Author Sally Ember, EdD: An Open Letter to my Earlier Self about #Book #Reviews and #Reviewers
An Open
Letter to my Earlier Self about #Book #Reviews and #Reviewers
This is Letter Two of Four of my "open letter to my earlier self" series that first appeared on The Book Cove, http://www.thebookcover.com, late November - December, 2014.
Letter One appeared on my site, http://www.sallyember.com/blog , on
3/26/15.
Letters Three and Four post on April 11 and 18,
2015.
I published my first ebook in December, 2013, and my second
in June, 2014. My third just published last month, March, 2015. What I wish I
had known before my first ebook went into pre-sales in November, 2013, about
book reviews and reviewers could probably fill a book all by itself. I will try
to make my life lessons more pithy, here.
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Dear Sally,
You undoubtedly feel all excited about your first
science-fiction/romance ebook's publication, as you should. You are eager to
read the first reviews, wondering how readers will respond, right?
Part of your preparation has been to read reviews and write
reviews yourself on Goodreads. You have mostly been reading books you get from
the library from rather well-known authors and writing reviews of those.
Alternatively, you have been reading a few works-in-progress by new and indie authors on http://www.Authonomy.com and http://www.Wattpad.com and leaving comments. Some authors have been commenting on your excerpts, also.
You are feeling great!
Many of the reviewers are quite positive, giving the book 5 and 4 stars.
Even the 3-star reviews have positive comments amidst the critiques and offer
valuable points of view. You are psyched!
Then, the DNF (Did Not Finish) "reviews" start to
appear, with 1- or 2-star ratings even though they didn't read even half (and
in some cases, even one-quarter) of your 323-pg book. Now come the lessons.
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People who only watch a few minutes of a movie or TV show or
walk out at intermission for a live performance aren't entitled to submit a
full review much less a rating. Why are these readers doing this? What gives
them any right to even comment, much less evaluate your book with so little experience
of it? Reviewers are supposed to READ the book, first, aren't they?
HA HA HA HA HA! You wish!
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Do not expect all readers to leave comments or reviews.
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Do not be surprised when requests for reviews are ignored
even when you follow all the reviewers' guidelines and fill out their forms,
even when your book falls within their genre specifications and meets their
criteria perfectly, not even when they claim they will
respond to all requests.
When you say that you are not a "review swap" kind
of author, explaining that, on the rare occasion you do accept another author's
book to read and review (because you're very busy writing), that:
a) you cannot promise to provide their book with a 4- or
5-Star ranking,
b) you do not know what you will think of their book prior
to reading it, and
c) you can't promise a "positive" review,
do not be surprised when some reviewers/authors refuse to
review your book at all (and some are quite snarky about it).
The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) developed a Code
of Ethics (#ethicalauthor) http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/ethical-author-campaign/
in November, 2014, that included these statements in the Reviewing
and Rating books section, which I like (except for the missing
apostrophe on the final use of reader):
"I do not review or rate my own or another author’s
books in any way that misleads or deceives the reader. I am transparent about
my relationships with other authors when reviewing their books.
"I am transparent about any reciprocal reviewing
arrangements, and avoid any practices that result in the reader being
deceived."
Then, they also included this part in Reacting
to reviews, which I thoroughly agree with:
"I do not react to any book review by harassing the
reviewer, getting a third party to harass the reviewer, or making any form of
intrusive contact with the reviewer. If I’ve been the subject of a personal
attack in a review, I respond in a way that is consistent with professional
behaviour."
Read the entire Ethical Author
Code and decide if you, as an author, want to adhere to it, or
you as a reader want authors to adhere to it. If you do, download the badge,
below, and spread the word! http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/alli-campaigns/ethical-author/
Some even have agreements up front that they will not post
or give any books lower than a 3-Stars ranking. They consider a 3 (out of 5) to
be a "terrible" rating.
When you are involved with some authors' groups which
require "review swaps" as part of "belonging" to their
"club" (which I heartily recommend AGAINST joining for precisely that
reason and more besides) and you read the book you have chosen or been assigned
and discover that it is a book you have to give a 2-star rating to (and that is
being generous, in your opinion), do not be surprised when the club leaders
seem supportive but it turns out that they are not.
Be prepared for the author to tell you that s/he is
"too thin-skinned" to talk to you about your responses prior to your
posting the review. You do wonder, however, how anyone can publish books, put
their writing out in public, expect all their readers to react positively every
time and make no emotional preparations for the eventuality of rejection or
negative feedback from readers.
Take it in stride when the leaders refuse to post your
review even though it meets all their stated criteria, you warned them in
advance that it was not "positive," and they
emailed you that "an honest opinion was all they wanted or expected from
their members." Do not take their lack of integrity personally, even when
they cast aspersions on your character and hint that you are "being
unfair" and "unkind." Do not take the bait, even when they keep
asking you questions that imply how heartless you are to rate that book so low,
such as, "Don't you know how hard this author worked on that book?"
We wish everyone realized that rational, negative reviews
can be helpful, as blogger Jody Hedlund points out in this great meme:
image from
http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com
Why, you wonder, would a reader who already knows she
doesn't like science-fiction choose to read, much less claim to want to review,
a science-fiction book? There are ALIENS on the cover. There is no mistaking
the genre of this book! What is the deal?
The components of Buddhism and Judaism figure prominently in
your books and you make that clear in blurbs and your bio. So, why would a
born-again Christian, a devout Muslim or Catholic or any other
religious-leaning person who has problems accepting Buddhism or Judaism in
fictional characters and plots (or in real life, actually) choose YOUR books to
review? What were they imagining would happen?
You put information right in the first chapters of your
books regarding its format (all in the present tense on purpose, for example,
and presentations of multiple timelines), yet some reviewers will criticize
your writing for these exact components, commenting that you "needed a
better editor" since you "obviously don't know how to use verb
tenses," or complain that "there were too many versions of the same
story."
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Meanwhile, support other indie authors. Write and leave
reviews, rankings, comments and LIKES.
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Sally is the author of The Spanners Series. The Spanners Series is for adults/new adults and young adults. Sci-fi/ romance/ paranormal/ multiverse/ utopian/speculative fiction stories for this series come to author, Sally Ember, from dreams, meditation, visions and scientific research. www.sallyember.com/
Sally's Guest Posts at The Book Cove
I hear you. My book,One Enchanted Evening (an updated version of Little Red Riding Hood), got dinged half a star from a reviewer because they didn't understand why I related my villain to a wolf...Oy.
ReplyDeleteThat is hilarious, L.A. Kelley! I have also heard of "reviewers" who slam a book because they didn't want to read anything with ...............(fill in the blank), but ............ was IN THE TITLE. Seriously demented people "out there." Button up your overcoat!
ReplyDeleteBest to you,
Sally
I never understood how people could "review" a book they haven't even read. Makes no sense to me. I guess we just have to continue to write and reach our target audience in hopes that our books move people enough to make them feel something, whether good or bad (and hopefully, those people will leave reviews!). Great post. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI know, Quanie Miller. Those pesky DNF or did-not-read comments shouldn't be allowed in the same category as actual reviews, right?
DeleteYou're very welcome. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Best to you,
Sally
I do not think that public ratings should be given to DNFs like on Amazon, Goodreads, and other book review sites. That falsely drives down a rating in my opinion. And I think many DNFs are simply because the reader didn't understand the topic. But I do think that writing a review is okay as long as it says why they didn't finish. That could be very important. Was it too convoluted, poor writing, not an accurate representation of a topic?
ReplyDeleteHI, again, Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteSo glad to have your opinions and comments on this series. You bring up some excellent points. I would offer that people who DNF a book are not reviewing it. They are commenting on WHY they didn't finish or didn't want to continue reading. I still maintain that someone who doesn't finish a piece of writing, theatre, film or other art should not label their comments a "review,' but, rather, an opinion.
There should be somewhere for those, but not in "reviews," which, by definition, are supposed to be a "look back" upon something whole, not partial.
However, since there is NOT a separate place for comments or opinions for DNFs, the DNF nature of that person's comments should be in the TITLE and right up front, yes? I would also add that that person should offer a percentage of how much of that writing s/he actually read.
Best to you,
Sally