Do You Trust the Source?

  

What advice do you have for new authors on reviews? Do you read reviews? What is the best ever review you’ve received? What’s the worst and most hilarious? Share it with us!

 

My advice to authors about reviews is simple: DON’T.

 

The easy answer, which is not a cop-out, is to say that the writer you are today is not the writer you will be tomorrow. If you are serious about writing, let your skills unfold naturally. Listen to yourself first. Trust yourself. If you have an editor, that should be enough. A good editor will show you the gaps and force you to think about your skills and structure. Agree or disagree, the friction should force you to question your intentions and capabilities.

 

Reviews are different, though they are supposed to be unbiased.

 

Think of reviews as drinking water. You go to the sink, run the tap, and fill a glass. Water should be clear and tasteless. It’s a public commodity from a trusted source. Most people never think about where it came from, who tested it, or whether the pipes between the reservoir and the faucet did their job.

 

Sites such as Amazon and Goodreads are public, a democratization of opinion.

 

The Good is that readers no longer have to depend on the arbiters of culture, those newspaper critics who decided what deserved attention.

 

The Bad is, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson on democracy, the review you get is the review you deserve.

 

The Ugly is trolls and the complete absence of standards. Nobody agrees on what those stars mean. There are no half-stars. Is it a B+ book awarded a B because of the editing? A four star book merits three or two stars because a stray wet gremlin ruined the formatting? Then there are paid reviews, and the occasional author who uses an alias to knock down another writer.

 

The Absurd are the nonsense reviews we’ve all read: “Three stars. Book arrived damaged” or my favorite, “Five stars. DNF.”

 

An algorithm replaces word of mouth, which is how books are found now. The reality is that the marketplace is vast and the field uneven. Publishers publish what they think will pay their rent. Bookstores stock what they think will sell or what they can return to a warehouse. Marketing budgets matter. Money matters, while authors just want to be read.

 

Most of my reviews have been glowing, but the funniest one came after I had the book (now out of print) reissued. Context: the book had profanity in it, and I tend to use profanity as a pressure release, so it’s never gratuitous. Before I reissued it, I systematically un-F’d my manuscript.

 

Lo and behold, a generally positive review appeared, except for one criticism: the author resorted to profanity.

 

Confused, I did a word search for all the usual suspects. The offending epithet?

 

A single use of the word damn.

 

It would be nice if readers gathered and discussed my novel while they enjoyed an aperitif. That’s how art survives. That’s how word of mouth works.

 

The paradox is that writers know all of this and yet we seek validation from reviews. We’ve all done it. We’re human. Like all humans, we need water to survive. Just remember that not every glass is clean. Look at the water, smell it first, and then decide whether you really want to drink it.

 

Trust the source because it might just kill you (or so says Adrian Monk).