Sunday, December 9, 2012

Negative Book Reviews


Any author that believes every one of their story reviews will be positively glowing… is totally delusional!  Every writer gets their share of bad reviews, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and even well-loved Nora Roberts have gotten terrible reviews over the years.  How have these famous authors learned to deal with someone trashing a story they have worked so very long and hard on? Ignore it? Have a good chuckle then get back to work?  Track down the reviewers IP address and upload a computer virus (I’m just joking)
 

 The anonymity of the internet also makes people bolder, speak louder and say things that the probably wouldn’t say if they were standing in public.  The way I look at is there are 500,000- maybe a 1,000,000 books in a bookstore (depending if it’s brick/mortar or online.) Not every customer is going to love every one of those books, plain and simple.  That’s the beauty of there being a vast number of different genre’s and topics.  We don’t all like the same stuff.

Before you chose to attempt to shred someone’s hard work, just stop and think for a moment.  If you hated it from the first pages, then why the hell did you continue to read?  Self-torture?  Was it fuel for your fire to back your harsh words?  Is your goal to really attempt to sway other readers away from a book, like they are mindless sheep and can’t form an opinion of their own? Or last, are you a failed author that is so upset at the literary world that you review all stories with disdain and contempt?
I write mostly erotic gay fiction.  It’s not Pulitzer Prize material, nor is that my goal!  (LOL) My stories are fun and sexy, usually deal with coming out or opening up with new sexuality, they are light hearted and a little quirky.  If that’s not up your alley, guess what…you have about a million other books to choose from!
My mother taught my siblings and me a very important life lesson that I think a lot of people haven’t learned: Praise in public, criticize in private. 
Happy Reading!!