The problem is that the bad reviews are intended to hurt,

Why do people make this assumption? Yes there are books I dislike so much that I stop worrying about whether I’m going to hurt the author’s feelings (note that this is different from deliberately intending to hurt them). However, I worry about hurting the author’s feelings when I don’t like something about a book. I’ve had books published & reviewed; I know what it’s like to receive both negative and positive reviews. I’ve spoken with a number of other reviewers as well who have a simple quandary: they want to be honest, but they don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. When one of those folks asks what to do, I always say, remember that reviews AREN’T FOR AUTHORS. They’re for READERS. And for reviews to be useful to readers, they have to help readers decide which books they would or wouldn’t enjoy. At some point, honesty has to be the top concern in a review—yes, even over hurt feelings—otherwise, IMO, you’re not being an ethical reviewer.

Which brings me to the person who said reviewers should simply not review any book they don’t like. I couldn’t disagree more. That doesn’t help anyone—author or reader. As a reader I want to know which books I wouldn’t enjoy as well as which books I would. And in that matter, what counts isn’t whether a review is positive or negative, but whether it provides enough information that I can make up my mind for myself. I feel pretty confident that I tend to accomplish this with my reviews, because the amazon links I put on my pages allow me to see that even my so-so or negative reviews of books sell those books to readers. As a former movie marketer once told me, “Good reviews sell tickets. Bad reviews sell tickets. No reviews don’t sell tickets.” The same is true for books—which means that avoiding reviewing any book you didn’t like could actually cost the author potential sales to people who read your review and say, “but that sounds like something I’d enjoy.”

So while negative or partially negative reviews may hurt, and I personally disagree with things like revealing spoilers, I utterly disagree with the idea that reviewers who say negative things about books are necessarily being spiteful or unprofessional. Remember that a negative review can sell books as well as a positive one, particularly if it sparks discussion.

You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

Any book written, is going to appeal to someone people but not everyone…when buying any book from a new author I’ve just found I always check reviews, however, I never take any stock in them, not completely anymore.

There’s professional and there’s unprofessional. Then there’s the basic quote of some people need to get a grip, and grow up.

Thanks again for covering a mutlitude of topics, I really appreciate the time you give your fans, between your busy schedule. Not to mention your say it the way it is, and your no nonsense, pull no punches attitude.

I used to post informal reviews on my blog. I never received ARCs or was paid, I just blogged about books I’d read, films and TV shows I’d watched, etc… With books, I always tried to be fair and state both what worked for me and what didn’t. I also tried to find at least one positive thing to say about books I didn’t like. And in cases where I personally knew the writer but didn’t like the book, I never publicly said anything at all. I did savage the occasional film or TV show, but film and TV are collective efforts. Besides, I doubt a bad review from a nobody would have any significant impact on the viewing figures of a film/TV show.

Here in Germany, there recently was a court case where a teacher sued to get a website banned where students could review their teachers. The teacher inevitably ended up looking like sour grapes. I have worked as a teacher myself, teaching both university and highschool, and so far I have managed to resist looking up my name on one of those teacher or lecturer review sites, because those sites are not intended for teachers but for students as a forum to vent. A lot of those teacher reviews probably are unfair, but then we said a lot of nasty and unfair things about our teacher in my day, too, we just didn’t do it quite so publicly. Coming across a student venting about me on one of those sites would only serve to bias me against that student, which would be unfair towards him/her.

When/if I ever manage to get a novel published, I hope I will have the strength to refrain from looking at online reviews, particularly from amateur reviewers. Because otherwise the temptation to respond would be too strong and we all know where that leads. After all, the racism discussion which raged through the SFF community for several months also started with an author responding to a review.

But mostly, I’m aghast that anyone could post someone’s phone number and ask their fans to call and complain. I’ve seen how zealous (over-zealous, really) and vicious some fans can get in defense of their favorite authors, and honestly I’m a bit surprised the reviewer didn’t find herself getting threatened. To deliberately put someone in that situation is beyond poor form or bad judgment.

But when a reviewer’s contact information is posted, with a remark encouraging direct harassment, the bar has been raised. Absolutely unacceptable.

Secondly, as a former book reviewer who quit because I ran out of ways to say “this is a great book, you readers should go buy a copy and here are the links to where you can do so…” I’d like to express my displeasure at my fellow reviewers who prefer to slam a book rather than send off a private e-mail to the writer (and/or) publisher stating that they “can’t publish a review because they didn’t like a particular novel & these are the reasons why…”

Book reviewers, it seems to me, should perform a different job than book critics- if one can see a difference between the two. A reviewer is, in ideal situations, part of the string of publicity people who attempt to get the word out that there is a new book that readers should be looking to buy. A critic, on the other hand, should be someone with enough writing creds to know if a book is well written or not, and enough lack of fear to say so. In short, and in my definition, a reviewer should stick to stating that they enjoyed a particular book and where it can be bought (or else just not write a review at all), while a critic should be able to discern if a book is well written and be willing to say so in a public forum of some sort.

Neither should post spoilers- again, in my opinion -or engage in personal attacks on a writer.

As a reviewer, I never posted a negative review. I knew that if I didn’t enjoy reading a particular book, I would be showing poor manners to attack a writer for turning out said book. Instead, I e-mailed the writer directly, *privately* (or the publisher who sent me the book if I didn’t have a way to get in touch with the writer) to explain exactly why I didn’t enjoy the book in question. One thing I did not ever do was tell my readers that they shouldn’t buy someone’s book just because it didn’t appeal to me. Sure, I own 5k paperbacks in various fiction genres. Sure, I’ve read easily 100 times that number of books I’d found in a library. But I’ve always considered myself a representative of the average reader, not someone with enough education to determine what flaws exist where in a given book. I’m just the average Joe who goes out and buys books to read. If I like a book, I figured that other folks would like it just as much, or even more.

In short, I’m sorry that some people would rather post nasty insults than just avoid posting a review of a book that they didn’t like. Please don’t judge all book reviewers by the faults exhibited by a few of the nastier types of people out there.

Dan

Posting the reviewer’s e-mail and phone number and requesting her fans harass the person was way, way, way over the top and absolutely unacceptable in my book. There is anger, and then there is freaking nuts. For me, posting the contact info falls into the latter.

In general, this is frowned upon. Sometimes such reactions are mocked, which does the author no good. Authors on the site do better to encourage their fans than attack their detractors — lots of books are read via word-of-mouth and friend recommendations. No one persuades someone NOT to like a book she doesn’t like, and certain trying to intimidate someone out of disliking a book will fail. The review might be removed, but gossip remains.

That said, you’re absolutely right on how little qualification goes into becoming a reviewer, for any publication. Film, television, music, books, art: high school journalism tends to attract the smartasses who regularly got punched out in gym class but who knew that their opponents couldn’t shoot back in print. (Self-loathing, you ask? You betcha.) The really pathetic ones are the critics that are nearly universally loathed but who keep going, no matter the hate mail, because they’ve cultivated a longterm relationship with an editor or producer who won’t put them back on welfare where they belong. (This goes double for the critics who expect indulgences in exchange for reviews, and attack subjects that don’t give them the supersecret freebies they expect. Here in Dallas, our sole weekly newspaper still retains one critic so notorious for decades for throwing tantrums over freebies and special access and then attacking the subject because the freebies were flowing that anybody in the music scene who gets treated in that way describes themselves as “wilonskyed”. Even as other, better writers are laid off or quit, he’s still staying because no other publication is insane enough to hire him, and friends and I have a dead pool as to how many days go by after his paper shuts down before he blows his brains out. We’ll probably find out toward the end of 2009.)

The problem is that the bad reviews are intended to hurt, just like the smartass cracks in the lunch line or in biology class, and it’s really hard not to give back as good as you get. Really, Hoffman’s response wasn’t any different from paying the halfback on the football team $10 to beat the shit out of the dweeb who pissed all over your recital. I can’t blame her for feeling that way. Problem is, enough of us realize that we’re out of high school (although fewer than the ones who bitch about they’ll never show up to a class reunion…until they’re rich and famous enough to make everybody else eat out their own hearts in envy), so we’re expected to behave better than this. As we all know from high school, sometimes taking the high road just makes it worse.