General thoughts about stuff

[erastes]

No reviewer starts reading a book to review with anything other than optimism.  Reviewers have to be optimists by default (until the day they aren't and start sticking pencils up their nose) because otherwise we/they wouldn't be so passionate about spreading the word and reading books. Granted, some people review merely for the bonus of getting free books.  I'm not - I get the occasional free PDF or paperback but it's a rarity and I'm very grateful when it happens. 

In the main I buy my books for myself and just do reviews on them, because I like to talk about books, always have.

The thing is that unless it says "Bitches" or "Spork" or other such word on any particular blog then reviewers want to like your book. As a mod of a review site, I wouldn't even let any reviewer do a book if I suspect that the reviewer has any bones to grind with an author or is not professional enough to work past that.

So when I see Diva-authors demanding to have unfavourable reviews removed from the internet (either on blogs or amazon) it makes my blood boil in a way that I can hardly describe. 

Critique has been around since the first creation. Perhaps Ug daubed some blood on a wall that looked a bit like a hippo and Ig said (in Ig speak) "no look like hippo to me."  I doubt if Ug made Ig take that back.  If someone wrote about Hamlet "God, the protaganist!  I hated him, wordy bugger!"  Can you see Will trotting along to Ye Olde Newspaperie and demanding a retraction? And similarly, I doubt that anyone has the brass cojones to email someone like Nicholas Lezard or The Times and says "Oi!  How dare you not LOVE my book! Take down your disparaging remarks forthwith you blackguard or I shall sue your arse off."

Because they would laugh at you. Which is what I'm doing now.  I feel the same for the Anne Rice wannabees who respond publicly to unfavourable reviews. It makes them look stupid.  Learn the difference between libel and OPINION, you Divas.

On another but not completely unrelated subject: - Authors in General:  what is the point of putting your hard written book on online stores with no blurb or description? Hmm?  Am I going to buy it if i don't know what it's about? No, I'm not.  No wonder your sales are minimal.

I had some more wonderful help today, alex_beecroft made me two loverly banners (under the next cut) and gehayi brain stormed (or rather she did and I listened) and I have some really good ideas for a new project which I think can work. Too many bloody ideas, I need another week in my week (where I don't have to work) and two extra arms.

 

Comments

what you said

[equani-tsula.livejournal.com]

***gorgeous bannners***

As an author, of NOT romantic erotica, I've had some rather ...not particularily favorable reviews from the romance reviewers my work got sent to (this is why I am no longer with the publisher - great folks, but going all romance and I'm just not romantic) and figured - *shrug* well, not what they expected. Granted that - I also got some reviews that weren't exactly favorable, but were at least unprejudiced and open ("not what we expected, not what we like, but the writing is good") and myself, took that as something more of a compliment than some gushy review really.


Whoever it is - they need to take a page from Madonna's book - NO publicity is BAD publicity. I've read gushy reviews that made me not want the book, and critical reviews that made me think the book would be just up my alley. I'd never ask to have any review retracted.

Now, I will admit to being helpless when it comes to writing blurbs...but I plopped something down at least. :(

[leebenoit.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more about the diva authors. Best way to avoid negative reviews is... don't write a book!

Cheers,
Lee

"no look like hippo to me."

[dubaiyan.livejournal.com]

Heee

also tempted to start a fight somewhere just so i can say "Take down your disparaging remarks forthwith you blackguard" xD

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I know it hurts to get criticism, but good lord. It's not as if the reviewer stomped on your roses or kicked your kitten (or your kid, for that matter). Me, if I ever get published, I'll be glad someone *read* the bloody book, much less cared enough to make a comment on it!

[rwday.livejournal.com]

What lovely banners! And hurrah for new ideas, but not for divas. What nerve to think you have any right to control what other people think/write about your book! Every writer gets bad reviews. The best response, IMO, is no response at all.

Re: what you said

[erastes.livejournal.com]

yes, I should have referred to "bad publicity is publicity" thing - I still get hits from Mrs Giggles to the site, so I'm not complaining!

That's the problem with non romantic erotica, there aren't the huge level of sites to review it - but as you say most people should be able to assess the writing whether it's their genre or taste or not.

Blurbs... now - that's a subject for a different rant ALTOGETHER...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well of course you knew what it was to what I was referring! :) That was un-real. I will probably get Gehayi to deal with any requests for removal from SiN, as she is a lot more cutting, and I will be too busy laughing.

And absolutely. No-one is going to write a book that everyone likes, even if it sells in the millions.

Re: "no look like hippo to me."

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I am under a Russell Brand star today I think!

:)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I am a big chicken - I just don't read unfavourable reviews, but yes, I'm grateful that someone took the considerable time and effort to read it and spend a while writing a review too!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Aren't they lovely? I'm spoiled. :)

The ideas were great and about SoG!!!!

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

A bad review hurts but you can learn from the criticism too. Maybe it's because art gets a lot of mixed feedback but I've developed a rather thick skin towards criticism.

Worse than getting a bad review is having your work met with silence.

[haydenthorne.livejournal.com]

After my minor conniption a couple of days ago about certain gay poets, I figured I'm better off reviewing novels by dead writers.

XD XD XD

[leebenoit.livejournal.com]

I think pointing such narrow egomaniacs up as risible is an excellent strategy.

As Alex Beecroft said recently, a well-done negative review can garner new readers for a work that may be decent, but not for everyone. By that token, so can a really snarky review, but that attracts rubber-necking more than anything else.

It boggles me that people don't understand that this is an economic marketplace as well as a marketplace of ideas. Making oneself look stupid is bad form all around.