THE Group for Authors! discussion

Hi everyone! I just published my first novel and I have a few questions about reviews.

1. Should I read my reviews?

2. Should I respond to reviews with a thank you? Even if they are negative/non-constructive criticism? Or should I just completely ignore all reviews?

3. If reviewers post spoilers, should I politely ask them to please remove the spoilers, add a warning to their review that it contains spoilers, flag/report the review, or just completely ignore it?

4. If my reviewers start arguing with one another by commenting on each others reviews, should I politely ask them to stop, should I flag/report them, or should I just completely ignore it?

Personally, I prefer asserting myself in a verbal yet tactful manner. I dislike avoidant and passive-agressive behavior. Yet, in my experience, what works IRL tends to only cause problems over the internet.

Hi Jillian,

I only have 6 months experience of this and two books out so.....

1. Yes, if you can take sometimes unjustified criticism, several of my reviews have helped me; but don't take it too seriously.
2. The general advice is not to respond at all; however I have occasionally commented on good or bad. If someone points out a formatting error then that's helpful and can be corrected for future readers, if there is consistent criticism then we all need to learn from our mistakes.
3. Hard to avoid some review spoilers and it depends on the site, Amazon doesn't seem to have a clear way of doing it. Goodreads spoiler tag didn't work for me
4. Same as 2 - if it is offensive then again it depends where it's posted as to how to get it removed.

Good luck with the book

Hi Philip,

Thank you for your response. I will go through each of your points.

1. I am fine with criticism, so long as it is constructive and so long as the reviews aren't "fake". When reviews cross the line into harassment... That is when I might have a problem with them.

2. If someone posts something that is helpful, I am all for thanking them. One of my first reviewers was clearly not a member of my target audience... My editor and I realized that my book had been mistakingly categorized under Contemporary, Paranormal and Urban Fantasy. We had it moved to the appropriate categories. So, I thanked the reviewer, explained why I had thanked her and I left it at that.

3. One of my reviewers listed a spoiler and gave the ending of my book away. Would it be rude for me to contact her directly and ask her to either remove the spoiler or ask that she add a warning that her review contains spoilers? Or should I flag/report it?

4. How would I have offensive comments between two or more reviewers removed? I am a very peaceful person and I dislike the idea of people fighting with each other over my stories. Such behavior is counterproductive. Should I contact them directly or flag/report the content? How can I flag/report content on both Amazon and Goodreads?

5. Here is one last question... Is it considered bad author/book blogger/reviewer etiquette to contact an author directly with negative comments especially if it was a DNF/DNL? Over the last few days, I have received some harassing e-mails from a couple of different people. Two of these were nasty e-mails from failed authors I know personally, whom I had believed to be friends of mine. I have disregarded all of these e-mails, yet many book bloggers say that contacting an author directly with negative comments or a DNF/DNL is the cardinal sin of book blogging/reviewing... Is this true?

Thank you for your kind words.

Stay Wicked,
Jill

I have one last question...

I have heard horror stories about competitive authors posting negative reviews of other authors books on purpose and not to ask other authors for reviews, even if they are friends. Is this true? Does this really happen?

I also have a question about Goodreads "stalkers". At what point does someone go from healthy fan to unhealthy obsessive stalker?

If someone clicks "like" for every single one of my updates... Say I add new books, post a comment, begin a topic, vote on a poll, join a group... Even if they are not in those groups or read those types of books... And then send weird messages as well... Should this be cause for concern?

Should I block them before it could possibly escalate into something else? How can I block people on Goodreads? If I block someone, can they still see my profile?

I have two "fans" who are doing this and it makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Hi

It seems you have far more comments than I do and I'm sorry to hear some of these have become nasty. Last questions first...

I have had rumours of this although I fail to see the point. I have had nothing so far but helpful comments and encouragement especially here on GoodReads - I may be lucky. I try and read indie authors especially. We need all the help we can get. If these are so called competing authors then what might they gain - they can be traced. If it is particularly upsetting then you can ask GoodReads to intervene, sometimes Amazon as well. The current UK controversy over offensive tweets has stirred this up as well and I think all providers are having to check their harassment policies.

1. I think this goes with the territory, but harassment report it to moderators of forums or the site's owners

2. Yes I think that is a good idea and goes along with formatting errors or errors of fact. I have thanked reviewers generally on my facebook, blog and website for taking the time to leave any review.

3. That is normally the best approach, but you never know how some people might react. Some reviwers and readers like to hear from the authors, others won't do anything.

4. Forum moderator or site owner should be approached, but offense can be subjective

5. A lot will depend on what has been said, as per the tweeting cases I mentioned earlier illegal behaviours can be dealt with by the police or courts, libel, and threatening behaviours can be treated as such. Sending an email can be traced - most of the time

Thank you for all of your comments. The police are already investigating the harassment.

Today J.C. Hendee has a blog post on his goodreads profile about contact with readers you might find interesting; Stacia Kane's website has some older "Auntie Special Snowflake" posts as well.

(From a reader not an author) I do have friends that "like" everything in their feed whether or not they even read. They're convinced it's a courtesy and an encouragement since their feed is stuff from friends and followed authors/reviewers they think it's rude not to and that the posters appreciate knowing their updates aren't out in a vacuum. I get asked "did you see my post ..." by those types of friends because I don't just "like" all the time. (Unfortunately I have also unfriended/unfollowed a few people who send everything to feed including one who posted continually the thousands of books they daily added to their to-read shelf).

I'd worry if the "like" was accompanied by odd comments or messages. You can also edit your profile settings for the feed to not post shelf additions or anything you don't want "liked" -- personally, most of my tasks I manually check to send to update feed versus automatically. Doesn't stop someone from going to your page and liking/commenting some items.

Contacting members directly -- I'd be careful as an out of the blue contact from an author they have not been conversing with (particularly if they did not like your book or were making nasty comments) is likely to either encourage the bad behavior or get your message flagged as spam or abuse.

Hi Debbie,

Thank you for posting those blogs. I will have a look at them. :)

Stacia Kane's blog is very good, as are her books...

My feeling is that anytime an artist puts his work out into the world, whether he/she is an actor, architect, painter, writer, the piece stands alone out there to be loved, hated, reviewed and criticized.

It's no good trying to control the reception the work receives, as it lives or dies on its own merit.

My advice is to rise above the hatemail (or harassing comments from other writers). Readers see them for what they are, and they won't hold much weight. If you think they violate terms of conditions you can flag them to Goodreads, etc. Yes, it does happen that other writers can stalk and post negative reviews for books they've never even read.

I do accept books for review but I'm very clear in that if the book doesn't interest me, I'm not going to read it. Also, if I think it merits less than three stars, I let the writer know that I won't be posting a review and why.

I don't reply to reviews at all--now emails are a different story, and I'll happily respond to those. As a reader, I would fee odd if a writer responded to my review. It's not meant to be a conversation starter, but just my reaction to the book, good or bad.

I looked at both of those sites and they were very helpful, like I learned to not list my e-mail on my site and instead put up a contact form.

I think that some people might be misinterpreting my original questions... I may have been a little too tactful in how I worded them... For the most part, I have received lots of positive communications from fans. Yet, I have also received harassing direct communications in my e-mail from a couple different sources (as opposed to reviews being posted online)... A couple have been from failed authors I thought were "friends". Being that most of these have been sent to me in my e-mail, I cannot flag/report those e-mails. However, the police are investigating. I only asked these questions because I have read conflicting information online. Some people say to read your reviews because you can learn from them... Like someone e-mailed a strongly worded DNL to me. My editor and I realized that the person was not my target audience and that my novel had been misplaced in the wrong category and we moved it to another category that was more appropriate and now my novel is attracting the right readers, so I sent a brief thank you since I was able to place my novel in the correct category and left it at that. Now, as for the harassing e-mails, I have not responded to those at all. I don't want to respond to reviews at all, but a bunch of blogs say to thank every single review, while I think it would be more productive to spend time writing my next novel. I guess, I will just go with my gut on this one.

Hello Jillian, I'll add my thoughts here as I've had a bit of 'controversy' on a novella that I published (it has some LGBT characters but is pure sci-fi, not romance or erotica).

1. Konrath and others say you should never read your reviews. I believe this to be true once you have had more than a couple of books published. If you only have 1-3 books out, it is probably a good idea to read reviews. Be warned that you will want some thick skin before doing this. Not everyone is going to like your work, and some humans are not very tactful about their negativity.

2. I don't respond to every review, but the ones I do respond to I always thank the reviewer for taking the time to leave their thoughts for me and other readers. I do not argue their opinion, nor do I try to point out some of the things they said in their review were wrong or that they didn't 'get' what my story was about. Their opinions are just that, opinions, and it is not my goal to try and change their opinion at all.

The responses I usually give are a little detail about the story, or that there's more coming down the pipe, or a discussion about some of the points of the story. Never will I try to sway an opinion, but I do enjoy interacting with my readers, even the ones who post negative reviews.

3. Spoilers should be hidden or announced. You may politely ask the reviewer to do this, and if it doesn't get fixed, you may contact Amazon (or wherever you are publishing) and alert them that a review gives away major spoilers and needs to be edited.

4. I do not get involved in reviewer arguments unless they get nasty/vulgar or devolve into pure insults or flaming. I watched a review for my novella get into a discussion about my inclusion of LGBT characters and it never became ugly. I finally posted in the review comments and everyone seemed to appreciate the author giving his $.02's worth (I didn't argue or bash or do anything except explain why the story has LGBT characters, and did it without being a jerk or condescending).

Authors need thick skins. We are unfortunately like actors in that we have some of the thinnest skins of all humans. Some reviewers will harass you. Some will be jerks. Some will be insulting. Some will be racist/sexist/homophobic/bigots. There's not much you can do about this other than make sure you have very, very, very thick skin.

Because even a good but critical review can reduce an author to tears if he/she isn't prepared for it.

I love to interact with readers, but there's a fine line that you have to walk where you keep remember that you are dealing with fans and that fans will not always see your opinion as valid or even worthy.

As for email harassment, any kind of harassment really, if it happens at a place like Amazon then you should contact Amazon and try to have something done about it. If it is emails...just block them or have them sent directly to spam. Never respond to such things. It will only make you look bad.

I want to take the time to thank you all for your comments. I am sorry for my delayed response... My iMac, iPhone and MacBook all crashed and it took me a while to get them all up and running again.

Travis wrote: "emails...just block them or have them sent directly to spam ..."

Or see if the domain email came from and/or your own email provider has a forwarding address for such things — often will be "[email protected]" type of address.

Hi Debbie,

Thank you! I didn't know that there was a way to contact my e-mail provider about abuse/harassment, that will be very helpful.

Jillian wrote: "Hi Debbie,

Thank you! I didn't know that there was a way to contact my e-mail provider about abuse/harassment, that will be very helpful."

Not all email services; but most of 'em and most isp's have some sort of forwarding or reporting for abusive or harassing emails (some use a catchall for those plus all the assorted phishing and other spam stuff). So it doesn't hurt to to see if in site FAQs, TOS, send them an email, etc. to see if they have some policy.

Hi Fusty,

What have you been doing to market/promote your book and get reviews? Have you already built a marketing plan/strategy? If not, I would love to help. I love paying it forward! :)

Maybe I can ask here...I have people telling me good things about my book, for instance "I couldn't put it down" and such...but they aren't leaving reviews. They are in Facebook messages and the like where no one sees them but me...I was wondering if it was ethical to take these comments and make a "testimonials" page on my website, using John D or Mary J, and not their full names? or would people think you're making them up?

That's a good question. I had a series of articles on my blog with comments on my blog and FB. I asked my friends would it be okay if I used it for testimonies on a future book. They said it was okay but would these testimonies be viewed as legitimate.

Stanley wrote: "...I was wondering if it was ethical to take these comments and make a "testimonials" page on my website, using John D or Mary J, and not their full names? or would people think you're making them up? ..."

Personally, I'd just ask them for quote permission if it was in a message only seen by you (sneak in a little P.S. that reviews made on gr, amaon, etc. are always very appreciated when asking).

If it was in a public post or comment on facebook, your website, amazon, etc. -- depends on the site TOS if legal (ethical is a different question). Facebook TOS gives facebook the right to make use of any posts with privacy set to public but gets cloudier on how members can use public posts. Goodreads TOS is very clear about their member reviews -- all reviews are copyright of the reviewer = ask permission.

I don't think it ever hurts just to ask (plus gives commenter the chance to specify how they want their name to appear, you might think "John D" is fine but they object or want it to say "J.D. From Tulsa, OK" or something else).

Stanley wrote: "Maybe I can ask here...I have people telling me good things about my book, for instance "I couldn't put it down" and such...but they aren't leaving reviews. They are in Facebook messages and the li..."

Not so much on facebook, but quite often I get emails and in those circumstances I have replied saying how much I valued their words and asking if they would mind copying/pasting their comments into a review on Amazon - including a link to the page to make it really easy - and saying how valuable their thoughts would be to others considering a purchase. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

If the comments would be helpful to me for marketing I just ask them for permission, explain what use I want to make of their kind comments, and ask how they would like to be identified.

Stanley wrote: "Maybe I can ask here...I have people telling me good things about my book, for instance "I couldn't put it down" and such...but they aren't leaving reviews. They are in Facebook messages and the li..."

I did. I used their full name AND put the comments on my books' back covers and in my trailers. I asked their permission and not only did they give it, they wrote reviews specifically for me to use that way since you can't use the unsolicited reader reviews posted on amazon (amazon holds the copyright to those). I was floored to get this support.

I have sought respected reviewers as well as my publisher. You can go to websites that review or go to Amazon Customer Reviewers. A great many authors use them. They are very helpful. You can go to my website sbredstoneauthor.wordpress.com and I have an extensive list of reviewers.