How to Handle
Negative Reviews
We all get them from time to time—even
authors who have been in the industry
long enough to know how to turn a phrase.
Negative reviews come for many different
reasons:
The book wasn’t good to them.
The book was filled with errors.
The book wasn’t in the genre it was categorized
in.
The characters were one-dimensional.
The story was unbelievable/unrealistic.
The story didn’t end, and it takes reading
another book to finish
But here’s the thing, reviews are people’s opinion of your work. Bottom
line—their thoughts on what you’ve put on the page. Everyone is not going
to like it. They bring their backgrounds, cultural differences, prejudices,
hang-ups, the conservative or wild views, as well as their belief system and
politics. All of these are the filter by which people read and enjoy a book
which means no two opinions will be exactly alike. What I found was most
helpful is that I read the review for the parts of it I can learn from.
Once, a white male posted a review of Every Woman Needs a Wife and said,
“the novel was good, but the prose was painful.” Well damn—that hurts!
But I had to look at what he meant. He believed it was a good book, but
something about the writing and delivery didn’t work. So I looked at my
writing a little closer. I’m long-winded. (Well, I was at that time). That book
was flashback city and at some point it might have disrupted the flow of
reading. I didn’t know it then, but I certainly keep it in mind now.
Second thing I look at when I receive a negative review is the types of books
they consider really great. So let’s say that you’re a Contemporary or Literary
Fiction author and that is the genre the book is written in, but all of the reviews