I want to throw a question out to some of you who are authors. On Zoe Winters’ blog, we were talking about reviews and how crazy and mean some readers are, etc. I was going to ask this question on her blog (since there are so many more people following it), but I didn’t want to use her blog for my own ramblings. The question is, how many of you actually respond to reviews on Amazon or other places? Does it depend on what the reviewer says or how personal they get with you? I recently responded to some negative reviews, and I got responses back from two different readers. One was kind of hateful and basically said authors shouldn’t respond to negative reviews because it was like a kid trying to get a better grade from a teacher or something like that. The other reader was very nice and explained more about why he hadn’t liked the book. My whole intent was to find out why they didn’t like it. I did probably piss off the first reader because she had said that “Blind Freddy” could have seen the twist coming. I thought that was a little too sarcastic, and said something to the effect that “Blind Freddy” must be good at that sort of thing, but none of my beta readers figured it out. I was also trying to interject some humor in my comment. Didn’t work. LOL Later I thought I probably should have let all of it go. But I’m one of those people who is laid back and easy going most of the time. So when something gets to me, it REALLY gets to me. Since things usually don’t. :0)
Do you respond to negative reviews?
September 23, 2010 by Lauralynn Elliott
15 Responses
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lauralynnelliott.com 
At best you’re going to get some of those that will actually tell you, constructively, what they think is wrong or could be better. Most are just trying to see if they can get a rise out of you or are jealous they can’t put two sentences together in more than a letter to their mothers!
Responding to negative reviews doesn’t seem like a great idea. I rarely see an author in a favorable light when I see that. That said, I responded to a negative review recently. My purpose wasn’t to argue with the opinions of the reviewer, which I made clear I believe she’s entitled to express, but to clarify something in the review I felt could mislead other readers. I think the point needed to be clarified, but I still have mixed feelings about having said anything at all. (It all went ok and didn’t blow up or anything.) I also stopped some friends from going in and defending my work. Even if you don’t send your friends to argue with the reviewer, if they do, you still look guilty to some. And why call all that attention to something that would just blow over?
I think the idea of trying to learn from the reviews has merit, but is the kind of thing it’s better to do in private, via email, if you can. And if not, maybe better left alone.
I sometimes do comment to good reviews on Goodreads, though I’m not consistent about it, and I always comment on blog reviews.
Generally I ignore negative reviews. Or, if I feel it was unfair in an illogical manner, I might click the “report this” button on Amazon.
I see only two reasons to respond to a negative review:
1.) For clarification. If a reviewer just said something like “this sucks,” then I’d want to know why. What made it suck? If I know, then perhaps I can make something not suck in the future. Or I’ll learn the reviewer is just an ass, and I’ll go about my day.
2.) If a reviewer is intentionally, personally nasty, I might respond, depending on what they wrote. I would try to keep things as professional as possible, without lowering myself to the reviewer’s level. However, most times on a review like this, I’ll just hit the “report this” button.
Jon, some people enjoy writing bad reviews. You can tell by what they say. I would never, ever be sarcastic or mean in a review. In fact, as I’ve posted before, if I had to give it less than 3 stars, I wouldn’t review it at all. I’ve heard other authors say the same thing…they won’t give really bad reviews. Because they understand.
Susan, I’ve seen authors respond to negative reviews and get into cat fights with the reader. And that kind of publicity can hurt the author. But the reader really has nothing to lose. My gut feeling is to not do it. In retrospect. LOL
Ty, sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to draw the line when it comes to whether or not something is personal. Books are personal to the author. But the attack is usually just on the book itself, not on the author. The safe thing, I guess, is to just ignore bad reviews. Unless they are abusive. Then, like you said…”report this”.
My policy is to not read my Amazon reviews anymore altogether. Amazon is a cesspool of crackbaby crazy.
I like your new blog btw.
Bad reviews are like most things on the internet; they never go away.
From my experience, the 1star ones are usually just mean. The 2star ones might have constructive criticism, but are mostly less venomous 1star. The 3star ones have the best indication of what could be “wrong” with he book and sometimes come off being positive.
In the end none off this matters since it’s your self-expression and it’s best to leave it alone.
Zoe, I agree. Amazon has some crazy readers. LOL.
Thanks! It definitely looks better than the old one. :0)
Andrew, I’m getting to the point that I’m just going to have to ignore some of the nastier ones. The first time I got a bad review, I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and almost burst into tears. My skin is getting thicker now. LOL. I try to focus on the 4 and 5 star ones.
I think when you read the better reviews it’s too tempting to read the bad reviews too. Unless it’s isolated on somebody’s blog and I get it in a Google Alert, I’ve stopped reading all reviews on places like GoodReads and Amazon. People will have opinions, some positive, some negative. Some will share them, some won’t. But none of it needs to encroach on my life or my writing.
I don’t need to see the negative crap spewed by someone I probably wouldn’t even like in real life anyway (Why try to impress someone you don’t even like?) And I don’t need to start buying my own press either by getting a big head over the positive reviews. So while I try to be as supportive and gracious to fans as possible and thank them wherever I can. I just ignore everything on GR and Amazon now.
Zoe, maybe you’ve found the best way to handle the whole thing. Because when I get a good review, I think “Yay, I just want to keep writing forever”. And when I get a bad review, I think “I must really suck. Maybe I should stop writing”. You’ve really made me think. And maybe fretting about reviews and whether or not I SHOULD keep writing is what is stalling me right now. Sometimes we just have to write and leave the rest of it alone.
Just keep swimming.
I just got my first negative review. Thing is, it makes absolutely no sense. It’s obviously hurtful, and painfully obvious that the reader didn’t read the book at all. I have to ignore it, but right now I have the two worst possible reviews on Amazon: a gushing review from a good intentioned friend and a hateful review from someone who must know and dislike me quite a bit. Talk about an uphill climb…
I’ve learned to just let those bad reviews roll right off my back. It was hard, but I finally realized I had to take the bad along with the good, and that not everyone will like what I write. And that there are some people who are just nasty about their reviews. Don’t give up.
If you can prove with reasonable certainty that the bad review is a personal attack/sabotage attempt and not a genuine review of your book, you can contact Amazon at dtp-support@amazon.com (I think that’s the email) and report the review.
Amazon removes reviews that violate their terms of service, including personal attacks against the author and obvious vendetta reviews if reported.
Thank you, Zoe. It’s tremendously appreciated.