Later this week I’m guesting over at J.Scott Coatsworth’s gaff as part of a tour-ette revealing the cover for the final Taking Shield book, Day of Wrath. Scott, being a genial sort of chap, helps relieve the pressure on his fellow authors to constantly come up with something flash and original, by sending them a set of interview questions. And while I blessed him for his consideration, I also blessed him because one of his questions gave me fodder for my monthly post here at Love Bytes.

So, Scott asked, do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

I kinda snorted when I read it, because I’ve come across authors who say they never read their reviews, and I have to bite my lip to stop me getting all raised eyebrow and ‘pull the other one’ on them. Because if, as a writer, you have laboured, sweated, cried and moaned to birth that book, you push it out into the world and then do not care what happens to it? Uh-huh. Can’t credit it.

Of course, I read my reviews. And yes, some reviews hurt when they’re bad, and hurt in a different, glad way when they’re good. Some bad reviews have cost me sleep, but some good ones make me want to sing out loud. Some leave me scratching my head and wishing that it wasn’t considered bad form for an author to respond to reviewers. One odd review of my one and only, light-hearted contemporary book said something about “More research on facts would of helped the story.” I’m still wondering what that was about, since the book, a collection of six short stories, was excessively fact-lite. Maybe I spelt a restaurant’s name wrong or something? I’d have loved to go back and ask what the heck the reader meant by that comment, and it still tugs at me today in a WTF?! kind of way.

So, reviews can leave you in despair, or alt, or bemusement. But they should always leave you feeling a strong sense of gratitude. Because no one owes you a review. No one.

The biggest compliment a reader can pay you is to buy your books. That’s the most you can ask of them. If they do decide to review—and let’s be honest, as the quote at the top says, silence doesn’t do you any good at all so let’s hope they do—they don’t have to like your books. Nor should they be required to. I’ve hated books that have been wildly popular (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, anyone?), so why should readers be any less free to dislike mine? They’ve put down good coin to acquire them, and they’re entitled to their opinion.

Remember that those readers you do touch are your blessing. Keep a few glowing reviews in your mental/emotional back pocket so that when you see a bad one, read it, learn from it if there’s anything to be learned, and then go and reread your glowing reviews to take the bite away.

Remember, too, that you’re a writer and nothing and nobody can deny you that. Write what makes you happy. And most of all, follow Ann Patchett’s advice.

Don’t give up. Not ever.

About Anna

Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She lives with her husband in a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside. She’s supported there by the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo, who is assisted by the lovely Mavis, a Yorkie-Bichon cross with a bark several sizes larger than she is but no opinion whatsoever on the placement of semi-colons.

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