Author responses to reviews, and the rights of reviewers, have been ping-ponging around the Interwebs lately. What constitutes a fair review? What should an author’s response be to a good or bad review?
I’ve been pondering this for a while—specifically, since Season for Temptation escaped into the wild last October. It’s gotten some positive reviews. It’s also gotten neutral and negative reviews.
Authors, naturally, prefer the first kind of review. Who wouldn’t? We want people to like the work that we create.
But neutral and negative reviews are a fact of life, because human diversity is a fact of life. Every book is a meeting of the author’s words and the reader’s mind. Sometimes the words aren’t what a particular reader needs; sometimes they fit into a reader’s mind like the last piece of a puzzle. It just depends.
Even if we know this, a rejection of our work can feel personal. But that’s not the case. It can’t be the case, because reviewers generally don’t know authors. All they have to go by is the book. And as personal as a book review might feel to the author, to the reviewer, it…isn’t.
So what might help authors put the gamut of reviews into perspective? I was thinking about job interviewing as an analogy. It’s not that much of a stretch, because most writers view their writing as a career. Let’s see:
- The candidate (author) submits a resume (book) to an HR director (reviewer, or site/periodical contact).
- There’s usually a pre-screening, wherein resumes that don’t fulfill qualifications (books that don’t fit with reviewer interests) are not considered.
- And then? Interviews.
Here’s where the analogy breaks down a bit, because the interviewer passes judgment on the candidate—that’s the author, in our analogy. But a fair book reviewer passes judgment on a book, not an author.*
That’s the part that a lot of authors—including me—struggle with. If a work is so personal to us, how can a rejection not also be personal?
Let’s go back to the analogy for our answer. A candidate might not be selected for a job. Does this mean the candidate is worthless? No. The candidate has had other jobs in the past. Those went fine. What this means, then, is that the candidate was not the right match for this particular job.
In other words, it’s a matter of taste. Remember? The puzzle pieces? Just as a job candidate might not impress an interviewer, a book might not resonate with a reviewer.
An author can only control the words in a book, not its reception. A candidate can only control his or her behavior, not the interviewer’s response to it.
Fine, fine. But the candidate, and the author, went to that interview for a reason.** The candidate (author) really wanted that job (positive review). So what can a candidate do if that’s not the end result?
There are two responses in the corporate world that are considered professional:
- Politely thank the HR director for his or her time.
- Say nothing.
That’s it. Because we’re assuming the candidate really wants the job. And these two responses are the ones that leave all doors open. You never know, after all–maybe another spot will open up in the future, and the HR director will look at a revised resume. In the same way, a reviewer might be willing to give the author’s next book a try.
It’s perfectly natural to feel disappointed if a job interview, or a book review, doesn’t pan out. But this is a career we’re talking about; to get a second chance, the candidate and the author must be professional. And the next interview will be that much easier to deal with, no matter how it goes.
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*In fact, I would say a fair book review can include any content except for personal judgments about, or attacks on, the author. A review that includes these has stopped being a book review.
**What about unsolicited reviews, like feedback on retail sites? To stretch the analogy, we can think of those reviewers as headhunters: always seeking the right candidate—that is, a book that floats their boat. Again, they’re judging match.
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4 users responded in this post
I enjoyed your analysis, but I think many blog reviewers have gotten too personal. It’s no longer enough for a reviewer to simply say they dislike the plot or some of the characters; some now feel it’s incumbent upon them to be brutally honest. I think this may be due to the fact that blogs are a modern day version of a diary. In the past, a diary was never meant to be read by anyone else. Now, a diary is meant for public consumtion.
Some books are terrible and deserving of an unfavorable review. However, some reviewers hurl insults without citing any specific examples. For instance, saying someone can’t write doesn’t tell me if they mean in general or if they mean the writer has poor snetence structure. It stirs the pot, but doesn’t add anything to the discourse.
Nice analogy. I seldom read reviews, and only write them when the spirit moves me. The main reason I bother writing them on Goodreads and Amazon is because so many reviews having little to do with the actual book. (Drunken monkey reviewers.)
“I’m having a bad day, so I am not in the mood for heroines that wear yellow. 1 star.” It’s those kind of reviews that make me grind my teeth, and head off to write a fair review. Or worse yet the reviews that come from people who don’t like the genre, but are compelled to review a book anyway.
I think that the best thing you can do, is exactly what you said, either thank them for their time or if it is off the wall say nothing.(Cat’s who have access to keyboards do not deserve a response.)
Also, weren’t you were the one who said that you needed to do push-ups for every review you read?
Hey, ladies–thanks for stopping by!
Kim, I certainly understand your take. It’s possible that review language is sometimes exaggerated for attention (this book was the best! or worst!). But I do think that can still be a fair review, as long as it focuses on the book.
The type of review you mention as a “pot-stirrer”–say, one that says “this author can’t write”–is verging on the type that I mention in the first footnote of my post. That’s a review of the author, not the book. It doesn’t provide information about the book–and that’s the real purpose of a book review, isn’t it?
If the reviewer instead talked about what he or she found lacking in the writing style–well, that IS a review of the book. And that’s much more helpful for readers of the review, because it gives them the info needed to decide whether they would want to read the book or not.
Gayle, I do read reviews (not of my book, usually), but I don’t give them all equal weight. Reviews of the type you mention, that have nothing to do with the book (we’re in first footnote territory again), don’t give me the info I need to decide whether I want to buy a book. I think most readers would give more weight to a book-focused review than a review focused on something else, whether that be the reviewer’s mood, opinion about the genre in general, etc.
That being said, as both a reader and a writer, I’m thankful to reviewers–whether on a blog, or on a retail site–who tell me why a book did or didn’t work for them. That “why” is, at its core, what I think book reviewing is all about.
And yes, once upon a time I was supposed to do TEN BURPEES every time I read a review. Eek! But my new policy is “remember, it’s like a job interview!” It’s a very new policy, so we’ll see how it goes.
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