But why would I do this? Two reasons.
First, as you might imagine, if a writer has a hundred good reviews and then one bad one comes in, guess which gets his attention? The words sting and smart, even for the writer with the thickest skin (and mine's pretty thick). But an author has to suck it up because there's a rule in the writing community that forbids authors from responding to, addressing, or otherwise interacting with reviewers.
"Reviews are for readers, not writers" goes the saying.
Fair enough. I don't do any of those things but you know what? Thumb tacks are for art projects, but they still hurt when you step on one. So, every week I'll be taking a bad review and not interacting with the reviewers, but rendering their words cute and harmless. Like this, which addresses my first novel, The Bookseller:
The second reason I'm doing this? Well, any excuse to put my kids in videos...
Oh, in case anyone wants to give me points for originality, please don't. I saw this done on a website where children's book authors read aloud their bad reviews. It's awesome.
Here's that site: http://noblemania.blogspot.com/2014/01/childrens-authors-read-reviews-of-their.html
She has got to be the most adorable kid ever.....Can she do my performance appraisal this year? i'm an avid reader and i loved The Bookseller, but then, i'm related to you and my opinion doesn't count.
ReplyDeleteI'm not related to him...never met him, and I also loved The Bookseller, so my opinion can count.
DeleteEvery opinion counts! And thanks, she's pretty cute, I agree. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is such a fabulous way to face your less-than-stellar reviews. My favorite part is the smile and giggle after, "So disappointing."
ReplyDeleteOh my God, her face at the end before she smiles at you, Mark...PRICELESS!! She definitely took the sting out of a bad review. Is she for hire? I could use her talents.
ReplyDeleteThanks Michelle and Nancy.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you can hire her, Nancy, if you ever get a bad review, which seems highly unlikely. :)
So cool.
ReplyDeleteAnd no sting.
Heather
Thanks Heather. Sting has its place, but it feels good to remove it, too. :)
ReplyDeleteYou know, I really and truly believe that the number of reviews counts waaaaay more than the average rating. If you are to pick between a book with 2 5-star reviews and a book with over a thousand of reviews with an average of 3.8 stars, which one will you pick?
ReplyDeleteAside from that, the video is adorable indeed. :-) And a less than stellar review is welcome if it makes some kind of constructive criticism, but in this case there's no take-home message. In these cases all I can think of is that they were having a bad day and they decided to unleash it on you. Alas, it's one of the side-effects of being famous. :-)