Early in the morning, rising to the street, light me up a cigarette and I slap shoes on my feet…
A little Sublime for you. I’m feeling ambitious this morning. Not ambitious enough to dust, mind you, but very story-ambitious.
The big flap in emails this morning is all about someone claiming to be Kathryn Falk (of RT fame) and taking bloggers to task for being vituperative. I’m not sure if this is Ms. Falk, and Dear Author has the scoop on it (plus an update here and here.)
Basically, this all starts out with a review of an Ellora’s Cave book, and someone purporting to be Ms. Falk commenting on the review. The review itself is a tad harsh and contains profanity, so don’t click if you’re not into that. (Then again, if you have concerns about that, my blog might not be the best place for you either.)
I find this interesting because the blog subtitle basically says, “This is my blog, and I’ll say what I want to.” The commenter (I don’t know if it’s Falk or someone just using her name) accuses the reviewer of driving people to suicide and being vituperative. I’m going to leave that alone, because my bone to pick today is a different aspect of this issue, something I think every writer should engrave on their cerebellum. Okay, here it is:
Write what you love as if you are writing for yourself. Hell, you ARE writing for yourself, otherwise you’ll go mad. But readers have the absolute right not to like your work if they don’t want to.
Hey, I love a good review as much as the next author. Bad reviews hurt just as much as rejection. It IS rejection. But rejection happens to an adult every day, and you have got to learn to deal with it. You can look for the seed of constructive criticism in your reviews to make your writing better, but there are always going to be people who don’t like your stuff, whether it’s just not their cuppa tea or they woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, or what-have-you. You must be attached to telling the best story you can, and unattached to getting good reviews, Grasshopper.
Bloggers have a right to review stuff and say whatever they ding-dang please. Bloggers who review can become popular if they speak truth about what they liked and why, and if you don’t agree with them DON’T READ THEM. It’s just that simple. You have a browser that obeys the commands you give it, people. You don’t like something? Don’t read it. Just the same as going into a bookstore and choosing not to read every book there.
If a blogger who reviews doesn’t do so responsibly, they will lose readers–or never gain them in the first place. It’s not up to the author to judge a reviewer’s blog. It’s up to the readers–just like the decision to buy and read your book is up to the readers. If the readers like it, they’ll tell their friends. That’s advertising you can’t buy, whether as a blogger or as an author.
Getting mad at a blogger who posts a nasty review only makes the author look like an idiot. You can respond gracefully or not respond at all. I do look for reviews of my work online–what author doesn’t?–and if I come across a negative review, I look to see if there’s anything constructive I can take from it and I MOVE ON. It’s not worth feeling hurt over, and it’s not worth the shortness of life caused by high blood pressure. I got enough rejection just trying to get published. I don’t need to get all worked up over any more.
The Internet is like a gigantic sandbox, and we all have our little corners. What I write in my little corner is for those people who are interested, they come over in my corner and play for a while. I go to other people’s corners and play for a while. If someone doesn’t play nice, I don’t go over there. It’s really just that simple.
The great, wonderful thing about bloggers is the honesty of their reviews. They are honest, almost scorchingly so. Some bloggers take this as an excuse to be personally hurtful–but you don’t have to play in their corner if they do. If you keep playing with a bully or a brawler, you know what you’re getting into. Trying to play their own game against them never makes you look good. Ignoring what you don’t like is a good policy as far as the Internet is concerned.
This largely concludes my rant for the day. I should mention that just yesterday I linked to my Reviewer’s Choice award over at RT, and that I’m in the May issue, and my experience in dealing with RT has been nothing but good. They’re a popular magazine because readers respect them, and if this is a bonehead stunt by someone claiming to be Falk it’s regrettable. If this is a bonehead stunt by someone attached to the magazine, it’s even more regrettable, but given the ways and wiles of the Internet nothing is certain when it comes to the identity of blog commenters.
So, as usual, your mileage may vary.
But getting all het up over blog reviews is no good for any writer. Let the publisher sort out if the reviews are bad and adjust their marketing/manuscript acceptance strategy accordingly. Our job is to write as well as we can, for those who want to read our stories. Anything else is just noise.
No related posts.
