In the romance world, there’s many an unspoken rule as pertains to authors and reviewers and whatall. Used to be you weren’t supposed to give incisive reviews of romance novels that said (*gasp*) critical or even mean things about a book.
Yeah, oops, we blew right by that rule, didn’t we?
Another unspoken rule: if thou art an author, thou shalt not speak unkindly to or about a review thou hast received.
So what happens when the reviewer, a reviewer in a Hugely Powerful Publication Of Much Circulation (HPPOMC), gives a review that is totally, completely, utterly, asshattedly wrong?
Note: Details obliquely masked for fun guess-who-ing.
A rather fruitful author has co-written a novel with a few other fruitful and popular authors. It’s not an anthology (a word that would strike fear in the hearts of those who order books, since anthologies do not sell well of late) or a series of interconnected novellas in one cover. It’s a novel with more than one protagonist pair.
Seems the HPPOMC reviewer labels it in the review as three novellas AND as a novel, then recommends the collaborating group write a novel next time.
“Huh?” says SB Sarah.
“Gross mislabeling and the kiss of death,” says the fruitful author. Said author questions with ire whether the HPPOMC reviewer read the book in the first place.
Now, we’ve talked about reviewers who give away the ending a la Harriet Klausner, and the negative backlash against those authors who snark back at reviews they don’t like. But what do you do when a reviewer in a Hugely Powerful Publication Of Much Circulation gets the type of book and details wrong, so wrong that you, the author, question whether the reviewer read it in the first place?
The authors are tempted to take pen to paper and dish out a helping of cannon fire at the HPPOMC, stating that the review as written makes it clear that the reviewer was phoning it in, never read the book, and needs a right smackdown. But of course, they don’t wish to look like whiny dweebs who grouse at the sign of a negative review, even though it’s not the negative review they’d be focusing on, but the part where the reviewer got it so wrong it’s questionable as to whether said reviewer ever cracked the spine.
What would you do?
Do you speak up? Do you write the publication and say, “WTFBBQ?” Do you let it be? Do you take to the internet? How far can an author push against the “Act like you don’t care and say nothing unkind about reviews” rule when that review gets the subgenre and format of the book itself oh, so very very wrong?
Having been the recipient of many mediocre and some outright hateful reviews, I’ve only taken exception with one (from an HPPOMC) because I felt the reviewer pointedly disliked a character’s political opinion and used that as an excuse to attack the book. I complained fervently to the grand poohness in charge of the HPPOMC, who insinuated that I must be a neophyte who had not developed sufficiently tough skin, although I pointed out that her HPPOMC had given me bad reviews in the past without hearing a peep from me. At any rate, complaining was an exercise in futility and my only victory was in pulling my future miniscule ads, which I’m sure affected the HPPOMC’s bottom line the way a gnat affects the windshield of a highspeed train. So my advice is: register your complaint with the boss of the reviewer, for the record, in the hopes that one day a fistful of such complaints will get said reviewer fired. Then guzzle some tequila and move on.
Never having been published, I’d view it as I might a school assignment of some sort.
If you get a lower grade than what you think you deserved, go to the marker and ask them for reasons as to the lower grade. If their judgement seems questionable, take it above their heads. Get a second opinion. Go to the dean. Or something.
My verification word is “western86”. So evidently the internet’s opinion is that one ought to take matters into their own hands and dispense some vigilante justice upon those who have brought unjust shame and dishonour upon oneself by robbing their train.
I think Je—I mean, the unnamed author did exactly what I would have done: passive-aggressively mentioned it on her blog in the hopes that her faithful minions would blast HPPOMC with hate-ish mail. Good for her, I say.
Register a complaint. If the HPPOMC has any desire to appear to be even handed they will either publish the letter or acknowledge an error had been made. This is probably only good for personal satisfaction.
As a reviewer, I would hope that someone from the reviewee’s camp—be it a publicist or the reviewee themselves—point out that I’ve made a grievous error and one that needs to be corrected ASAP—and I would hope that they would do it in a way that doesn’t imply I screwed up or was malicious on purpose. I try to be as accurate and as fair as I can be in my reviews, and I think I’ve succeeded. At least no one has complained about anything I’ve written about their books (well, I can think of two cases, but they were special cases one of which involved an author who is not known for their, ah, stability).
Clarification: As far as I *know*, no one’s complained (apart from those two special instances)—my editors very well could have a file folder full of complaints about how awful I am and I just don’t know it.
I’ve had only one review I had a problem with, and it was because a rather major plot twist was revealed in the review. As in, the final twist that I spent the entire book building up and working toward. The reviewer said, oh, WHOOPS, sorry ‘bout that, and took that info out ASAP. It was all very polite and easy.
I’d wonder if the same thing could happen here. Contact the reviewer and mention something like, “Thanks for the review, I would never ask for any of the review’s content to be changed but I’m concerned that you labeled the book as X when it’s really Y, so could this detail be fixed?” You never know. Sometimes it works.
I would never write to a reviewer about her opinion. When it’s a factual error, some of those are worth correcting. If it’s a factual error that doesn’t affect the reading experience or the book’s sales (even the hero’s name is in this category), leave it alone. If it’s an error that reveals the Big Twist, or undesirably misclassifies the whole book, that’s worth addressing. Particularly in a publication intended to help bookstores choose their orders.
Someone on the author’s blog suggested an excellent letter:
“Thank you for taking the time to review our new book. We would like to point out a factual error — this book is a novel, not three novellas. Sincerely, â€
I can only remember complaining about a review once. And my complaint dealt largely with the fact that the reviewer had marked the book down because the hero kept a journal, and she particularly disliked the idea of that. However, the hero DIDN’T keep a journal (which is a stupid reason to slap at a book or a hero anyway, but he didn’t keep one). I pointed this out, and was probably not as diplomatic as I should have been. No, I was absolutely not as diplomatic as I should have been.
I got piled on by most of the posters, and called variations of whineyhead crybaby. And the fact that the review was inaccurate on this point was never addressed by anyone.
Would I still address an inaccuracy in a review. Probably. Yeah, most likely. But I’d be more diplomatic, even if it killed me.
If we agree that reviews are for readers, the readers deserve an accurate review. The opinion in the review is one thing, screwing up the facts is entirely another.
I’d probably do a variation of Sonya’s idea—get some friends to send letters to the mag, then blog about the letters people sent me about it.
I reacted to (acted on?) a review for the first and hopefully last time when my most recent book was coming out this past fall. A different HPPOMC reviewed the book, and the review was put up by The Powers That Be at Amazon, as these HPPOMC reviews tend to be. The problem was the reviewer gave away AN ENORMOUS HONKING PLOT TWIST that happened ON PAGE 217 of a 320 page book. Did I mention it was a mystery?
Oh, my God, I nearly died. I pictured every would-be-reader checking in at Amazon to get the skinny on the new release and going, “Huh. So that’s whodunnit. Guess I can just skip this one.”
Reader, I got the review edited. The trick was, I never approached Amazon, the HPPOMC or the reviewer myself. I wailed and wept to my editor, my publisher, my publicist and my agent. They took care of it. The author-review relationship should be the same as the relationship between a cloistered monk and a cloistered nun. We know the other exists, we work in the same industry, but we never never clap eyes on one another.
So, I would say that JC and ED and AS should approach the always helpful people at SMP (with the advice and support of MR) and see if they can straighten out the HPPOMC. OK? TTFN.
Skin them alive and sell the fur.
I mean come on, sure, say something. I love hearing an authors opinion of my take of their book too. I love books and my opinion is not the only one or the best one, it just is one and I never claimed anything else.
You know, I am a little more careful giving a negative though. If I do it, I try to give quotes from the book or at least try to provide pretty focused examples to prove my point. So it’s clear where I got my opinion from.
I hate to over generalize how bad it is, unless we are talking Ellora’s Cave and then hey… 10 to 1 they are so very very right.
I have yet *knock on wood* to have this sort of problem come up, but I’m 99% if there was a big factual error I’d at least ask that it be corrected.
I saw one pre-release review of my book based on nothing but the cover and it was pretty unkind. She complained about the “none-historical” (sic) cover, title, and back cover copy. I just kept my mouth shut, but I did want to say Hey, thanks for slamming my book over a bunch of stuff I have ZERO control over. Could you at least pop over to my website and read the first chapter?
OK, I posted this elsewhere, but while I know you can’t respond to a bad review and reviewer…. can you still TP their house?
I’m sure I’d feel much better.
As a former reporter (and reviewers are reporters), I suggest:
1) Telephone the editor. Set out why the author thinks the review was in factual error. Use the words “factual error”. Ask that a written correction be placed in the next edition of the HPPOMC in the reviewer’s article. As everyone else said, be polite and calm, and assume good faith: the reviewer may simply have confused two books in her mind. Mistakes happen, and reacting emotionally to such a mistake makes it less likely the editor will agree to a correction.
2) Follow up your conversation with a letter addressed to the editor. Cc the reviewer if you wish. Ask the editor to write you back confirming there will be a correction.
I forgot:
3) Write the reviewer into your next book, as a lizard.
Oh, and send the letter via registered mail. For some reason magazines pay more attention to registered mail than to regular letterpost.
What would I do?
Step 1: Call best friend and bawl/rant on phone.
Step 2: Eat chocolate-covered cookies.
Step 3: Wait at least one day before doing anything else (well, eating more cookies is okay)
And then it really depends on where said review has been published. If on review website: I’d write reviewer a nice, polite e-mail like “Thanks for reviewing and reading my book. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you.—However, I’m afraid there’s a factual error in your review, namely …”
If published on blog: I’d either write said nice, polite e-mail, or write a comment along the same lines as the nice, polite e-mail.
But if the review is published in HPPOMC, I’d write an e-mail to my own editor and ask what can be done in such a case.
I know who you’re talking about & when I read her blog I was thinking “What is up with that?” This is the kind of situation where I think putting pen to paper makes sense. Obviously the person who wrote the review really needs to get their head examined. If you’re going to write a review, it really helps if you’ve read the book. In fact, when I review a book, I read it twice, just to make sure that what I thought the 1st time is still true.
So, I’d say phooey on ‘em and write a neatly worded, but blistering letter to the PTB. Let them know that if they are going to print reviews that they need to be ones of books actually read.
My security word is research44. Hmm, maybe the reviewer should take that into consideration? Just a thought. 🙂
I think the said authors (who I actually don’t know the identities of) should do something polite like everyone has said. If that doesn’t, blog it out, bitches!
I think that it isn’t the error as much as the fact that said reviewer didn’t even read it. Why should they get power and abuse it! like someone said above, vigilante justice rocks!
“Blog it out, bitches” might be my new favorite sentence.
I have an update from fruitful author’s blog—HPPOMC has agreed to print a correction that it is a novel and not an anthology. Unfortunately, the powers that be have decreed they’ll only print the correction on their website.
I’m rolling my eyes. Sigh.
Julia Spencer-Fleming is commenting here! Julia, please get back to work because I’m dying to see what happens next between Clare and Russ!
Back to topic. There was recently a case where a reviewer for a literary publication completely trashed a novel. The author complained publicly because…the book had been scheduled for publication, but never published.
More often than actual fraud, I see reviews that are factually incorrect, and I often wonder how closely the reviewers read the books.
I feel left out – who are we talking about?
Several tasteful and tactful suggestions appear above, definately worth trying. Low key & polite are probably your best route in this circumstance. Good luck!
Charlene…#3 is my fav!
Well, having been one that often regrets emails and posts written in haste, I think I’d talk it over with a writer friend first.
In this case (and I’m not savvy to the particulars) it sounds like there was an error made in WHAT the book actually was.
How very frustrating for the author. It’s tough to know what to do.
I’ve always been told (by authors, editors and publishers) to smile and say “Thank You” through gritted teeth.
But I’m reviewing the comments. What would I do if they were just plain factually WRONG?
three wishes
I wish I knew the book you were talking about. I want to read it so I could see if it was as obvious as all that. If it obvious I could all point and laugh and that’s fun.
I wish I’d known that anthologies are not selling well. I’d stop aiming for the damn things.
I wish for, um… fifty more wishes
As a reviewer, I’ve only ever had one author contact me with a complaint. I gave the book a good review, I didn’t give away any plot twists, but I had the audacity to draw a historical parallel that the author didn’t like. She ripped me up one side and down the other, accused me of not reading the book, then accused me of plagarizing a review from Publisher’s Weekly, in which the reviewer drew the same parallel.
As her parting shot, the author claimed that she’d make sure I never review in this town again, or something. I still get every one of her books from the publisher. I haven’t reviewed a single one since.
On a factual error, however, I think it’s perfectly fine to contact either the reviewer, or blog/site mod, or editor and ask for a factual correction. If I labelled a contemporary romance as a mystery, I’d apologize and change it.
My advice: don’t be accusatory in your first request for a correction. You may absolutely believe the author didn’t read the book, but that’s not going to do anything to get the fact fixed. That should be treated as a separate issue, to be raised with the reviewer’s boss/editor after an amicable (and completely deserved) correction is made.
*whispering* arghink.com
I’ve only had this happen to me once (a factual error in a review, that is, I’ve definitely had more than one bad review). I brought it to the attention of my publicist and she contacted the review publication with her usual tact and aplomb. They corrected the mistake. I just try to ignore the other stuff. Oh, and I drink heavily.
Look at it this way. People write to Dubya all the time, telling him (in essence), “Dude, guess what? You got it all wrong. YOU FUCKED UP!” Now, if the prez can get letters like that and take it like a man—or like something resembling a man—why can’t a reviewer whose ego similarly outstrips his or her intellect?
Not an author, so yes this a homework assignment question for me too…
I go with: Get my Agent (if I have one) or Publisher to ask for a correction from the critic’s publication, since a correction is needed. However definitely don’t do it myself.
In other words, have my people talk to their people 🙂
That rule of thumb about not commenting on reviews is there, not because authors don’t in certain circumstances have grounds—or indeed the right!—to complain to a reviewer, but because the evidence seems to show that those authors who do complain end up somehow going insane, and going insane in public at that. And for those nasty, drooling uncontrollably in public and swearing at strangers who look at you funny, values of insane rather than the cool, stroking fluffy white cats, laughing evily and writing masterworks of the literary canon, types of madness.
I concede that one might, if one is made of stern stuff, get away with it once or twice without ill effect—and it seems that some have—but unfortunately the whole critiquing of ones reviews thing also seems to be habit forming.
Much safer if I, not made of stern stuff in any way at all, don’t even think of going there. After all, I have no desire to end up locked in something written by Lovecraft gibbering about Elder Gods in an unknown language.
Best not to risk it.
*passing a note at the back of the classroom* thanks, phyllis. *adding cartoon likeness of Sarah*
>>I just try to ignore the other stuff. Oh, and I drink heavily.<<
Works for me. I’ve had less than positive reviews, but the only one in error labeled my book a paranormal. I contacted the on-line reviewer, politely, and she was quick to make a correction.
But I’ve also found a good single malt can sooth a variety of the world’s ills, or at least those that show up in my mailbox.
Well weighing in as both a reader and someone who uses trade and news reviews to help with ordering books for retail, factual errors, more so than opinions, can really screw over not only the author, but my sales.
As a reader, I will roll my eyes when most authors complain over a review. When I put my buyer hat on, I rely on blurbs and trade reviews to decide how many copies of a book to go with and which order they will go in (if I do buy them) on my TBR pile for hand selling, so if there are factual errors, I rely on the authors to get it sorted out.
An error like the one we are talking about, really would make a massive difference in me ordering 8 copies, or 24 copies, of a well known author’s work, as antholgies sell way less for me than a full novel. This not only cuts into the authors bottom line, but mine as well, when I have readers coming into my shop a few weeks after the book release, wanting to know what the hell I was doing by not ordering in XX’s newest book. Followed by them huffing and informing me they already ordered it from Amazon or went and bought it at Borders.
Since authors can’t really win when it comes to dealing with crappy reviewers, their agent/editor should handle things for them, because, like I said, this hits their bottom line.
I would just caution any authors who decide to complain about a “factual” error to be certain the error is, in fact, factual (like the novel/novella thing), and not a valid interpretation of the “facts” of the book. Let’s just say there are a lot of ABB who never get blogged about.
If the review is simply stupidly wrong I think the rule applies: author rolls their eyes and moves on.
If it is grossly weird and potentially damaging (suggesting the hero or author is a pedophile or somthing) a simple clarification/correction posted to an author blog/website and emailed to the publication seems appropriate?
What I hate to see is review trolls causing author flames and everyone having a good tantrum.
Given that particular situation, I’d bitch like hell to my agent.
Something similar happened to an author I know—the review, along with being negative, got many details of the book wrong. She complained to her agent that it’s not the negative review that’s bothering her, it’s how the reviewer got facts wrong. The reviewer wound up editing the review to correctly present the facts. (Still was a negative review, though.)
Authors who write corrections to reviews make me sigh (I’m a bookseller – I see that kind of thing all the time in industry journals). No matter how accurate the correction, it’s always the author who comes off looking like a doof*. It may not be fair, it may not be just, but, hey, life. Though I should also admit that reviews make zero difference to my orders.
*Except once. An author wrote to say that in the previous issue “the reporter claimed I was wearing a Tom Wolfian white suit. I was in fact wearing an F. Scott Fitzgeraldian white suit.” It was very clever, and got his name mentioned two issues in a row.
If the review is simply stupidly wrong I think the rule applies: author rolls their eyes and moves on.
Exactly. As I said, I’ve only been in a somewhat-but-not-entirely similar situation once, with the giveaway of the big plot twist, and to me that was worth a polite email. It worked, happily, but if it hadn’t, I have to say I wouldn’t have followed up. If it’s going to work, one nice email will do the trick. If it’s not, continuing on only makes you look like a whining bitch with a side order of crazy.
I think every author’s had his or her share of horrible reviews—either the dreaded “I hated it” with no justification review; the slightly more hurtful “I hated it and here’s why in scalding detail” review (while helpful, still… ouch); the review where you can’t help but wonder if they’ve even seen a picture of your book, much less read it; the review that’s written so badly that you can’t even tell what they’re talking about, etc—sack up and move on, authors. You can’t “fix” those. Don’t try.
Whoever said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” never read a flame-war.
Outside of blogging about said review as an indirect response to the reviewer, I think an author should be able to correct a *factual* error that *bears heavily* on *likely perception/reception* of the book. Or at least have one’s agent or publicist write a polite request for a correction.
However, as others have pointed out, the trick can be in determining whether what seems so clearly an error of fact to the author might be seen as an issue of interpretation to others. Did the reviewer in this case (I haven’t read the book in question yet, but I did see the review in question) make an error, or was a seemingly erroneous characterization actually a comment on the book itself? Or both, for that matter? There are co-authored *novels* that have basically read to me like two separate pieces glued imperfectly together. I’m not saying that’s the case in this situation, just speaking generally.
Okay, off to satisfy my own curiosity now . . .