Q&A with Matthew Williams discussion

Here's my last discussion offering for today. This one is near and dear to every writer's heart--and, might I add, painful to it. How do you handle negative reviews?

And for readers, I ask:
-What can you do to help the writer when giving a review?
-Are you giving feedback that can help the author improve the work by editing it, improve his/her skill for the next piece of heart and soul put out there for all to criticize?
-Or, do you just hit a low ball number that has absolutely no value to anyone?

http://lindaraeblairauthor.wordpress....

I've gotten two for the same book. This is one the best things about ebooks in particular. If there was something like too many typos, you can unpublish the book and go back and fix them. If the story didn't make sense to whoever negatively reviewed it, then you can try to rewrite a few scenes or characters...or you can just unpublish the book and curse the meanie to an eternity of bad material to read forever...LOL

Tiffany wrote: "I've gotten two for the same book. This is one the best things about ebooks in particular. If there was something like too many typos, you can unpublish the book and go back and fix them. If the st..."

On a couple of points, I agree with you. With one, I cannot, however.

As Indies, we have a responsibility to one another, let alone to our readers, to assure that "too many typos" doesn't happen. This is where Indies gain a bad reputation. Assure that the typos are corrected BEFORE you publish. No one is perfect and even a TP work (Nora Roberts' "Tribute" is one off the top of my head) can have one slip by even the best editor, but we should always strive for perfection before we put our work out there! We may not get there, but we should never see a poor review due to too many typos.

Linda wrote: "Tiffany wrote: "I've gotten two for the same book. This is one the best things about ebooks in particular. If there was something like too many typos, you can unpublish the book and go back and fix..."

I agree with Linda very much: publishing, whether e-pub, self-pub, or sending a manuscript to a publisher, should all be at the same benchmark of quality. If you do any less you are doing yourself a disservice. You won't build a fan base if your work is any less than your absolute best. I suggest a group of beta readers to weed out these problems, and an editor (someone not a friend) who will give you honest input.

Linda wrote: "...How do you handle negative reviews?"

Well, the simple protection from negative reviews (not necessarily the easiest thing to come by, however) is to develop rhinoceros hide. Every writer needs to understand that each reader will see each sentence a little differently, and that they're entitled to their individual opinions.

Where all those individual opinions can become a bit of a problem is when there are overwhelmingly negative responses to the writing - that means one of two things, and it is critical to know which it is:

(1) the work is so radically different from other works that the reading public will need some time to get used to it and come to accept it, or

(2) the work may not be as wonderful as the author had originally hoped.

Unfortunately, probability somewhat favors the latter. Chris Jackson's suggestion of (honest) beta readers and a someone-not-a-friend editor is without doubt an effective means of warding off the likelihood of negative reviews.

In the end, though, the thick-skinned author is the author who can benefit the most from reviews of all sorts. Keep in mind that feedback of any sort is a tool to be used to better one's writing.

James wrote: "Linda wrote: "...How do you handle negative reviews?"

Well, the simple protection from negative reviews (not necessarily the easiest thing to come by, however) is to develop rhinoceros hide. Ever..."

On most counts, I absolutely agree. However, readers who offer reviews should remember that the writer gains no insight whatsoever when a number is clicked on without any specifics given.

A "1" in of itself means absolutely nothing to the writer. You could be reading a new genre and not like IT, not the specific book. How is the writer to learn what needs work if you just hit a number?

Even a "5" means less unless you tell us what it is you liked so much. The next reader can only take away that you like it, but WHY you liked it might make all the difference in the next person's reason for buying or not.

My suggestion to readers is to do a review that means something. Too few readers review anyway. We writers need your opinions and information about how that opinion was reached or even you are wasting your time. WE NEED YOU! And, as Jonny 5 (old rat pack movie robot) used to say, "Input. (we) need input!"

Linda wrote: "On most counts, I absolutely agree. However, readers who offer reviews should remember that the writer gains no insight whatsoever when a number is clicked on without any specifics given."

Agreed, Linda.... Except that... well, I don't consider slapping a number on something as a review... that's a rating, and without more specific guidelines on what folks are rating, I pretty much ignore those as worthless information. I've noticed my own reading tastes don't follow any regular pattern when I compare the books I liked (or disliked) with the ratings here at Goodreads. There's also a fair amount of "haters" out there who just want to screw things up with their unfounded negativity, and others (to a lesser extent) who will inflate their rating numbers. The only reviews useful to writers that can be found here (or anywhere else, for that matter) are those that have some written content that makes note of the whats and whys that prompted the reviewer's opinion...

So, as Audrey II from "Little Shop of Horrors" would demand: "Feed me, Seymour!"

James wrote: "Linda wrote: "On most counts, I absolutely agree. However, readers who offer reviews should remember that the writer gains no insight whatsoever when a number is clicked on without any specifics gi..."

James, you're correct. They are "ratings", but I think most shoppers consider them in the same category with reviews, and they do have a negative impact when they are selecting a book to purchase. It would be lovely if the reader could take just a minute to tell us what they did or didn't like about the work.

Wow! Thank you for that one, your tips are great and moving. I came across a video that also talks about how to also manage those negative reviews that comes a long your way. http://marieforleo.com/2012/02/negati...

Thanks Linda for making all of these forums. I've been negligent ever since I started working on an anthology with some peers! I totally neglected this group. But I'm back and promise to do better!

Oh, and I think you're right. It's important to keep it all in perspective, know that one person's take on your work is not the be-all, end-all of things.

I've become pretty interested in this topic since the ratings and reviews began piling up for my various books. First, a little disclaimer. I was always pretty certain that my books would never get traditionally published. My experience of nearly twenty years as a bookseller told me that much. What I write essentially has 'no commercial potential', in the immortal words of Frank Zappa. So when I first discovered Smashwords in the fall of 2009 and found I was able to just put them out there, for free, and they'd get distributed and read, I was right there. How cool! Before then my stories had been read by maybe a dozen people. Since then, due to good luck, timing, and some small effort at 'marketing', they've been downloaded an astonishing number of times (well into six figures altogether) and actually read a bunch as well.

Then there came the ratings and reviews, on various websites including Barnes and Noble, iBookstore, Sony, Kobo, Amazon and Goodreads among others. Thousands of ratings and reviews and, to be perfectly honest, more negative than positive. Their average Goodreads rating (currently around 2.7) is somewhat lower than elsewhere (Apple folks seem to be the nicest, all in all), but it's not unfair, and not unjust. The books, which I never thought would be popular, have turned out to not be generally popular. There are plenty of people who like them - but the majority does not. The proof is in the sample size. The market truly does speak.

Most of the time when I read about 'how to handle negative reviews', people are talking about one or two presumably unfair ones, but sample size is really everything. I think you can safely ignore ALL reviews until your book has received a decent number of them. I couldn't say what that number is, but it seems safe to say that a hundred or so might be a decent figure. After that, the individual ratings and reviews don't change the average value that much.

That being said, I've collected enough by now to notice some common trends. On some sites, such as Barnes and Noble, readers are really reckless with their ratings and reviews. They will give you five stars because something is free, or one star because they just feel like it even though they didn't even read it and will readily admit to that. And then there are the contradictions. I've gotten one star for the same book because the narrator is TOO quirky and five stars because the narrator IS quirky. One person's shortage of character development is just the right amount for someone else. There are people who hate the same ending that other people liked. They will ding you if the book is too short, or if it's too long, as if they have some secret insight as to the correct length of a given story, like the King who complained in Amadeus that there were 'too many notes'.

All that being said, you can, and should, take each review as an opportunity to learn something.

Ahhhh, if only most of us could wait for 100 reviews. I'm afraid I'll be dead first! Hum, maybe I'm more like Mozart than I realized!