Bitchery reader Amy sent me a link to some interesting author reviews on everyone’s favorite free-for-all, Amazon.com. Seems Linda Bardoll has been responding in snark fashion to negative reviews of her book Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife.
Amy herself didn’t enjoy the book, and posted a review as such, which appeared among other more scathing reviews from folks who were downright irate at how much they’d disliked the book.
Bardoll has, in Amy’s words, “decided that she’s not going to take the criticism lying down, and is making an effort to rebut some of the more offensive one-star reviews by leaving replies to them such as:
Due to your outrage, we can only be grateful that you didn’t read farther. We might have to have sent for the paramedics. I do hope you borrowed it from the library and did not pay good money for it. If you did purchase it with so little research, it isn’t surprising that you are unaware that there are dozens and dozens of P&P sequels. I’m certain you can find one among them more to your liking. Really.”
Whoa. The book itself has 379 reviews, which is certainly buzzworthy, but among the 1-star reviews are comments, corrections, and rebuttals from Bardoll, along with, as Amy says, “a few people who’ve tried to remind Ms. Bardoll that it’s extremely bad form for her to reply to negative reviews this way, not to mention making her look very insecure…. To me, it’s as if Bardoll is really destroying her own credibility. It’s one thing to go on a rant on your own site or some obscure blog somewhere, but to repeatedly post snotty comments on a very popular and public site like Amazon?”
We’ve had authors argue with our reviews publicly and in email to Candy or myself, discussing our opinions and wanting clarification of a point or two that we made. No harm no foul. And I wouldn’t think it odd to see an author disagree with a reviewer – in a level manner. People have been pointedly disagreeing with Harriet’s reviews for awhile, authors and other reviewers alike.
But the snide tone and bucketful of sarcasm present in Ms. Bartoll’s responses is rather striking, and confusing. I’m not sure if she’s banking on the news of her behavior spurring discussion and ergo more press for the book, or if she’s not concerned with the effects of her commentary responding to the reviews on Amazon. Either way, given the reaction I’ve seen on SBTB alone from readers who say that the behavior or comments of authors makes them not want to read or buy an author’s books, I’m not sure her reactions are wise. Beyond the question of whether an author’s behavior should affect sales or if the product should stand apart from the relative crazysauce of a specific writer, comments I’ve read indicate that author behavior can affect sales.
Personally, I don’t care what an author does or says so long as the books are quality entertainment, but if an author espouses beliefs that I find truly offensive, I might be more likely to eschew a royalty-generating purchase in favor of a library procurement. But short of kitten-hating, pathos-spewing diatribes about how gays are teh eeeevil, for example, it takes a lot to get me to the library as opposed to clicking a sale online.
What about you – does author behavior affect your intent to buy? And how would you respond to reviews of your work?
Wow . . . I would do never do this. She might have finally proven that LKH is not alone in what I had thought of as her own little world.
I have at least one so-so/bad review on Amazon, and while I think the reviewer is way off base, she’s entitled to her opinion. What I thought was funny was that she intends to buy my next book, LOL!
I certainly wouldn’t go to Amazon and scold or belittle a reader (though if they made a statement about my making an historical error, and I was in fact correct, I might be sorelytempted to correct them on this point; with documentation of course).
You don’t respond to bad reviews. Who wants to end up being the Anne Rice of their genre, thanks to Amazon.com?
In two ways – you don’t if it’s something you find yourself annoyed over. Or, you send a thank you because the person read your book.
An author can NEVER win by rebutting negative reviews, especially at Amazon. Have I sent an email about something I’ve seen in a review (a spoiler, something they said was incorrect and I wanted clarification, etc) -yes. But if they hate some theme in the book or they think my sex writing is the tool of the devil or they just don’t like me or my choice of words – what good could come from arguing? It’s perception – we all have it and getting into some web drama over someone not liking our books makes us look stupid.
Sometimes you can turn it around and be funny and make it work. But it’s the rare few of us who are as clever as Daisy Dexter Dobbs.
I took a course on how to deliver education in an online environment. A *very* big point that was made was that sarcasm *never* works in an online environment where a longstanding relationship does not exist with everyone in the environment. As an author, I’ve never had a problem with any of my reviews, even the not so great ones. Nowhere is there a guarantee that everyone is going to be screaming “this is TEH BESTEST BOOK EVAH!!!” My reaction to the not so great ones: thanks so much for your time in reviewing this! The readers’ advisory slut of a librarian in me usually wants to take them in hand and find another book more to their liking, no matter who wrote it 😉
Incidentally, I read the Berdoll book and thought it was okay and even intriguing on a number of levels, although her psuedo-Austenesque voice was beyond cumbersome. I gave it 3 stars, and 2 out of 4 people have indicated they found my review helpful. I strongly suspect that one of those votes came from Ms. Berdoll herself. 😉
I’m sure it smarts something fierce for an author to have people criticise her work. I can understand the emotional, knee-jerk protective instinct to respond and defend the author’s labor of love. But this approach always seems to backfire. The deal with Berdoll’s book—and LKH’s, for that matter, since someone mentioned her in another comment—is that a great many people are saying the same thing. Therefore, maybe—just maybe—there’s some validity to the criticism. Isn’t it more productive for an author to absorb the criticism and figure out a way to make it work for her and her future writing than to allow it to affect her self-worth to such an obvious and well-publicized degree? Responding specifically to “negative posts”—or “negative readers”, as in the case of LKH—just makes an author look like an insecure, whiny, egocentric nutcase and feeds the rabid masses.
As I’ve stated in a previous comment (on another thread, but heck, it was said today), I write non-fiction articles, not novels. But I get reviews and comments back all the time. Many are positive. A few are corrections or otherwise clarification requests. Some are negative. It’s all fine; you put your work out there, you should expect that not everyone will like it. In some cases with negative remarks, I’ve tried to learn from them if I thought they had a valid point. I can’t improve without feedback, and not all feedback is positive.
That said, I don’t put up with personal attacks. And the one person who falsely accused me of copyright infringement last year? I want to find her and stomp on her head.
Totally unprofessional to attack people on Amazon, though. Right there on the purchase page of your book… why not just put DON’T READ ME, I’M AN ASSHOLE! on the cover?
Holy shit! That is brilliant!
I don’t think I would need the author to convince me I don’t want to read this book. The quotes in the reviews are enough.
Anne Rice’s was the best author meltdown on Amazon. Hands down.
I read Darcy and Elizabeth and wasn’t very impressed by it overall. It wasn’t terrible, but not great.
I missed the Anne Rice meltdown—was it really bubbly-ooey-goooey goodness? 🙂
Thanks! I was going to ask about it also (and if anyone can point us to it).
Yes, I’m evil.
Sue me.
Hm. I kind of like Berdoll’s books, more as a guilty pleasure than anything. And while I try to not let authors’ behavior (or actors or whatever) influence my desire to read their books… wow. Berdoll’s behavior sounds like a fourteen year old fanfic author responding to bad feedback. Being an asshole to readers in a public forum like Amazon just doesn’t seem to be the smartest way to drum up interest in your books.
Regarding Rice’s rant:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AB4F6UHL20U95/103-5433015-6124663?ie=UTF8&display=public&sort_by=MostRecentReview&page=4
The easiest way to find Rice’s rant, in my opinion, is to go through her reviews. Hopefully this link will work. The rant was in the body of a review she wrote for The Blood Canticle. Copy and paste the addy, then scroll about halfway down the page.
It does affect my intent to buy. Sometimes explicitly and sometimes not so explicitly.
If the behavior is something that I object to, I’ll take my book buying dollars elsewhere. I’m not the behavior-police, and authors can do whatever they want, but I don’t need to stick around and support it.
Sometimes, if the behavior is something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth but isn’t quite so objectionable to me, then I won’t necessarily take my book buying dollars elsewhere, but it’s still an association that I have in my head. And when I’m standing in the aisle at the bookstore trying to decide whether to purchase book A or book B, I’m going to go for the one without the bad association.
It used to be that the only thing that would turn me off an author would be the actual contents of the author’s book(s). With easy access to every comment from an author’s mouth (fingers?) via blogs and forums and amazon reviews(?!), I now have information that I didn’t have before. This information can affect my purchasing decision.
ferfe,
You mean to have DON’T READ ME, I’M AN ASSHOLE! on a cover?
I’d say it would work better as a 3rd person quote. So here’s the plan: Follow nora around on blogs for a while and perhaps she’d eventually put in some comment somewhere the right words which you could then pick up DON’T READ HER, SHE’S AN ASSHOLE!—Nora Roberts
If I were you, I’d aim for MJD actually.
*sigh*
All together now, can we say the word “professional”? As in, “I am going to act like a professional because I wish to be treated like a professional?”
I don’t respond to bad reviews of my books, few as they are.[g] I did contact a reviewer once who purely by mistake put my review in the paranormal section of her site. She quickly corrected it.
Beyond that, I move on. I’ve got books to write.
Yes, an author’s behavior definitely affects whether or not I’ll by his or her books. Hearing Harlan Ellison was an asshat at last year’s World Con (and his “Well what can you do? I am who I am” response) means Harlan Ellison will be starving and homeless if he’s depending on me for his living . LKH’s apparent descent into batshitcrazy-ville means I make a wide circle around her books when I see them. Authors attacking readers like this one is doing shoot right to the top of my “No How/No Way” list.
My husband and I have discussed this a number of times because he has the ability to separate the art from the artist more than I can (Jeremy Piven is his glaring exception). While I can agree that the art or the product should be judged on its own merits intellectually, I still react emotionally and allow an artist’s personal life (or at least my perception of it) to influence my purchases. I can try to intellectualize and say that this or that piece of art could only exist because this or that specific artist created it, thus in a way the art is the artist, but I don’t know if that’s really honest.
Even worse, though, is the fact that I can cop to a having double standard at times. The key for me seems to be when I learn about an artist’s idiocy: if I already know and love their work, I’m more likely to cut them some slack, shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, artists do have a tendency to interact with the world in ways I’ll never understand”. But if they are new to me, it’s a black mark against them and it takes an awful lot for that black mark to get washed clean.
I can’t decide if my mixed up filtering system is a product of the fact that I’m female and thus theoretically hard-wired to react with more emotion than a man, or if this is just human nature: we make choices all of the time and not all of them are based on rational thought and a balancing of pros and cons – choices do get made due to ‘gut feeling’ by both men and women all of the time.
“What about you – does author behavior affect your intent to buy? And how would you respond to reviews of your work?”
Even if it’s a negative review, if there is a comment section I thank the reviewers for taking the time to read my book. Because heaven knows, it’s not like there were no other books to read.
But if it were a scathing critique that made me want to slit my wrists when I was done, I probably would maintain a stoic Internet silence while downing an entire carton of Breyer’s Mint Chip and crying about it to my friends. Privately.
And yes: authors who behave badly do have an effect on my purchases. If an author becomes a scary diva who acts insane, I’m not going to buy her book. I have a number of authors on my Not In A Million Years list.
Is the infamous rant still up on amazon? I thought it was all deleted back in the day…
If you want a snarky nutshell of the whole affair, you could also try:
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/515245.html?nc=911
I have to say, I read a couple of the comments, and was actually pretty amused by Berdoll’s responses. They’re scathing, and funny, and they do point out that “OMG! DirtyBad!” is not actually a helpful review. They’re only comments so it’s not like they show up on the main page or in the stars ratings, and I’ve certainly seen the bitches here poke similar fun at bad/incoherent reviewers everywhere. Does Berdoll lose the right to even clever, well worded rebuttals simply because it’s her own work? She didn’t attack or invalidate the opinions of any of the reviews in the comments that I read…merely pointed out that you look kind of stupid when you buy X, and then complain that it didn’t fit into category Y.
I suppose it is unwise to alienate people who’ve spent money on you in the past. But honestly, for a group of people who do spend a good portion of our time finding teh stoopid on the internets and then mocking it, you’d think we’d be a little warmer to someone who – in the face of her own work being criticized – can separate out what’s a valid complaint and what’s reader expectation, and respond in a way that’s pointed and funny. Berdoll’s responses may not be the most socially acceptable things ever, but at least they’re not “OMG my precious baby!!!” histrionics.
On authors responding to bad reviews—sit on your hands, however tempting it might be to respond. Even if a disinterested observer would consider you justified. You’ll lose.
On bad behaviour by authors influencing my reaction as a reader—there are a rare few who have gone on my do-not-give-this-person-money list as a result of their public behaviour, including explicitly using their position as Big Name Author to promote opinions I find repellent. (Note that this is not the same thing as holding such opinions and expressing them in the con suite.) It’s mostly where the behaviour is extreme enough that I do not want to send any sort of signal that I consider it acceptable. It’s not as if I don’t have a “so many books, so little time” problem, so I’m merely making a choice between books to read, not a choice between book or no book.
Merely ranting about a bad review wouldn’t be enough in itself to put me off, although the ranting might suggest other reasons to avoid their books. In the Anne Rice review rant mentioned above, the fact that she considered “no more editors, ever!” to be something to boast about was enough to put me off buying her books. Some editors do a bad job, yes, but no writer is so good that they will never receive some benefit by having a good editor.
I curious how Sourcebooks would react/is reacting to this, even behind the scenes. They used her Darcy books as the flagship, so to speak, for their new line of romances, and Bardoll’s pair of books helped secure them RWA recognition. From a publisher’s standpoint, I wonder if this looks like good or bad publicity for their fledgling new project?
does author behavior affect your intent to buy?
This is a reallyreallyreally interesting point. I do believe in principle that only a book’s contents matter. But sometimes it’s soooo hard to ignore all that extra info, eckspecially when I’m on the cusp over trying a new author.
I find lots of books on Amazon that sound great. Then I read the author’s boring as hell, begging me to like them, I’m having a tuna sandwich but I can’t taste it because I have a cold, please buy the hardcover not the paperback Amazon “plog” and I’m utterly turned off. The author’s so uncool that I fear her book will have equal amounts of verbal diarrhoea.
I don’t stop reading an author because I find out she’s an asshat, but I do decide not to try a new author if her blog bores me or desperately need an editor. It’s not a moral “I can’t support an asshat!” It’s me being a picky reader and reading a sample to judge the quality of the author’s writing/ideas.
The Anne Rice/LKH debacles are a perfect example. They don’t believe in editors? I don’t need to read their unedited mess.
I read this comment by Berdoll on Amazon over a year ago, so I disagree with the assertion that she didn’t attack or invalidate any reader. And there are plenty more in the comments section of the page, separate from the reviews themselves. She’s been at the rebuttal thing since April of 06, as far as I can tell, and it stopped me dead in my tracks from buying a new copy of Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife. Being a new author to me, the first impression she made was not one of class or confidence. That doesn’t mean she’s not a genius writer, but are comments like that really aimed at luring a new reader to her book? IMO those comments are much more relevant to my buying decision than random rants and insults delivered on blogs.
In general, I try really, really hard not to let an author’s online behavior influence by buying decisions, although that it easier when it comes to authors whose work I already know and like (or not, as the case may be). For example, while MJD has not been a beacon of wonderful online conduct, IMO, it wasn’t her comments around blogland that disenchanted me; it was the fact that each subsequent Betsy book was shorter and more expensive than the last, with less and less depth and freshness, IMO.
Often what I do if an author says something that really infuriates me is buy one of her books used—that way, I don’t take it out on the work but I don’t send my money directly to the author, either. Although this is generally my strategy for new to me authors whose work I want to evaluate separate from the online persona.
As for Berdoll, I bought a used copy of Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife and haven’t yet been able to get through it. I have to say that some authors whose online conduct has offended me the most have also not been those auteurs who have wowed me with a special genius, either. Some authors who have been less than stellar online do put out books I continue to enjoy, even if I sometimes need a cooling off period between their remarks and my reading of their fiction. Talent doesn’t necessarily entail class, confidence, or kindness. But I DO find that I’m more amenable to trying the work of an author who impresses me online and have bought quite a few books based on a classy or thoughtful comment here or there.
[is now paranoid about her Amazon plog]
“She didn’t attack or invalidate the opinions of any of the reviews in the comments that I read…”
Hm. Here’s a direct quote from one:
“..it is clear the tone over the book flew right over your head. Many, if not most, readers understand that the outrageous euphemisms and language are part of the fun. Either you get it, or you don’t.”
That sounds pretty much like both attacking and invalidating to me.
But even the “you should have researched the book before you bought it” answers seem really petty. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to see that the book is a “P&P” sequel and to then assume that it would be written along the same lines as the original. Seems wrong to belittle people because they bought the book based on this assumption and were subsequently disappointed or appalled once they found out the book was not what they thought it was.
I bought the book as an impulse buy because I saw it in the store and thought a “P&P” sequel sounded interesting. So, it’s MY fault that I didn’t like it because I didn’t “research” it first? Should I also be a target of Berdoll’s wrath?
Kate R,
Think MJD would do that for me? I should ask.
So annoyed- my comment got lost.
What was I saying?…Ok. I think it’s childish to lash out that way. Austen fans are a bit nuts anyway (me included). If she was banking on the Austen craze to sell the book, then how can she be shocked by the reaction? She should have avoided Amazon like the plague. Reader reviews are for readers! The reviewers feel the way they feel. Maybe some of them aren’t very articulate but if Bardoll really wanted to read what the people who spent $$$ on her book, she shouldn’t complain if it ain’t pretty.
I haven’t read her book, I’ve heard bad things, and do not plan to now. I will enjoy the rants though!
If she got into a snit over at Amazon let’s hope she never sees this
http://www.pemberley.com/sequels/PandP/BarSinister.html
or this one lonely review
http://www.pemberley.com/sequels/PandP/DandEDaysandNights.html
my code was area13, far away from the more famous area51
DON’T READ HER, SHE’S AN ASSHOLE!—Nora Roberts
*snort!*
My first book comes out in Jan 09…Oh Nora? You interested in doing me a solid?
LOL!
I don’t know how I’ll react to my first bad review (I am sure that there will be some quiet time spent, curled up in a corner, rocking back and forth humming to myself…)but one thing I know for certain, I’ll never rebut in public. I’ll verbally (not in writing…because, I think we’ve all learned a lesson about that) rant to my closest friends, shed some tears, and gasp in outrage, but I’ll NEVER rebut in public. It is UNPROFESSIONAL. The writing can always be improved. But damaged reputation is hard to recover from…
I only read ONE of Berdoll’s replies and it was unfathomably petty. (I doubt that I’ll read any more because wow, talk about being batshit crazy. That woman is nuts.)
By the way, in the only reply of hers that I read, she wrote:
“Perhaps you were in such a snit over the chamber pot that you couldn’t read clearly.”
I think what lovelysalome said makes good sense—how do you suppose her publisher feels about her bizarre desire to inappropriately snark on people who submit critical reviews of her book?
And I saw the link posted about LKH but how was that a negative response to criticism? I know absolutely nothing about what might have gone on before the odd photos but the photos just seemed odd to me, not insane. Although I’m a big LKH fan and her books have definitely gotten a lot less sane as she’s grown in popularity but I’ll still purchase them.
Which brings me back around to the original question. I tend to separate the author’s behavior from their work. As I said, I like LKH’s books (although they are definitely NOT romance in any way) and will continue to purchase them no matter how batshit crazy she is.
Although sometimes I’ll check out a new author because I’ve read her well-reasoned and polite internet postings. I’m always looking for the next book to buy.
[is now reading your Amazon plog and thankfully sees no mention of tuna sandwiches ;]
[grin]
My LiveJournal contains ramblings about duck confit and the like, but that’s my LiveJournal, and the primary audience is my friends and others who might actually be interested recipes, daily word count, book reviews and social chit-chat about writing. I keep that stuff *off* the Amazon plog. Anything that goes on Amazon had better be something I think might actually be useful/of interest to someone who doesn’t know me from a bar of soap, but has bought one of my books or is thinking of doing so.
I think what lovelysalome said makes good sense—how do you suppose her publisher feels about her bizarre desire to inappropriately snark on people who submit critical reviews of her book?
While I found Berdoll’s comments condescending in the extreme, I do hope that publishers aren’t making professional decisions based on the personal insecurities and comments of their authors. It creates the same kind of discomfort in me that a certain very well-known editor did in commenting that she wouldn’t work with anyone who had criticized one of her authors (that is, if she got word of such criticism—not like that would have motivated anyone to tattle). I realize that at some point an author’s personality might be a serious liability for an editor or a publisher (like when said personality interferes with said editor and publisher’s ability to do their job), and this is probably more the case with authors who aren’t likely to break the curve with their sales, but still, it creeps me out to some degree to think of publishers and editors as concerned with whether an author is nice enough. Although I don’t think it would be inappropriate for Berdoll’s editor to suggest to her that she looks like a flaming a-hole for making some of those comments to her *readers*. Like over a friendly opiate-laced glass of wine (anyone else watch House? You’ve got to give it to Wilson for sheer sneakiness).
>>Although sometimes I’ll check out a new author because I’ve read her well-reasoned and polite internet postings.<<
“Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! pick me!” she said, jumping up and down and waving her hand wildly.
Sorry. It was too good an opportunity to just let it slide by.[g]
And I know I should have capitalized that second “p” in “Pick”. I wish there was a “Save me from myself!” edit button here.
“Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! pick me!†she said, jumping up and down and waving her hand wildly.
I already did, Darlene, but I haven’t read the book yet.
Thanks, Robin! It’s music to my ears. Or pixels to my eyeballs. Or something.
I never meant that her publisher should reprimand her for what she is doing, I simply wonder how they would FEEL about it. Not what they would DO about it.
(And I thought it was great when House slipped Wilson some speed. Especially because he pulled a “Princess Bride” like switch on Wilson, deliberately offering him the unlaced espresso, knowing that Wilson would select the espresso House had chosen for himself. I love that show so very much.)
But I agree that I would not want publishers to dictate to their authors how they should, and should not, conduct themselves in public. I simply wondered how a company would feel about an independent contractor (I work in construction, so that’s the closest metaphor I could think of for the author/publisher relationship) making a bit of a fool out of herself. It’s certainly her right to do that but, again, I agree with you and think that it wouldn’t be out of line for her editor/publisher to politely tell her that maybe she’s being a bit too aggressive. And perhaps should channel all of that anger into her next book.
(And Wilson should not only get credit for sneakiness, but for actually getting one over on House for quite some time. Fooling House is no easy task.)
This is making me go out and get the book at the local library just to see how bad it is.