Bad reviews and angry authors

[Dave Rosenthal]

On The Baltimore Sun's book blog (www.baltimoresun.com/readstreet) we've noted the recent discussions about bloggers who post tough reviews -- and get hammered. Recently, a blogger dissed a self-published author's book, and got a snide, anonymous comment, as well as threats of legal action for posting an excerpt and the book's cover. Many bloggers are justifiably outraged, and some note that they do not post negative reviews, to avoid offending anyone.
Do you shy away from giving a bad review? Have you ever had an angry response from an author? Is the reaction worse from self-published authors?

[Linda Mayfield-Hayes]

Nobody wants a bad review, but I believe that if and when you receive one it should be taken as constructive criticism. I recently passed my new book, "Grandma's First Computer" to a friend of mine who is retired and volunteers at an elementary school reading to young children. She got back to me giving me some of the feedback she got from the kids. I was able to use this information to go back and make a few changes to my book. Now it's a much more informative story.

[David Lumin]

Being a self published author myself, I have come across three different types of reviewers.

The first being the best. The ones who give you an honest opinion of your work without making snide remarks about your writing style. These are the reviewers I like. Whether or not you like the book is not what I'm looking for. I look for an honest opinion.

The second aren't so good. The wishy-washy reviewers who say, the book was good or bad. But don't say what was good or bad about it.

The third type. This is the reviewer I do not like so well. They bash the book. They bash the writer. And then they bash the publisher.

As a writer, I do not expect everyone to like my books. But what I do ask for is professional courtesy when reviewing.

I mean, no writer wants to hear, Hey your book stinks. Or you can't write. But people do use those phrases. Next time you read a self published book, try to put yourself in the writer's shoes. Don't be harsh. Be honest, but fair.

[cait]

Snide is in the eye of the beholder.

Again, while I can understand how hard it might be, I think the author has to step back from the review a bit. It is not about them...I don't even know them! And I don't know the publisher.
All I have is what they have written and put out there for all of us to consume, the book. When I say that in my opinion a book is badly written, it does not mean they are a bad person...or even a bad writer, just that this book that I am reading is badly written. Yes, it is my opinion, but I try to back it up...and you can take it or leave it.

[Norm Goldman]

This is a very good question that I have posed to my reviewers at Bookpleasures.com.

I encourage our reviewers to write honest reviews that don't murder the author and/or book. However, I do encourage constructive criticism. Personally, for the most part, when my reviews have mentioned some of the shortcomings of a book, authors, publishers and publicists have been generally appreciative of my comments. Occasionally, we have run into some nasty feed backs from authors and this seems to be more from self-published authors. Unfortunately, many of these self-published books lack proper editing and as a result we note the spelling and grammatical errors as well as the structure. A common pitfall is the overwriting and just bad writing.

Norm, Bookpleasures.com

[dovegreyreader]

So late to this party I expect everyone's gone home but I decided from the outset (nearly 3 years ago now) that I wouldn't do excoriating criticism on my blog, I only write about books I've loved because to be honest time's ticking on and I don't have any to waste on books for which I often think I'm just the wrong reader. Plenty of people out there who will be the right reader for them and I'm not going to diminish their reading experience because no way do I feel qualified to do that.
So from all of that you may also deduce that I don't call myself a book reviewer because that involves being objective about my reading and I don't do that either. I'm a flouncy, pouncy book tigger because this is all about a love of reading good books and sharing that passion about how a book has affected me emotionally, why I'd press it on you if we met in the street etc.
I've been criticised for taking that stance too but hey, it's my blog and nobody pays me a penny to write it, the day someone offers me a fortune who knows, perhaps I could do 'tough reviews' but until then it's Mrs Nice Guy here in Devon UK :-)

[Amy]

I was actually thinking about this the other day, because even bad reviews on a blog can lead to sales for an author. Really, if you want to promote books you love, the best way to do it is only to review books you love. I think it's great you do that, as its your blog and your choice!

[Trish Collins]

I understand why a blogger wouldn't want to post negative reviews.

However, here's the reason I *will* (and have) posted negative reviews: I started my blog to talk about books like I would talk about books with friends. When I talk about books with friends, I don't only talk about the good books, I also talk about the bad books as well.

With that said, books that may have gotten a negative review from me (such as Atonement), often get cast aside in favor of something else. So for the most part my reviews are positive.

But again, I think it's totally fair for a blogger to only post positive reviews. It might not be the way that I blog, but I guess that's okay. ;-)

[Musa]

I think even a bad review is better then no review at all, I just wrote a book and I had some people say some pretty bad things about my book. But you know I wrote the book for me, and I enjoyed doing it. I think if you can't take a bad review your in the wrong business and should keep your writings in your journals.
That's what I did for almost ten years, I never allowed anyone to even take a peek. I guest for me one reason was because I know I don't have the best grammar in the world.
Here is what I think if you can find someone to say the worst thing they can think of about your work, your in business.
It means they took time out to look at your work.

[Dave Rosenthal]

Norm,, that's good advice for reviewers. It's also helpful to remember that there are lots of ways to evaluate a book: writing style, plot, character development, emotional punch, etc. When I talk to reporters about a story, I always try to start the discussion with some praise. That starts the discussion on a positive note and makes any criticism easier to handle. I've also found that even stories with major flaws have redeeming qualities.

[Musa]

I think ur right, some companies out there will pay even for a bad review it means, that's how they improve on their products and that's how you improve on your writing. You also have to look at it like this, it would be good if everybody could sell a million copy's of their first book. Real Bad criticism may be writing your next best seller. You know know what the market thinks about you.

[Ruthie @ Ruthie's Book Reviews]

The only thing that I can think of is, once I read and reviewed a book by an author, who was really sweet in the beginning until it seems that she read my review and then never spoke to me again, but I didn't apologize because I was just expressing my opinion. I don't know what else to say, but that everyone is not going to love all of the books that they read. That's just the way it is - but when I don't like a book I just say on my blog - 'Don't take my word for it, check it out yourselves!'

[Lexie]

I try very hard to post my reviews in such a way as to make it clear that while I didn't like the book there were elements that I did enjoy. On the occasions when I just can't stand a book--for whatever reason--I save my ranting for my personal blog and write a short paragraph about the book on my book blog stating that this book was not to my liking and I could not fairly review it. A lot of times when I take an extreme dislike to a story or book I tend to not be as eloquent or gracious (leaning more towards the extreme emotionalism that isn't constructive feedback at all and more of a 'omg did I hate this' variety) which isn't fair to an author to have to read in a public forum.

As for grading self-pub differently..I agree that the standards should be the same as a house-published book. I've read some very good self-pub'ed books and from those the author gets picked up by a major house, then again I've read some barely comprehensible self-pub'ed books and can see why the author was rejected by every major publishing house in the world. I sometimes wonder if the self-pub'ed authors who do get rejected, but then suceed with their book and get picked up by a House if it was just the editor or agent who didn't like the story and another one would have.