This year, I have gotten more emails from authors and publishers unhappy about negative reviews and/or comment threads here at AAR than I have in the previous five years. It’s not a huge number but we’ve typically gotten one a year in earlier times.
AAR will, as it always has, continue to publish unbiased reviews. I’m deeply proud of the work our staff does and I stand behind it 100%. That policy is not up for argument.
For the sake of this discussion, let’s set aside that negative reviews are vastly outweighed at AAR by positive and it’s fine reviews. And let’s agree that all the comments here will aim to be constructive rather than in the vein of those damn authors, they should be grateful you review their books. What I’m curious about here is what do we, readers whose lives are lifted by the literature we read, owe authors when one of their works lets us down. Thoughts?
On Twitter, I’ve seen a growing number of authors who think it’s OK to complain about negative reviews. Or even mock the readers who post them. Ugh!
I think this might happen because they’re followed by so many fellow authors (and maybe not that many potential readers), so they forget they’re not in a private writing group. Or maybe they don’t care that other people can see their posts.
Many of these authors seem new to publishing, so no one has pointed out this is a bad look. Unfortunately, they’re often followed by other authors who have the same opinions and support them.
Just this morning, I saw a post where an author was mocking a reader who posted a one-star review. :-|
Sigh….
This is also true and, dare I say it? It seems to me to be the younger and newer authors (in general) who are most often guilty of this. I suspect that it’s partly due to the fact that younger people – those who unlike me – grew up with the internet, and don’t often have the healthy scepticism about it that people my age (late 50s) do, and somehow don’t realise that they’re NOT just talking to the people in their own front room when they post on SM. I love the internet but I’m careful with whatever I post as I’ve seen how easily things can be misinterpreted. It’s so sad that so many people say things in cyberspace that they’d never say in person. Or maybe they would…
I dunno. I’m seeing older, very established authors express their unhappiness with negative reviews and telling publishers to limit access to review books to sites they feel have maligned them.
I’ve always thought that a negative review of my books deserves obscurity, rather than notoriety.
I’m an author. You owe them nothing but politeness. You’ve reviewed my books in the past, and I’ve had good, I’ve had not-so-good (but no dnf’s thank goodness!). But that’s your privilege. You have always made clear that this is your opinion, and when you don’t like something, you say so, and why. What you never do is insult the author, or your audience.
Unfortunately, Amazon has monetised the review. It matters to the author, now, it has to. Many authors buy reviews, just to get their profile up. Readers can’t trust reviews any more, and this is much wider than books. It’s banned, but it’s easy to get around that, and the reviews that say “this is wonderful,” tell you nothing. The ones that say, “this is awful,” don’t tell you anything, either. But it is so obvious, and Amazon doesn’t care. As long as the book sells, they’re fine with that.
Here, you’re not invested in how well the book sells, so your reviews are trustworthy, and honest.
Speaking of Amazon, here’s another point I should bring up about reviews, particularly in regard to erotica: A bad review complaining of taboo content can get a self-published erotica author’s title adult flagged or blocked. And sadly, a lot of these complaints are absurd given the genre. I’m talking about people giving a one-star review that says, “This is nothing but filthy smut that should be promptly removed from Amazon for lack of decency!” for a book clearly titled something like, “Fifty Filthy Flings: Totally Not-Decent Smut.”
For a more specific example of this phenomenon, the eroticauthors subreddit strongly advises smut authors not to include any alcohol consumption in their self-published work through Amazon. While I understand why someone would be furious if an erotica takes an unexpected noncon/dubcon turn that includes drunken sex, there have been reviewers who will say ridiculous things like, “OMG! Rape!” just because the characters had one glass of wine with dinner before having sex. Seriously. But since Amazon wants to promote a somewhat wholesome image of themselves, they will take that kind of complaint seriously and punish the author for it according to the horror stories I’ve read.
So circling back to what reviewers “owe” authors, I would say this: please at least be a considerate, somewhat intelligent adult when commenting on Amazon about content that offends you. For self-published erotica authors in particular, hysterical cries of “rape” because of one glass of wine can get those authors in serious trouble. Worst case scenario, they could get their accounts terminated.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a dreadful reviewer on GR and don’t review anywhere else , mostly because I recognize I’m not good at it. I am more prone to a few glowing words on books I loved and three paragraphs of adjective-vomit on books I didn’t. It’s all of a piece though – I am more inclined to steer people away from books that I don’t think are worth their time and money, and I don’t consider the author much at all. Perhaps it’s naive or short-sighted of me, but once a book hits publication the author is owed – in my opinion – nothing more than the cost of the book. Anything beyond that is a reflection of the quality of the work itself, and isn’t owed, per se; it’s earned.
Two mildly relevant anecdotes:
– Long ago I submitted a first page to Dear Author. It was well received though the book itself turned into a non-starter, buried forever, but what I appreciated most was the honest critiques. I DID head hop too much. I DID need more research. And if someone hadn’t said something, I might have birthed another historical out into the world to be excoriated for those very tiresome things.
– Not as long ago, I tried to deconstruct how Caz writes her reviews so that I could be better at it. I failed (and would totally take a class of it were offered or if AAR had a blog series on the topic, hint hint) but I think it speaks to the quality of reviews here and on the GR pages of all the AAR staffers I follow that it is recognizably both useful and structured in such a way that it’s respectful to the content whether or not the book itself passes muster.
I’m not sure I could deconstruct how I write my reviews, but thank you for the compliment!
I love your reviews, Caz. You have a skill for noticing nuances, especially in narrations, that I don’t, or if I do, I can’t put words to what I’m thinking. When I was reviewing for Audiogals, Lee Hensley helped me polish my style and I’m still benefiting from her help, but I know my reviews were never as consistently thorough as yours. Writing reviews takes time and energy, even the shorter personal, and they also take a good memory for details, and not just for the book your reviewing. Really good reviewers remember past books by the author (and/or narrator), as well as other books in the same genre that might be comparable to it.
The high quality of reviews here on AAR (and on Audiogals) is a real blessing. Every day I look forward to reading the reviews, even if it’s a book I know I’m interested in. The reviews themselves are a pleasure to read and I always learn something.
*I mean,I read the reviews even if I’m NOT interested int he book.
Thank you, Carrie. I think our reviewers do a great job too!