I interrupt your daily can-can of RITA Reader Reviews for… a few words on reviewing!
I keep thinking that someday we're going to be over the “Reviewers are mean bullies!” thing, or the whole “You didn't say nice things so I'm going to say mean things about YOU” thing.
Clearly I overdosed on optimism.
Here's what I don't think is clearly understood regarding online reviews and discussions:
This is how readers interact with books.
We react passionately and loudly and sometimes with big ladles of snark to the books we read. This is how readers talk about books. I believe that we always have.
The difference now, with all that social media and interaction, is that it's easier to find, and sometimes, difficult to avoid.
But everyone, authors, readers and everyone else, we are all driven and compelled and encouraged to interact with and create in response to the entertainment we consume. Reviews are part of everything now.
Clay Shirky wrote in Cognitive Surplus,
[Y]oung populations with access to fast, interactive media are shifting their behavior away from media that presupposes pure consumption. Even when they watch video online, seemingly a pure analog to TV, they have opportunities to comment on the material, to share it with their friends, to label, rate, or rank it, and of course, to discuss it with other viewers around the world.
Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Readers have always talked frankly about books that inspire reaction, positive or negative. With the addition of social media, we are less and less content to passively consume books – especially if, as is true for some romance readers, there aren't many people with whom we can discuss the books we read. Interaction about books online is the natural progression of our own reactions.
I've talked about this on panels at conferences before: it used to be when you drove into Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel (slowly, because there's traffic like you've never imagined) there'd be a big ass billboard for Absolut vodka. At the bottom: absolut.com.
For some time now that same billboard has instead directed people to facebook.com/absolut.
It is more valuable for that company to have consumers interacting and talking about their product on Facebook than it is to have their eyeballs on the Absolut.com website. A website, I imagine, they paid umpty-zillion dollars for.
The conversation and interaction in response to what we consume is essential. It is normal. It is not always positive. It is always valuable.
It is why we tweet during a tv show, and write recaps afterward. It's why we write reviews of movies on blogspots that maybe 6 people or 6 million people will read. And it's why we write reviews, positive and negative, online and off, about EVERYTHING.
Whenever I see someone react with outrage and pity for an author who received a harsh review here or anywhere, my reaction is always confusion and disappointment. When I read someone react with fury and pitchforks about a negative review, questioning the reviewers intelligence and biological makeup, I am completely baffled.
We're still angry that readers are honest about what they think about books? WHY? I'd rather honesty than false admiration and condescension.
You might have surmised that my writing here has been inspired by the “Stop the Goodreads Bullies” website, which posts pictures, names, locations and identifying information about reviewers they dislike.
Here's a perfect response to anyone who thinks this GR Bullies bullshit is a great idea from Foz Meadows:
[A]ny public figure, regardless of whether they’re an author, actor, sportsperson or journalist, must resign themselves to a certain amount of public criticism. Not everyone will like you, your work or even necessarily your profession, and nor will they be under any obligation to protect your sensibilities by being coy about it. A negative review might mean you lose sales, but that’s not a gross unfairness for which the reviewer should be punished, no matter how snarky they are: it is, rather, a legitimate reflection of the fact that, in their personal and professional estimation as a consumer of your work, they don’t believe that other people should buy it. And yes, you’re allowed to feel sad about that, but it’s still going to happen; it’s still going to be legal and normal.
What she said.
(Also, Kat Kennedy's new and improved autobiography in response to the site is brilliant.)
But let me put that another way. I don't believe the people behind that site are “other readers.” The response is so similar to the outrage and fury that greets bad reviews. And I think this needs to be said about creating entertainment and reviews:
Criticism that we don't like is part of what we signed up for when we published.
Let me say this again: bad reviews? Really long angry reviews about how insanely mad a book made a reader? Really wonderful squeeful reviews about how wonderful the book was? Reviews that say, “Meh”?
This is what we signed up for when we published.
This is what happens when we publish a book, a piece of entertainment for someone else to pay for and read.
We may have the most meanest critique partner in the world, but she is nothing to the reader who paid $9 for a book and was disappointed.
This is what happens when readers read books: we get irate sometimes and giddy other times. Now we interact more about the giddy and the irate, and that interaction, positive or negative, is valuable. More importantly, it's normal.
And this, by which I mean reviews in all flavors, is how entertainment works now: something is created. Someone consumes that creation. That someone will be encouraged in a variety of subtle and direct ways to interact or create in response to that something which was consumed. That cycle will continue.
The age of universal admiration and nothing but praise is long gone, and isn't coming back. It shouldn't. If we want the romance genre to grow, authors should be free to review books as candidly as any reader.
More than anything, we have trust readers. Trust that we (all of us as readers) are intelligent and able to make decisions individually and personally.
Trust that we can see through a review that was more about the author than the book.
Trust that most of the time, when we say we hated a book and rip up many words of ire as to why, we're talking about the book.
As for the GR “Bullies” crap, it demonstrates a belief that people are not intelligent enough to make decisions on their own about the motivations of a writer, to decide who they want to listen to, and who they don't. That the response to reviewers we don't like is not to stop reading or listening to them. That some reviewers are more valid than other reviewers, and that some reviewers should be humiliated until they stop reviewing.
Oh, no.
Reviews of all types are part of everything we consume now, from vacuum cleaners to hotels in Portland.
No book – no thing that is consumed – is immune or excused from review now. We are each of us more and more adept at discerning who and what we trust when we look for opinions.
So outing and attempting to shame reviewers for doing what everyone does in different forms and different venues is counterintuitive, cruel, and hypocritical (especially the part where those doing the exposing hide behind pseudonyms).
But beyond the existence of that or any other site, this idea that reviews aren't welcome in romance or in any genre continues to baffle me. Reviews, positive or negative, are essential. Reviews are part of social media. Reviews are part of everything. They aren't going anywhere.
So review something. Anything. Review all the things! And don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong. The answer to reviews is more reviews.
Thank you to BigStock for the image!
You ought to be spending your time running your household and being subservient to your husband and children, didn’t you know? How dare you have personal interests and an opinion?!?
Oh honey, I’m extra terrible at womaning: I’m childfree by choice.
Oh, nicely done! BTW, that updated post about you on the aforementioned site? Unintentionally hilarious. I’m reading your conversation with the author who bashed the readers of category romances and thinking “Well said! Thank you! Excellent point!” and then, “Wait, am I supposed to be appalled at this?” If this is their example of bullying behavior, talk about an epic fail.
I prefer Alice Roosevelt’s philosophy: If you can’t say anything nice, come sit next to me.
“You ought to be spending your time running your household and being subservient to your husband and children”
But don’t forget, if you stay at home to look after your children, you’re ‘unemployed’ and so are to be chided as a drunken layabout.
“So add “disabled person lacking deference” to my list of crimes”
They’re just jealous cos you’re pretty.
[Tries to imagine a deferent Ridley. Head ‘splodey]
I’m not arrogant enough to think I should review any book to advise another reader. I’m happy to review a book to give my personal opinion only. Everyone is different. What I like others may hate. I’d never advise anyone NOT to read a book. I can say I didn’t enjoy it, or it wasn’t well written etc
Reading, as with much in life, is down to individual tastes. In my job I welcome constructive criticism. BUT making a mockery of someone’s hard work in any profession is not constructive, especially if it’s to promote your own career or status. Some reviews I have read seem to be trying to make the reviewer look good at the expense of the author. That, in my opinion helps no one. Not the reader, the author or the reviewer.
Well, the book content are simple abusive. Some people may like some are not. As every personal tastes depend on person by person. so this book may not popular to all kinds of man. But I like this content of the book.
Dentist Newton Ma
Thanks
Ursula K Le Guin has a really interesting essay about how author’s interact with critics (she’s talking more about the academic variety, but the essay was written in the mid-eighties, before the internet), called “The Only Good Author?” In a lot of ways, the things she complains about (lack of author-reader interaction) are obviated by the internet, but clearly new issues arise. I’m traveling right now and don’t have the essay to hand, but it’s in the collection “Dancing at the Edge of the World” which is generally wonderful and definitely worth tracking down.
On a personal note, I always try to remember what a writing workshop teacher told me in high school about a given letter in the Times Book Review: “the etiquette is, if you don’t have friends who can write a scathing letter to the Times about the obvious mistakes in the review of your book, don’t write it yourself. It makes you look unclassy.” As I have chosen to go facebook-free I am friendless on the internet, so when I see the reviews that make glaring errors (e.g. the one on Amazon that’s a perfectly fair review, BUT OF THE WRONG BOOK IN THE SERIES, or the one that says condescendingly that a novel about the Spanish Civil War can’t really be compared to great Spanish Civil War novels like Hemingway’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS – which is about Italy during WWI, when the reviewer clearly means For Whom The Bell Tolls) I just do my best to laugh, and then grit my teeth and ignore them. I’ve never felt bullied, but there are times when I would have LOVED to make a snarky comment in response to clunkers like that. But there’s an old saying about lying down with dogs….
Well put, Sarah.
That site is disturbing. I find it highly ironic that they are bullying the people they claim are guilty of that very behavior.
As for reviews, I always state my reasons for liking or disliking something, and I won’t take a review seriously if it doesn’t do the same.
Gah—meant to post that under my name.
All of this is just so disturbing. And it only serves to reinforce my belief/opinion that authors should never never never never respond directly* to reviews, not even the snarkiest, stupidest, meanest, wrongest reviews, not even the nicest, sweetest, squee-est reviews. Just don’t do it.
If you don’t have many books out or you don’t have many reviews, responding makes you look desperate. Readers don’t want to know about your desperation.
If you have lots of other books and/or lots of other reviews, consider yourself damn lucky and leave well enough alone.
*If you feel you absolutely must respond to issues or comments made in a review, do it on your blog or something in a way that doesn’t call out the reviewer, or just fix the problem, or make sure your next book is better.
Just mho.
Not for nothing, we are artists and criticism comes with the territory. I always read 1 and 5 star reviews on books I am interested in because sometimes there are thought out reviews and other times someone gave a book 1 star cause the cover was ripped.
I have said this a million times, women are never supposed to say “mean things” because you can hurt someone’s feelings. Let it go. If you get hurt that easily then you are in the wrong field my friend. Rejection is part of the game, but you also have to remember to take it from where it comes. Someone does not like that your hero is tall and blonde so what? Someone wants the heroine to be thinner or taller or smaller? They should write their own book.
I also agree with the commenters who brought up Special Snowflake Syndrome. Makes me crazy. If you can’t handle the fact that we all do not believe your ass is cake, then by all means, leave.
Now let me throw myself under the bus here, I hate, HATE the “In Death” series by Nora Roberts for a variety of reasons, Eve Dallas gave me a twitch so bad I wanted to smack her senseless, BUT I would never insult or bully Nora Roberts, her family or readers who like her series. People who do that, what are they six years old on the play ground? If and when I get published I expect to read a few “book is crap” “lame” etc type reviews, but I am looking for the constructive reviews, the ones where it will make me a better writer. And I have no intention of interacting with the reviewers either.
You are right on.
I took a look at the bully website and I found it very disturbing – some of the author’s comments to the reviewers became very abusive. The name calling, long rants, and just complete nastiness was appalling. You can figure out who many of the authors were by looking at the books/sites they recommend. They are on my Do Not Read list.
These authors don’t need a website, they need therapy.
I hope you don’t mind, but I totally quoted you in my essay about the role Facebook plays in the effects of mass media on American culture (and I hope that’s okay!). The point you made about the vodka billboard and how as readers we have a drive to interact with others with similar interests is right in line with what my Media Influences on American Culture class is talking about. I love when my personal interests coincide with my academic interests!!!
RedHeadedGirl, I read that book after you reviewed it… just for the zombies. 🙂
I’ve bought many books based on bad or average review. Heck, how many copies of the nuttiest HABOs get sold based on people’s curiosity about the awesome wtfery described? A well-considered bad review is infinitely more helpful than a mindless gusher. Do some reviewers go a bit too far? Yeah, but it just goes with the territory.
This doesn’t happen when someone writes a bad review about a movie. Actors and directors don’t seem to have meltdowns, so why can’t authors behave like professionals?
Yeah, I’m going to join the ‘I’ll take a good bad review more seriously than a bad good review. I’ll buy books based on the former.
There’s a certain self-published writer who’s notorious for this kind of thing, even using much the same language. Plus the comments sure sound an awful lot alike.
I’m pretty skeptical about Amazon and Goodreads reviews, so I take them ALL with a large chunk of salt. A good rule is to toss out the five-star and one-star reviews and focus on the 2,3 & 4 stars (like scoring Olympic gymnastics). It’s easy to write both gushing non-analytical praise for a book and petty non-analytical snark. It’s harder to write a mixed review, objectively praising the good and thoughtfully sharing what you felt did not work. I may not agree, but I feel that people who write mixed reviews are probably being genuinely honest and fair-minded.
That said, I have experienced author backlash based on a negative review—which was negative about the work, not the author personally, and which I spent serious time on. The author blowback, actually, was the thoughtless, snarky, petty stuff in the end. As a result, I’ve never picked up another book by that author.
Just now I’m a little put off by Susan Elizabeth Phillips nice but sort of sad plea for her FB fans to go write something nice about an author somewhere to counterbalance the unexpected number of negative reviews she’s received for her latest book. She’s not specifically asking for fans to give HER good reviews, but the implication is there, plus she’s already got people responding by saying they’d be happy to write a five star review even though they haven’t read the book. That’s dishonest, and it cheats potential customers as much as reading a bitchy one star review written by a disgruntled fan. Plus, in all fairness, her latest book is pretty bad, and those who are giving her negative reviews are all pointing to the same glaring issues with the story. It’s not mean, nasty personal stuff. It’s honest and objective.
I think the “fandom” is the problem. In cultivating a following among social media, there’s a wee bit too much interaction between authors and their audiences sometimes. This means that the reviews these “fans” create are going to be personality-driven. They feel their fave author slighted them somehow on their FB page, so they retaliate with a negative review of their next book, or they’re so starry-eyed over being able to interact with their favorite author they’d give five-star reviews to that author’s shopping list if they could. This is not good for authors or readers.
A little more reserve and remove on the part of the author actually, IMO, fosters more respect from the reader, and would probably garner more thoughtful reviews.
I agree with this. In my case, I wrote a review that spoke strictly to the plot holes, the lack of character arc, and the deus-ex-machina ending. The author took it personally and left a very snarky comment on the review and then actually wrote a blog post asking her friends to flag it and have Amazon remove it. To Amazon’s credit, they did not.
“Now unless I’ve read it completely wrong, Sarah Wynde is not talking about the 1 star review being bullying, she’s talking about the fact that she feels she can’t respond to the glaring factual inaccuracies in the review.”
This was how I read it too, Charlie.
I frequently buy books based on the bad reviews. I rarely like the books that everyone likes so i will read the negative reviews to see why people did not like a book. If the reviewer has done their job they say why they gave it a bad review and that information is helpful. Prevents returns. Makes sales. Or just something to shrug shoulders and move on from.
Well said.
Late to this, but you’re absolutely right, a one-star review is not bullying. Nor did I say it was. Being put on a list of “author temper tantrums” if I chose to respond to a review would be bullying. In my opinion, anyway. Because it’s an attempt to shut people up. It has nothing to do with the quality of the books, it’s a way of threatening people into silence. And it’s not a review.
That said, I hadn’t read much of that site before posting, just their initial page, so I’d like to be clear that I’m not defending the site in any way. Ick.
“Being put on a list of “author temper tantrums” if I chose to respond to a review would be bullying. In my opinion, anyway. “
Why? I’m genuinely interested in knowing why you think it’s bullying, as opposed to just being mean? It doesn’t shut you up – no shelf has the power to do that – and while it hurts (as I know from direct personal experience of exactly this behaviour), you don’t have to look at it. You can avoid looking at your books on GR, you can close your account if you can’t make yourself leave it alone. No one’s following you around and forcing you to see insults, no one’s sending harrassment directly to you.
The dllution of the meaning of bullying – which is a far, far more seriously thing and more dangerous than one off acts of arseholery, meanness or insult – really worries me. It means people claim to be victims of something that they’re not, which means the victims of real bullying are dismissed as attention seekers. I’m not going to belabour this point but I wrote about it on my blog, quoting in full the definition of bullying from the Australian National Centre Against BUllying. If you’re interested, take a look. If not, well, up to you.
http://logophilos.net/blog/ind…