By:
Roz Morris
Some
writers say they don’t look at their reviews. I don’t know how they find such
sangfroid. If I know there’s a new review I have to pounce, and immediately.
Inevitably, we’ll sometimes wish we hadn’t – like one of my regular readers
this week, who sent me the anguished message you see in the title of this post.
After
sympathy, we had a discussion that went in interesting directions, and I
thought it might be useful here too.
My
main question to him was this. Are
you afraid the reviewer might be right? Have you got a good enough groundswell
of opinions from people with sound judgement?
My
correspondent replied that he knew he’d taken a risk, but wanted the final note
to pack a punch. ‘That apparently has worked,’ he said, ‘and my book is being
remembered – for better or worse. I have around twenty 5-star reviews and this
is my first bad one.’
Twenty
to one doesn’t sound like a bad ratio to me. And we’re all going to get bad
reviews.
I
got off to an early start with My Memories of a
Future Life. Just as I was gathering launch reviews, someone who’d
read an advance copy sent me a furious, offended email. I’d passed muster with
my trusted inner circle, but this was the first true outsider and it hurt
madly. It doesn’t help that with self-publishing, there’s hardly any time for
the writer to surface out of the book, so early reviews might hit us with no
defences. So I was extremely relieved when the other advance readers were
happy.
What
did you promise the reader? Marketing
.
. .
Read the full article HERE!
~*~
If
you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they
are again:
- Fiction University: What's Their Story? Discovering the Front Story of Your Non-Point of View Characters http://ow.ly/BnkhU
- Plot-driven or Character-driven: Does it Really Matter? - Jeni Chappelle http://ow.ly/BnksA
- Succeed At Writing: 10 Ways to Develop Your Unique Writing Style http://ow.ly/BnkOU
- ThrillWriting: Crime Scene 101 for Writers: Decisions. Decisions. http://ow.ly/Bnl2S
- Great Tool to Get More eBook Sales - How to Blog a Book http://ow.ly/BnmmJ
- How to Write a Gut-Wrenching Tragic Scene-Thanks to One Surprising Detail! - Helping Writers Become Authors http://ow.ly/BnnZD
- 8 Visual Content Apps to Create Stunning Images and Videos | Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/BnJ16
- Kill me now – what do I do about a negative review? | Nail Your Novel http://ow.ly/BnKo2
- My Writing Life: Melissa Foster – Kobo Writing Life http://ow.ly/BnKBP
- Writing Contests: Worth It or Not? - Jeni Chappelle http://ow.ly/BnKT3
- The 6 Critical Types of Social Media Comments You Must Plan For http://ow.ly/BnL8X
- ThrillWriting: Choosing a Handgun for Your Character http://ow.ly/BnLnm
- Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over : Shots - Health News : NPR http://ow.ly/Bo3LB
- Five Keys to Working with Book Stores, Before You’re Published and After - Where Writers Win http://ow.ly/BodbI
- General to Specific: From One Sentence to a Plot http://ow.ly/Bom8N
- Feedback: Finding Problems vs. Fixing Problems | Jami Gold, Paranormal Author http://ow.ly/BoGNm
- The Kill Zone: 8 Writer Tips To Keep Your Butt in the Chair http://ow.ly/Bp2OU
- Writer Unboxed » The Reader’s Emotional Journey http://ow.ly/Bp2UD
- Get it Write Tonight: 5 Ways to Intentionally Improve Your Story's Quality http://ow.ly/Bp2XD
- Listen to Your Readers * http://ow.ly/Bp30m
- David Farland’s Kick in the Pants—Writing Emotions http://ow.ly/Bp343
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