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Are you a writer? Traditional, indy, self-published, aspiring, or otherwise? Do you write, and want people to read your writing? If this describes you, come over here. I wanna chat for just a moment.
We talked last month about how it's impolite to tag authors directly in negative reviews. It was a whole thing. It went on for a while. But part of why it's impolite is not "it might hurt someone's feelings." It's because the social contract says authors can't respond.
Why can't we respond? Because if we're remotely successful at our jobs, our virtual "weight" is probably substantially greater than the reviewers. And targeting someone for the crime of not liking one of my books is unfair and unkind.
"But what if!" some may cry, and "But they were mean!" Yes, and? Our books are our babies, sure. They're also a product. We sell them. Once a thing is sold, people get to have opinions on it.
I'm pretty quiet about not liking things, because of that social weight. If I decided to start shredding a book I didn't enjoy, I'd be doing it in front of 40,000 people. Most books never reach 40,000 readers.
The average book sells 3,000 copies in its lifetime. Unless the book is actively harmful (surprise sexual assault, surprise pedophilia), I am being the bully if I put it on blast for the crime of not being exactly my thing.
A reviewer who doesn't have 40,000 followers saying "This book didn't do it for me," is not being a bully. They are doing their job, in response to us doing our jobs. They deserve to do that job without being scared of an author with a virtual baseball bat.
If a reviewer offers to rape the stupid out of you (which happened to me once), that's worth responding to...and reporting to the police. If a reviewer says, quote, "This brainless cunt writes about loving cats while she buys kittens from a breeder, be a shame if someone...
...poisoned the shitty little inbred things," don't respond, but notify the authorities. If a reviewer says (again, quote), "This book is shit. This author eats shit, and then she publishes what comes out the other end," your feelings might get hurt, but that's the gig.
Do I wish all reviewers were fair and balanced, and didn't go for "funny cruelty" or judge my books based on shipping from Amazon or the color of the cover? Sure. But I also wish all authors would let go of the idea that bad reviews hurt books.
A bad review can help readers find your work. I regularly get one-starred because "this book was queer as hell." I guarantee you that helps my queer readership find me.
You know what hurts your work a lot more than a one-star review? Being the kind of asshole who publicly drags a reviewer for not having exactly your tastes.
Again, if someone threatens you, or your pets or family, or packs their reviews with homophobic or racist slurs, that's different. But this is about responding to normal, non-bigoted, non-violent reviews.
We can't constantly beg readers to review our books in order to raise their findability if we include the silent "and if you don't say exactly what I want, I will come for you," caveat.
Let's be authors, not assholes.
