So you’ve written a book. You worked long and hard on the story, theme or educational value of your book, and you’ve edited it over and over again. Your one expectation is that readers will appreciate all of the thought and effort you poured into this book. You want your message to resonate with readers in a meaningful way whether it is informational/educational or pure entertainment. You want your book to make a difference. What you don’t want is criticism.
But I have to tell you, you cannot put yourself out there in any way, shape or form without attracting some criticism. Your job is to identify the source and intent of the criticism. Not always easy. It’s important, however, that you listen and learn when there’s definite value to your project and disregard those comments that appear to be sour grapes.
How do you determine when a seriously negative review is from a delusional knucklehead or an astute critic? The wrong approach is to disregard all bad reviews. Another wrong approach is to believe all bad reviews or all good reviews, for that matter. Here’s my rule-of-thumb:
- If the reviewer gives reasons for disliking your book, take a look at these issues and determine whether they are valid. Consider making changes. If the negative comment or suggestion is made by more than one reviewer, this could be a beautiful gift in disguise. Pay attention.
- If the reviewer rambles on negatively about one scene or one resource or fact, and no one else mentions this, you probably touched a personal nerve with this individual. I’d disregard it.
- If the reviewer is obviously somewhat illiterate, you probably can’t take his or her opinion too seriously.
- If the reviewer admits he or she doesn’t generally read books in this genre, they may not be the best reviewer for your book as they may not understand the genre.
Remember that the majority of people filter the material or stories they read through their own personal life experiences and belief system. So, when you promote your book to the masses, even within a particular theme or genre, you will generate a wide variety of opinions. The more reviews you get, the wider the scope of opinions.
One area of critique that I highly recommend you heed is when it comes to typos and other errors. I’ve reviewed books that were riddled with errors. When I notice that the main character’s name changes throughout the book, the author misspells words, punctuation is messed up, there are words missing or extra words and typos throughout, for example, I will not write a review. I will contact the author and strongly urge them to pull the book immediately and hire a proofreader and/or editor.
So that’s another way to encourage positive reviews or to cut down on negative ones. Produce the best product you possibly can by making sure you have dotted all of your i’s and crossed all of your t’s.
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