Again, I have to say a huge THANK YOU to Mark for allowing me to revisit his blog. Things must be going alright, if you’re reading this. Keep the wishes for luck coming. It seems to be working!
Today, I’m going to share an opinion about something really important – book reviews.
There are numerous readers, spanning the world over. For some reason, when a reader in the UK gets on Amazon to look for a book, they only get to see the UK reviews. Many book bloggers and professional reviewers post reviews on all channels of Amazon. In recent days, Amazon has decided these “foreign” reviews do not belong, so they deleted any review outside of the home region. This hurts authors.
As an author, I write a story. Then, the story gets edited. Next, I put it through beta readers. While the beta readers dive into the story, they are also watching for any errors. Then, there is another read and the beta reader’s catches are fixed. Then, a final read. Finally, the book is ready to publish. So, it is.
At the point I put the book out to the world, I’ve already received comments and feedback on the piece. As an author, my reviews happened before I put the book out. Once the book is out, the reader is not necessarily writing a review for me. They are writing a review for fellow readers. I hate seeing authors berate a reviewer for a negative review. Even the Holy Bible has negative reviews. For an author to believe that their books will always get five-star reviews is unrealistic. Not every person loves everything equally. Varied ratings proves you’ve got real people reading your work. If you don’t have anything other than five-star reviews, that looks a little suspect. Plus, the very things one reader may dislike are the same things another reader may be looking for. Everything works as it’s meant to. The most important thing is that readers are comfortable with you to leave reviews, at all.
In short, every review is equally valuable to the author. The reader reviews are not for authors. Authors have no business addressing the reviewers or questioning their opinion. Everything in the world has positive and negative reviews. Be willing, as an author, to understand that to be real, you need real reviews and opinions – good and bad. Welcome them. Embrace them. Learn from them. But for the love of all that is, authors, leave the reviewers alone.
