In this post I consider reviews from the perspective of a new or relatively unknown author.
My aim here is to recalibrate how some authors think about reviews, since I see a lot of comments on the topic where I feel that the author has misunderstood the mechanics.
BAD REVIEWS!
Let's put aside the simple truth that a negative review can actually sell lots of books to people who disagree with the reviewer's taste / opinions. We're taking that piece off the board. Let's pretend that negative reviews can only hurt you.
Consider the frozen lake above. That vast expanse of ice is your potential readership. None of them have ever heard of you or your book.
Let's think about a negative review - a real stinker! The reviewer hates your book. A dog could have shat a better one after gorging on Scrabble tiles. OK. Let's say this reviewer has a sizeable reach - hundreds of readers. And that every single one of them, after reading that review, says to themself, "What a terrible book - I'm never reading that!"
... so what?
Those people were never going to read your book anyway.
The review was a stone thrown into the aforementioned frozen lake. It makes a hole, removing a few square inches of ice (your potential readership).
The square miles of ice remaining do not care.
In a remarkably short time the small hole will freeze over, as people who had never heard of your book rapidly forget it.
Dozens of stones can be thrown at that lake and still 99.99999% of the ice will be right there, ready to carry you.
GOOD REVIEWS!
If the bad review was a stone thrown at a frozen lake, then the good review is a spark drifting down into a forest. And that forest is also your potential readership.
None of them have heard of you. And if there are only a few sparks (reviews) it may well be that all of them briefly illuminate small patches of undergrowth, smoke gently, and then extinguish. It is, unfortunately, a pretty damp forest.
However, each of those sparks has the potential to ignite a wild fire. And whilst some reviews might be a single falling ember, others are Molotov cocktails. With luck and a following wind, one or more of these good reviews will start the hoped for conflagration, and the fire will spread by itself thereafter - as it's always the readers that are the engine that ultimately drives big sales. One reader sells the next reader on your book. The flames leap from branch to branch.
And if the winds keep blowing you'll keep selling.
In short: a negative review may hurt the author emotionally, but it really won't damage their chances of success.
A positive review however, has unlimited potential to help, though in reality it may not move the needle much either.
The obvious lesson here is to pursue every chance to get a review that you possibly can. The misses don't matter - the hits do.
And the factor here is that the different reviewers have largely different audiences. Each reviewer has a small reach and covers a tiny patch of the potential market for your work.
The readers are the ones who will ultimately sell your work, once you pass a certain threshold, and if your work is commercial.
For a mega famous author with a much anticipated book, the opposite is true. Many people reading any review of the book were likely going to read it and might now be swayed from doing so. Though realistically it takes a LOT of negative reviews to keep a book fan from a book they've been jonesing for.
I have to agree. I got into the finals in 2018 and got *eviscerated* in my reviews.
ReplyDeleteStill raised my visibility and helped me move books.
And helped me see some things about my book that I might not have otherwise.
Unless you want to write in a closet, you want your book to be read. Some of those people who read it simply won't like it.
I try to give some sort of review of all books I read, on Goodreads - being retired helps! In turn I’m heavily influenced in my choice of reading by prior reviews of those books, and by people I know have similar likes to me ensuring I’m unlikely to read something I’d consider to be crap. Not an adventurous option, I agree.
ReplyDeleteBut I still come across books I don’t get on with but I won’t usually give them a bad review or rating. In most cases I find they just don’t meet my possibly restricted reading tastes. If I find a book I expect to be a traditional fantasy turns out to be a heavy romance then I probably won’t enjoy it. But I don’t think I should advertise that to the world as a 1-2* rating; it’s more about my differing tastes in reading, not that it’s necessarily a ‘bad book’. So I just won’t rate it. I wish more people would recognise in their low ratings that they’re saying “it’s not to my taste” and not that it’s badly written. I think there’s a big difference. You could briefly explain your null rating with a sentence or two as well, I guess, if you’re using GR to catalogue your reading.
When I do read more adventurously, mainly with self published authors and inspired by your SPFBO, I have been astounded how many excellent self published authors there are. Two to three I’d rate at ‘as good as I’ve ever read’ level. Great prose and storylines and few readers, apparently. Sadly my positive reviews which I enthusiastically give have fallen on damp tinder so far, but I’ll keep trying….
Thank you for giving reviews, oxygen for writers.
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