Every self-published and trad-published author wants and needs reviews. Every author also dreads them. Some don’t read them, while others learn from them. I bet some say they never read them, but they do, and some read them and say they are not affected by them when they are. Today, I wanted to write a few words about how I deal with reviews and give my opinion on the subject of reader reviews and what to make of them.

Books are Like Hotels

Reviews of anything help buyers decide whether to buy the product or not. I’m not just talking about novels here, but anything. Yesterday, I was looking for a hotel to stay in on a forthcoming trip, and went to one of the popular booking sites to see what was available. In a way that a reader will first be attracted to a cover, I was first attracted to the location of the hotel. Next, as a reader will then read the blurb/description, I read the hotel’s details to see if it had the right kind of room, WiFi, a bar, restaurant etc. Is this the right hotel for me? It’s the same as asking, is this the right kind of story for me?  Then, as most potential readers do, I looked at the price, and finally, out of interest, I looked at the reviews.

Reviews, therefore, come pretty low on my list of things to check before committing to a purchase, and that applies to books as much as it does to hotels or any product. The thing is, I only read the first couple of reviews, or I choose to read only the five-star ones. I also look at the chart of how many five, four, three etc., stars a product has, because if the balance is tipped towards one end of the scale, I get a pretty good impression of the overall suitability of the product according to the majority of previous customers. I get a benchmark. That process can take two minutes, or it can take ten. Either way, other people’s views are low on my list of things to check, but that’s just me, and reviews remain an important factor in a buyer’s decision-making process.

Why are Reviews Important to Authors?

So, if I am saying that reviews are a low priority, why do I then say they are so important for authors? There are several reasons:

• The more reviews a book has, the more the book has been read, and that suggests to the potential buyer that the product is worth buying. People have bothered to buy it, so it must be popular, right?
• Reviews give the author the chance to hear feedback from their readers.
• Reviews can be used as quotes for publicity. They can provide impartial publicity from a third party.

Not everyone leaves a review, but many readers give a star rating. The higher the rating, the better the book. In theory. There are firms out there who hire people to leave good rates and stars even on books that are dreadful, and the aim of these firms is simply to make money. That, to my mind, is crass and damaging, but it happens.

How to Handle a Bad Review

There is a difference between a bad review and a review of a bad book. When authors say, ‘I had a bad review,’ they usually mean someone slagged off their great work. When I say, I had a bad review,’ I mean the review was badly written. We should say, ‘I received a low-star rating,’ or, ‘A reviewer didn’t like my book,’ but, because it’s what most of us mean, I’ll take a ‘bad review’ as meaning someone gave a negative opinion of my work. An opinion, after all, is all a review is.

You may know that I have written a very successful series of novels, The Clearwater Mysteries. (Successful for me, at any rate, because the series now pays my rent.) That series started with my first attempt at an historical, mystery-romance mashup, ‘Deviant Desire.’ I wrote it, published it and waited for my first review.

It was dreadful. A one-star rave about how awful the book was, and on first reading, I was saddened. Then I read it again, and realised that it wasn’t a bad review, it was an appallingly written, vindictive review that not only gave away some spoilers (thus ruining the read for many others), but was also inaccurate. I concluded that the review had been written either by someone with a general hatred of self-published novels, or by someone who wished they’d written thought of writing the book first. A disgruntled would-be author bitter because they couldn’t do any better. Whoever wrote it, and for whatever reasons, the book remains my most popular publication, and the stream of five and four-star ratings, and the wealth of positive reviews, more than outweighs one person’s negative opinion.

Reviews are Nothing More Than one Person’s Opinion

And that’s the point. Reviews are nothing more than one person’s opinion. Take them to heart, learn from them, agree or disagree with them, or consign them to history and forget about them, they are always only what one person thought of your work. That goes for whether it’s a badly written spiteful attack, or a glowing accolade of effusive adjectives and love. It’s what someone else thinks, and there’s nothing you can do about that because everyone is entitled to an opinion, and an opinion, according to the dictionary is simply: a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

I’ll just repeat part of that to make you feel better: not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Reviews are Your Connection to Your Readers

Good or bad, positive or negative, reviews are your connection to your Readers. This morning, I read a post on a Facebook group where the receiver of a negative review reacted with an excellent attitude. She understood that her writing wouldn’t connect with everyone, and that everyone has the right to an opinion. It was the word connect that resonated with me and made me think. Having thought, I came up with this advice.

No matter whether a reader writes good things about your work or bad, they wrote something. Your work connected with them. It made them react, and isn’t that what us writers are meant to do? Aren’t we here to cause a reaction in others? Beit joy, sadness, thought, anger, pride, outrage, hatred, or laughter… Beit anything, it is a reaction. By writing a review, the reader has proved that the story moved them enough to pause in their day, not to move straight onto their next Kindle purchase, or go back to the housework, but to stop, think, and put virtual pen to paper.

So, the next time you receive a negative review, be happy that your work moved someone enough to make them pen a reaction. No matter what that reaction is, you did your job. As an author, you made someone care. Bravo! Now get back to work.