Negative Book Reviews: An Author’s Badge of Honor
“Come in and try the worst coffee one woman on Trip Advisor had in her life.” This is what a chalkboard sign outside of a cafe said, and even though it’s been years since I first saw this photo, I still think about it.
There will always, always, always be people who don’t like what you make. As an author, the way you react to negative book reviews says a lot about you as a person.
I’ve seen authors cry and vent and act like the world is coming to an end after getting a negative book review, and I do not get it at all. It is a waste of energy to me. Some rando you’ve never even met didn’t like your book. So what? Who cares?
The quote on bad reviews is legendary, so let’s start here:
“Confronted by an absolutely infuriating review, it is sometimes helpful for the victim to do a little personal research on the critic. Is there any truth to the rumor that he had no formal education beyond the age of eleven? In any event, is he able to construct a simple English sentence? Do his participles dangle? When moved to lyricism, does he write ‘I had a fun time’? Was he ever arrested for burglary? I don’t know that you will prove anything this way, but it is perfectly harmless and quite soothing.” — Jean Kerr
Instead of letting a negative book review ruin your day, here’s what I recommend you do:
1. Celebrate it.
Take a screenshot of your review and share it with your community (online or offline). Tell the world: “I’m officially official now! Someone doesn’t like my work. I HAVE A HATER!” To me, nothing is more validating than a bad book review. For my writers’ group, when one of my members gets an agent rejection, I make everyone clap and say congratulations. The same should be done with a bad review.
2. Use it for marketing.
I absolutely love using bad (or sometimes three-star) reviews to help market my books, much the same way that cafe owner did with his sign. This is my all-time favorite review to use in my newsletter, Twitter, etc.:
“Yeah…I probably need to stop expecting a marketing book to help me figure out how to promote my books without being on social media. Content — a few uses of ‘sucks’; one use of God’s name as an exclamation.”
First, she just helped me sell that book because there better be a marketing book with social media talk in it. Second, that she flagged my . . . potty mouth . . . had me cracking up. That was too good not to use. Finally, by showing other authors that negative or so-so reviews don’t bother me, I’m helping them to feel free too.
3. Reply to the poster.
Hold on. Don’t go Scarface on them. What I mean is, reply to the review and thank them for reading it and for taking the time to write a review. It shows there are no ill feelings.
Realize it just plain does not matter if someone hates your book.
I remember being at Half Price Books and filling my cart with novels because I can stop at anytime, okay?! Anyway . . . this woman reached for Behind Closed Doors, a book I had just finished reading. Always the extravert, I said, “Oh, don’t do it. It’s the worst book I’ve read in years.” She stared at me and said, “I love this book. It’s one of my favorite books.”
Yeesh. Talk about awkward.
Here’s another funny thing about bad reviews: It doesn’t matter that I hated Behind Closed Doors with every fiber of my being and posted a 1-star review because there are people out there who love that book. So who cares if I didn’t like it? What does it really matter in the end?
It doesn’t.
To me, bad reviews are a badge of honor for authors. The greatest writers in the world have scathing reviews. Not book review-related, but E. E. Cummings (my favorite poet) once took the names of all the publishers who passed on his book, No Thanks, and formatted them into an urn in the front matter. Above the urn-shaped list, it read “NO THANKS TO” and he self-published that.
At some point, you have to be like our cafe friend and like E. E. Cummings: You have to stop boo-hooing over bad reviews and find creative ways to use them in your author career.
After I wrote this column, I saw what Stacy C. Bauer, author of the Cami Kangaroo series, posted — talk about serendipity! She posted an Instagram photo of her Cami Kangaroo Has Too Much Stuff book with a 2-star review that said, “Just ok. Overall not a memorable or well executed [sic] book. She kinda cleans her room at the end.” Then, Stacy asked her community, “Do you agree? I’d love to hear your feedback!! I can take it!”
Applause! This is what I’m talking about. She nailed it.
How can you find creative ways to celebrate your bad reviews? How can you take a negative and turn it into a positive?
An expert editor, best-selling author, and book marketer, Shayla Raquel works one-on-one with writers every day. A lifelong lover of books, she has been in the publishing industry for ten years and specializes in self-publishing.
Her award-winning blog teaches new and established authors how to write, publish, and market their books.
She is the author of the Pre-Publishing Checklist, “The Rotting” (in Shivers in the Night), The Suicide Tree, #1 bestseller The 10 Commandments of Author Branding, and her book of poetry, All the Things I Should’ve Told You. In her not-so-free time, she acts as organizer for the Yukon Writers’ Society, studies all things true crime, and obsesses over squirrels. She lives in Oklahoma with her dogs, Chanel, Wednesday, and Baker.
