He says:
Yes! Uh, No. Uh, kinda both. (I’m very confused. But then, I’m a love story author so, what did you expect?)
I was taught to say “Thank you for reading my book and taking the time to do a review. I appreciate your comments and your helping me grow as an author.”
Seriously, as an author, we know were going to get bad reviews. Not everyone likes what we like or thinks like we do. We also know that people are much more likely to post a bad review then a good one. Seems they think it’s their duty to save the world from; eating bad food, riding with an idiot Uber driver and reading trash. Which in this case is your book-which you didn’t intend to be a trashy novel. If you did…skip this post totally.
One thing you will quickly learn about bad reviews is, most of them will: make you question whose book they actually read, what the hell they’re talking about, and no way in hell is it going to help you be a better author. I’ll use some of my reviews as an example.
“Loved your MC but she disappeared after the first chapter.” What? My MC is not only in every chapter but on every page! Read the review before yours, you dumbcoff! Ah, that would be the one that says “I got tired of the MC being on every page. The author obviously could only come up with one character name.”
Or, how about: “Crap Ending.” What the hell does that mean? I love my friggin ending. Besides, it came to me in a dream so it’s got to be good!
Okay, one last one. “I love horses and bought this book because of that and then found out it’s a love story and there were no horses.” Huh? Did you read the description? It says “LOVE STORY” everywhere. Like on a horse rescue ranch. With a horse next to my MC on every page?
Okay, I feel much better now.
Obviously I would not respond this way and you shouldn’t either. Just say thanks for doing a review, go throw up, punch a few holes in the wall and get on with your life writing trashy novels! Happy writing!
Your turn Ash! (Let’s see her top this!)
She says:
Strange as it may be my dear partner in crime, I happen to agree with you – though I’m not yet an author who has put their labor of love out for the entire world to rip apart…hopefully the time will come.
I guess I see things as there are a lot of people out there who just post things to be ugly, and that is a great shame. But then you must also consider that everyone has their own opinions. What is that old saying about opinions are like @#%holes, everyone has one.
I guess the real reason I’m not one for answering comments/posts is because that’s what I do for a living (not much of a living since I do it for free. Ha!). And I would hate for someone to post ugly responses to my reviews.
I agree with my counterpart in that the true intention of a post/review should be an honest review of the book you’ve read; thus, whatever they truly felt about the book I’d like to know in an effort to see how my blood, sweat and tears is reaching the readers of the world.
Sure, I would hope it was constructive criticism, but half of the time it won’t be…and I guess that’s okay. I know when someone asks me to review their book I try my hardest to be constructive and not post petty nit-picking things in my reviews. Often I do get replies from the author, but they are private and most of the time they are simply to thank us.
I realize that’s not necessarily possible on Amazon and such. However, you need to always remember that if someone is coming to purchase your book and they decide to peruse the reviews, if they see you being catty in your replies to a negative review, the odds are that they’re going to pass on your book simply for that. I know I would.