ROBUST discussion

Tom reports:
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Athanasios Galanis 8:35pm Nov 24
Hoofah, bad news. You know how you can tell when somebody hasn't taken the time to actually read your work? They're totally wrong about the simplest things, i.e. this is the second in a series, not the first and it doesn't rehash anything in the Da Vinci Code.
My first 1 star review, my cherry's been popped.

Check this out:http://www.amazon.com/Commitment-Pred...
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Didn't read the books, get the facts wrong, leaves a one star review.

I wonder how Amazon would react to the suggestion of a Bad Reader Cull.

That bites, Tom. And especially so that it is the only review thus far...

You can actually write to Amazon and tell them that the reader obviously hasn't read the book, etc. They often take down bad reviews at the author's request.

Unless you have at least 1 bad review people are going to think you got them all from friends.

You (or a friend) can also respond to the review pointing out that it's pretty obvious that reviewer didn't read the book.

Common wisdom discourages writers from replying to reviews...for any reason.

Depends who the writer is. Keith Brooke and I got quite some mileage out of discussing each other's reviews, some good points were made for everyone's benefit. It also depends of course on whether the reviewer is a mensch or an over-sensitive, pompously self-important jerk-up.

The problem is always that you need to know what you're doing, and in this instance, also who you're doing it with. In the right hands a review, good, bad or indifferent, is a valuable tool.

But the damage an inexperienced or clumsy writer can do does in the vast majority of instances outweigh the potential benefit. And that is why, in general, "common wisdom" is right: most writers should stay clear.

See http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/ar... for where I made a good thing of a bad review even though the vicious reviewer turned out to be too sly to enter into a public debate with me and sell more books for my publisher.

Annoying. I had one recently complaining my short story was short*. By someone who had almost certainly downloaded it for free. I mean I don't mind if they don't like the style or whatever, but complaining just because it is what it is... well, annoying, like I say.

Andre, what's the Keith Brooke story?

* actually 7.5k so not that short for a short story.

I'm sure you've seen this, James, but just in case you haven't...
Read from the bottom upwards on my blog:
http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/?s...
and follow that up by this piece on Keith's blog where he offers an outstanding analysis of the implications of a small literary world:
http://keithbrooke.wordpress.com/2011...

The thing is, of course, that before you can do something like that, you must know that the other writer is a mature professional and not some jumped-up hysteric, like this one:
http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/ar...