I got my first one star review for my book The Killer Contract Agency, and besides the fact that it stung a second in the end it really didn’t bother me. Now I’m over it, and the reason why I’m writing a blog post is to tell you that your book will get bad reviews. It’s inevitable to get a bad review, and not everyone is going to like your book. Which is okay, and I’m not expecting everyone to like it. Reviews are mainly for the reader, and it’s more for other readers to decide to read it or not. It’s nothing personal, and it just wasn’t their cup of tea. Sometimes they don’t even read the genre, and sometimes they pick it up because someone else recommended it to them or it was part of a group. I’ll never be an author that bashes a reviewer, and I’ll never comment on bad reviews. To me they are learning experiences, and something everyone faces especially when they put themselves out there. I wrote the story years ago, and every time I finish a novel I gain more experience. I’ve dealt with bad feedback before, and I wound up blocking the person who kept having issues with my work. Hell, she even posted a work in progress I gave her over Facebook and made fun of it online. I trusted her too, and then after a while when my novel came out she said the same thing, and nitpicked and nitpicked. Why does the main guy look like this? Because I like it like that, and she even went as far as to tell me how the book should go. I had to block her in order to not let her comments ruin my day. Every time I talked to her it was draining, and it went too far when she told me about how horribly edited it was and that I needed to read it over. I took the good things to heart, but I was sick of how her crap was ruining my day. There is a difference though, and her feedback was not helpful since she didn’t tell me why. It will suck taking all the crap from people, but that is why you take a book to beta readers. They are more helpful than anything else. They actually tell you what works and what doesn’t.
I’m not going to post the review on this blog at all. It will happen and all books receive bad reviews. But know the difference between a troll and a constructive review. I’ve also worked retail, and I let every customer bother me to the point where it ruined my day, and in turn I had to stop myself from it and I moved on. I’m so much better at handling negative criticism now then I was.
How did you handle a bad review?
Until next time,
Wolfdreamer25