put yourself out there to write the book.
10. Be realistic. What is your measure of success? Some authors see a three-star book review as a "bad review." Who is giving the three stars? Some readers don't award five-star reviews unless the author is "famous," and then they gush all over the author. Some readers give nothing but five-star reviews. A three-star review is satisfactory. They liked the book, usually with some caveat. Be happy with the three stars.
11. Some reviews are going to be unfair, just like life is unfair. The reader only read 28% of the book and gave you one star, and roasts your hero, calling him morally corrupt. Turn off your brain to second-guess these reviews. If you can't, you'll find yourself censoring yourself. "Should my hero say this? He wants to say and do this, but if he does, he might insult that woman out there who doesn't like it when men do…."
12. Remember, bad reviews validate your good reviews. Yep, it sounds crazy, I agree, but if it's all five-star reviews, people don't believe them. They think you paid for them, or they're friends or something. "Nor should authors suffer from the belief that a slew of 5-star ratings is the only possible path to success for a book. There are plenty of bestsellers where all 100 most-liked Goodreads reviews rip them to shreds," according to Namera Tanjeem, the author of an article, Authors, Seriously: Please Don't Talk to Us, on Book Riot
13. A one-star review may actually work for you. Think about the source and how it will play with other readers. One that appeared on someone's IG account said, "It was beautifully written but I hated the pimp vibe, so I only gave it one star." That might sell a couple of books for me, and I didn't take that as a bad review. I appreciated the reviewer's honesty. She stated what she liked and didn't like about the book and you can’t ask for more than that from anyone.
14. Re-read the good reviews over and over. We place so much focus on the bad ones. We need to do the opposite. I created an accolades file on my computer's desktop just for that purpose. I copy and paste everything positive anyone says about my writing into a word document I keep there. I open the document and read my accolades whenever I read something negative. It helps a lot in keeping me on an even keel.
15. Put the bad reviewer in your next book as a character. They can be the villain or the a character you kill off. Still, chances are good you aren't going to remember this bad reviewer in a month because he or she will be replaced by another bad reviewer. Ha! That was a joke.
16. Remember that when readers bad-mouth your characters or the book, they aren't bad-mouthing you. I often have to remind myself my alpha hero isn't real. I created a super-flawed guy so my heroine could transform him, and I wanted to give her a super-difficult project to make her deal with her own flaws. If my alpha hero was an actual person, the negative reviewer would have to enter a witness protection program to survive. Lucky for both of us, that’s not the case. Boy, I like the plot of this one. It sounds cringe worthy.
17. Some authors suggest you don't read reader reviews at all. Reading them isn't really good because even if there are positive things, we tend to concentrate on the negative. Since there's nothing to do to change it, we only make ourselves upset. Unfortunately, I don't have enough willpower not to look. Maybe someday I will. My advice is to avoid checking your own reviews more than once every couple of weeks.
If the bad review still bothers you a month later, you might have a problem and it has little to do with the bad review. By that I mean, you need to clarify who you are as an author, what you're here to write, and why you wrote the story you did in the first place. You had goals you wanted to achieve with this story. What were they? Getting clear on the answers to these questions will assist you in coming to terms with dealing with this negative review and future ones.
Lastly, write another book. Stay off of all reader sites that review books. Try to remember these sites are for readers rather than for you. It's none of your business what they say. Remember, when they write reviews, it's for other readers. Just because you gave someone an ARC, a free copy of your book, the reader is not obligated to provide anything, especially a review you like. Their responsibility is to themselves and other readers. That is what the book review is for. This, again, was suggested by a couple of authors in different places. I agree with them.
Please share your successes, trials, and tribulations with reader reviews. Have a great week and don’t forget to fill your cup!
I don't have a book published yet, but I have heard some authors avoid Goodreads or reading reviews at all. They ask someone close to share positive reviews with them, helping them avoid having to read any of the 1 or 2 stars. I think I'll probably try and do this once I'm published—although, like you, I'm not sure if I'd have the willpower not to look! Not that there isn't anything to learn from a negative review, but it's all so subjective that if I really think a negative review would ruin my day I'd rather avoid it.
I've heard some stories lately of authors replying to reviewers, sometimes in a pretty rude way. I understand the desire to defend work, but I'm also not so disillusioned to think *everyone* will love my work all the time. People are allowed to not like it, and that's okay! It won't be for everyone.
Writer Andre Maurois once said: In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.” I say, thank goodness writers have different styles, words, and imaginations. Take reviews with a grain of thought and press on to get your words out to the public!