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?
I have no problem with warm wet dribble. (It’s intimate, it’s slippery, it cools the sheets on a warm night.) But I have a problem with Mr Darcy saying that.
I had a mixed reaction to the Berdoll book. As a book in the style of Jane Austen it’s terrible. As a smut read it’s on the squicky side (not just the menstrual juiciness either). Overall the writing was OK, not the best but it had interesting characters… though it was weird and wrong that they shared the names of Austen characters. None of whom they resembled. At all.
I decided not to write an Amazon review. It would be too easy to sound like an uptight “that’s not Austen!” or a judgmental “ew! sex!” review. Both of those have already been said, many times. I think it’s an OK book. It would be a better book (though likely less popular/controversial) if Berdoll had tossed the Austen theme and let her characters stand on their own.
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< Nor was his request, in another part of the book for Elizabeth not to bathe after an encounter just before they were to host a party so that he might walk around during the party and get his jollies thinking about how his semen would be running down her legs. I mean, ew.)>
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Eww eww eww ewww
Darcy? C’mon. That would NOT turn me on. Yuck! Know your audience!!!
Now I just watched Jane Eyre (2006) DVD and there is a part where Rochester does his best to tempt Jane to stay. Can I say that I would not have left, if he did that to me!! Now that’s sexy.
If I’d read an excerpt from the book in question, which I should’ve done before lipping off, I’d know exactly where I fell on this issue.
I couldn’t care less what’s dribbling down whose leg under what circumstances…as long as the story is cohesive and engaging, the use of language is masterful, and the characters are sensibly developed. Flat or overwrought or club-to-the-knee prose turns me off faster than a diva can say, “Fuck you if you don’t adore me.”
I’ve managed to persist in reading (and end up admiring) some truly bizarro fiction—from Faulkner to Barbara Vine and even H. P. Lovecraft…and earlier…and later—in large part because certain writers, no matter how “squicky” the subject matter, know their way around the language and can even be stylistically enchanting. Regardless of how plump with promise the kernel of a story might be, if it feels insipid and is rendered the way Quasimodo would dance a quadrille, it’s chicken scratch. (Should I add some dumbass shorthand like IMHO? No.)
So now I suppose I’d better read me a bit of this Austenesque romp and decide for myself if it’s merde or magic.
…“Darcy? C’mon. That would NOT turn me on. Yuck! Know your audience!!!”
Exactly. And I think that’s one of the reasons why the book is getting such scathing reviews from some people. Not because there’s some kind of “moral majority” plot against books with sex in them, but because often Austen readers are different than those who read erotica. Many of them expect that if it’s an Austen themed book, it will read much like Austen. It didn’t. And while some people were ok with that, some weren’t.
Given that, I have to say I can understand why some were so shocked, and reviewed it so badly. It’s a book that looked like an Austen book but was in fact totally different from the style they like and were expecting.
Having said that, I think the author should have some understanding of why the book just didn’t do it for some people, and react to those reviews accordingly. She’s said before that she knew what she was writing would be a big departure from typical Austen writing, so why get so uptight when people complain about that very thing?
It would be like me writing a “fan fic” type book…say a sequel to the “In Death” series (had to use that as an example as a small tribute to Nora) then putting no Eve & Roarke sex at all in it. Or..have them get a divorce or something. I’d expect people would give me some seriously bad reviews.
Which is why I would never attempt it. Ever.
OMG, my head hurts reading her responses. First I will answer as an author and say, suck it up. Not everyone is going to like you. I have had some horrible reviews, one complained I had too much plot, but that is their opinion and if you are going to stick it out there, you have to accept those comments. Any kind of mention of your book, good or bad, is still publicity for you. The thing authors shouldn’t do is act unprofessionally in public, and AMAZON is public. I think some people are confused about the Internet. Yes you can scrub some sites, but once it is there, snippets are emailed, and sometimes people will save a screen shot. I have also been appalled on private publisher/author loops, where authors plead for people to write to amazon on their behalf and get reviews removed. There are some who post with malice, but what are you going to do? And just because someone bought your book and hated it, well, there isn’t much you can do about it other than be bigger than they are. And one thing I have done on some private blogs is offer a free copy of one of my books for review if they did not like the first one(they usually pick my first contracted work to review which after 20 short stories, novellas and novels, I have MUCH improved, lol). Since the private bloggers many times buy the book, at least they are offered a free one, although they may hate that one too, ha.
As a reader(and I have the over 500 paperbacks and hardbacks to prove it and an ever expanding ebook collection), there are people I will NEVER buy again because the way they behaved in public and especially toward readers. Geez, I do not understand biting the hand that feeds you. In fact there is one in particular I LOVE that I will not because of the big RWA blowup a couple years ago. It kills me, but I cannot abide people lying and she did a lot of it during that mess. Truthfully, if you want to write popular fiction, you are going to be in the spotlight a lot, and you just have to accept you have a public personality and a private one. As Amelia said, go off in private with a friend bitch to your heart’s content, that is acceptable, but attacking people is not the way to go.
As everyone said, it looks like the woman did not understand the market and Austen readers are particular about their books. I love Austen but I doubt I would pick up this book based on the fact I HATE when other authors use other people’s characters.
[…] certain writers, no matter how “squicky†the subject matter, know their way around the language and can even be stylistically enchanting.
I may get laughed at, but I feel this way about some of Stephen King’s work. Yes, his descriptions of horrific things are, well, horrific, but I can become lost in them. Not only do you “see” the evil monster grab the unfortunate victim, you smell its breath. You see the texture of its skin and feel its clammy grip. When the victim draws in a breath to scream, you, the reader, taste the fetid air.
Maybe King’s not the world’s best at description; I’m not going to hazard a guess on that because others are so much more widely read than I am and I’m not into the who’s-best game. (Clearly, I’m best. Duh.) But his books were the first ones that really clued me in to using all the senses, and did so in such a vivid way that I had nightmares for weeks.
May I someday write such powerful, unforgetable descriptions!
Ugh. After reading some of these comments that talk about Darcy waving his menstruation-covered fingers around triumphantly, I’ll pass for sure. I wouldn’t buy her work anyway. It’s fanfiction of a work that is now in public domain, nothing more. There is plenty of FREE, much better written P&P fanfic out there for reader consumption.
As for responding to a bad review? Don’t. There are times when silence is golden. This is one of them. It’s a natural human reaction to defend yourself and defend your work. But, a person’s reading taste, what turns them on or turns them off, is very subjective and not something really up for debate. That, and I’ve yet to see an author who confronts a reviewer over a negative reviewer come out looking anything but silly, hysterical or suffering from sour grapes.
My buying habits for authors behaving badly? Depends on the author and their work. I keep in mind a friend’s comment. She loved the work of a particular author. The author was an auto-buy for her. Then my friend witnessed a nasty flame war on a site or blog, where the author was hip deep in it and making a complete ass of herself. My friend said that was the moment she went from horrified fan to empowered consumer. She hasn’t bought anything from that author again.
This is a business that has adapted to the increasingly small space made by the Internet. The product’s selling power is very much affected by presentation. That can be from the book cover and back blurb to the author’s public behavior.
To quote another poster here, I’m not the behavior police, but I will be more reluctant to put money in the pocket of an asshat author. I’d much rather spend it on an author who may write as well but understands what professional demeanor is.
Wow. This woman is clearly a bitch. And a crazy bitch, too, if she honestly thought that fans of Jane Austen would want to read about Darcy’s semen and Elizabeth’s vajayjay. I wasn’t planning on reading either of her books, but if I did now, it would be very difficult for me to disregard her online behavior and make an honest assessment.
Having said that, lollerskates at her mixing up “farther” and “further” in the first reply. You would think that someone jumping down people’s throats about typos would be a little more diligent in their proofreading.