Well I woke up on this beautiful morning and checked a few sites on the internet, my usual routine that has become more of an addiction...including checking to see if any new reviews of my books popped up. I find that getting reviews is the hardest thing an author has to overcome these days. I'm not one of those people that employs friends to write reviews if and when they read my books. It's nice receiving a text message every now and then from one of them saying they just finished one of my books and loved it. Definitely an ego boost, however most hardly ever actually get onto Amazon and write a review (something I wouldn't ask them to do, I believe it should happen at its own pace and in its own time)
HOWEVER recently I had a day where three of my books were having a free promotion via amazon kindle and thus was hoping that maybe someone would get the urge to write a review. I'm pretty sure half the people that downloaded my book are the typical kindle hoggers who download every free book when one comes available, though hardly ever get around to actually reading it. But you never know.
And now here I am, Sunday morning, I wake up and read a review that drops my heart a few paces behind...a 1 star review. WOW impressive, didn't know I could write so bad lol! At first I thought about responding to the reviewer, though I didn't know exactly what I was going to say. Then I thought, well, I wonder what other reviews this person has written. Is he someone who has many reviews on amazon, are they all negative ones giving me a reason to discredit him. Well, in a way maybe, but no I didn't find any other reviews written by the poster. Zero others. He has no reviews anywhere else on Amazon, which kind of makes me feel somewhat better, but not great. Who knows maybe its some author who has beef with me for one reason or another, or maybe it really is a real review from a real reader.
So the next thing I did was type a question into google: how to deal with negative reviews and I found this article: www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/06/14/how-to-read-a-bad-review-advice-for-authors-and-buyers/2
It actually contains pretty good info and tells the writer to think of a bad review as criticism, thoroughly read it and see if you can take away any good info, like if the review states that there are a lot of grammatical errors then as a writer you know to focus on this area more in future work. However the review I got has nothing to do with editing errors (which I'm surprised, because as a new writer, the cash fund behind sending my work off to editors is non existent, forcing me to edit my work over and over again myself and then having a family member edit it as well) The review solely deals with my story and in one word or another, it was boring and depressing to him. WOW not really sure what I can take from that, but I will do my upmost best. HA.
Good news is...I didn't write the story to be a feel good book, I wrote it to shed light on many problems that families and teens face. SO I guess that part definitely got across to the reviewer. GOOD FOR ME!
Either way, you look at it, everyone has to recieve bad reviews at some point in their life, and this one probably won't be the last. That's what happens when you write and put your stories out there for others to read. Though I HOPE to see some better reviews in the near future countering this one: http://www.amazon.com/Silently-Screaming-ebook/dp/B00A7LECPQ (other great news is that it appears a guy wrote the review. And quite honestly, I didn't know men saw this as a tempting book to read and then on top of that felt upset enough to write a review about it. SO that makes me happy, I'm glad I'm reaching a wider audience than I thought)
GOOD LUCK to all you writers out there, it's a harsh world, but worth it!!! Take all your bad reviews as wounds to be proud of, because somehow that you means you 'made it'. :-0
HOWEVER recently I had a day where three of my books were having a free promotion via amazon kindle and thus was hoping that maybe someone would get the urge to write a review. I'm pretty sure half the people that downloaded my book are the typical kindle hoggers who download every free book when one comes available, though hardly ever get around to actually reading it. But you never know.
And now here I am, Sunday morning, I wake up and read a review that drops my heart a few paces behind...a 1 star review. WOW impressive, didn't know I could write so bad lol! At first I thought about responding to the reviewer, though I didn't know exactly what I was going to say. Then I thought, well, I wonder what other reviews this person has written. Is he someone who has many reviews on amazon, are they all negative ones giving me a reason to discredit him. Well, in a way maybe, but no I didn't find any other reviews written by the poster. Zero others. He has no reviews anywhere else on Amazon, which kind of makes me feel somewhat better, but not great. Who knows maybe its some author who has beef with me for one reason or another, or maybe it really is a real review from a real reader.
So the next thing I did was type a question into google: how to deal with negative reviews and I found this article: www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/06/14/how-to-read-a-bad-review-advice-for-authors-and-buyers/2
It actually contains pretty good info and tells the writer to think of a bad review as criticism, thoroughly read it and see if you can take away any good info, like if the review states that there are a lot of grammatical errors then as a writer you know to focus on this area more in future work. However the review I got has nothing to do with editing errors (which I'm surprised, because as a new writer, the cash fund behind sending my work off to editors is non existent, forcing me to edit my work over and over again myself and then having a family member edit it as well) The review solely deals with my story and in one word or another, it was boring and depressing to him. WOW not really sure what I can take from that, but I will do my upmost best. HA.
Good news is...I didn't write the story to be a feel good book, I wrote it to shed light on many problems that families and teens face. SO I guess that part definitely got across to the reviewer. GOOD FOR ME!
Either way, you look at it, everyone has to recieve bad reviews at some point in their life, and this one probably won't be the last. That's what happens when you write and put your stories out there for others to read. Though I HOPE to see some better reviews in the near future countering this one: http://www.amazon.com/Silently-Screaming-ebook/dp/B00A7LECPQ (other great news is that it appears a guy wrote the review. And quite honestly, I didn't know men saw this as a tempting book to read and then on top of that felt upset enough to write a review about it. SO that makes me happy, I'm glad I'm reaching a wider audience than I thought)
GOOD LUCK to all you writers out there, it's a harsh world, but worth it!!! Take all your bad reviews as wounds to be proud of, because somehow that you means you 'made it'. :-0
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