Once More, with Feeling: Follow Friday for Writers

The rules

1)      Follow this blog.

2)      Click the quill photo and follow Elizabeth Sharp, the originator of this hop.

3)      Follow the featured author of the week, Nichole Chase

4)      Copy the image code found there and paste it in your blog. Add your name to the link at the bottom of the post while you are there.

5)      Copy and paste the rules in your blog, as well as this week’s question.

6)      Answer the question

7)      Follow, follow, follow. This is about networking, people, making connections with people in your community. So talk to us. We don't bite!

8)      If someone stops by, says hi and follows you, the polite thing to do is follow back.

9)      Comment here and introduce yourself and you just might find a new follower or two.

This week’s question:

Inspired by the spectacular melt down of Jacqueline Howett on Big Al’s Book Blog, how do you deal with a bad review?

Wait. Are we talking about a negative review, which is what Ms. Howett received, or are we talking about a bad review, which is not what she received?

A bad review would be one in which the reviewer is not competently executing what I think of as his duties. This describes a number of the reviews she received on Amazon.com after the debacle on Al's blog. Many of them were obviously written by people who read Al's review but not the book. How could you tell? They were using the same two sentences cited by Al in his blog's comments section and adding nothing new to the discussion. This also describes many of the five-star reviews she received, because they were written as jokes riffing on the title of her book and not as actual book reviews.

A good review is one in which the reviewer actually reads the book and then gives a fair assessment delivered in a well-written review. Big Al's review was a good one. In fact, he was more than fair. It also happens that Al's assessment was fairly negative. In his opinion, the book was not written well. 

In either case, I'll most probably learn what I can from the review and ignore the rest. A professional writer should probably be too busy busting out the next manuscript to worry about what reviewers say about something that's already published. In the case of a good but negative review, I might thank the reviewer for taking the time to review my work. In the case of a review that's actually bad, I'd probably just ignore the whole mess completely and not dignify it with a response.

Sing that to the tune of "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".