Until midway through last year I had an unpleasant reaction to one-star reviews. Partly it was because, being a newer author, I had not received any. So the first one stung. The next one was worse, not because of the review, but because more than one meant the first one wasn’t a mistake.
As writers we are told (and tell others, and tell ourselves) to “have thick skin”, but let’s face the music, that can be a very tough thing to do. And nothing tests our resolve and the depth of hide as does the one-star review. I’ve seen authors deal with them in a number of ways. Some lash out at the reviewer. Oh God, please, whoever you are, no matter how much what the reviewer may have said to infuriate you (yes, even up to and including remarks about your grandmother) WALK. AWAY. Nothing (and I do mean nothing) has the potential to harm you as much as getting into an online, documented, verbal battle with a reader (this includes on your blog, too, by the way).
For one thing, it screams to other ‘Net haters, “HEY, here I am and I have one hell of a WEAK UNDERBELLY!!” Seriously. You want to see one-star reviews come raging out of the woods like a pack of angry chickens, start arguing with a reviewer publicly (now if you can get his ass in a vacant alley with no witnesses, the fucking gloves are off). Juuuust kidding. I would never advocate the use of violence to give a much-deserved beat-down to a spineless creature who can only manage to walk upright through building power by hurting others. Seriously. I wouldn’t. Well, hmm, if the alley is definitely deserted—
The worse thing your falling into the honeypot trap of Mr. or Mrs. Internet Grizzly Bear—furry, mean-tempered, capable only of eating other living things—is that it accomplishes only that: it feeds them. They subsist on negativity and reaction to their negativity is better for them than a slice of the Factory’s Chocolate Tuxedo Cream cheesecake is for you.
I’m probably going to pull some one-star reviews just for stating the obvious, but I’m willing to risk it because you need to use logic, not emotion (and not even snarky banter) to reason out the situation. BTW, I write the way I write. I don’t know any of the one-star reviewers personally; I use sarcasm and snark as a style. Many like it, many don’t (I guarantee you one-star reviewers don’t, particularly when it refers to them—whether or not they react shows their personal mettle). Just remember this as your mantra: everyone is entitled to their opinion, and that includes hating your writing. Let’s get to the logical thinking:
1) What is one-star supposed to say, ultimately? I’ll paraphrase, but it’s something along the lines of the worst product that was ever create. Most people wouldn’t dream of giving a one-star review unless something was truly the worst thing they’d ever encountered and needed desperately to warn off others. At worst they’d throw in an extra star for encouragement. Logic balm: is your book the worst piece of crap available on Amazon? I truly doubt it. So why concern yourself with it? (Caveat: if all you have are one-star reviews, and a lot of them, you may want to consider a better editor or another way of expressing yourself artistically).
2) What is the ratio of five, four, and three-star reviews to one-star? I finally realized when I got my first one-star review, I had landed on the scene! Not Walt Whitman yet (bad example; I don’t write poetry), but I was like the “big” authors”: I had haters. I present this challenge: fine me ONE famous writer with no one-star reviews (and the book can’t be three days old). I read every Stephen King book when I was a child in the seventies and eighties. By the nineties, King had given up Horror and I had outgrown King. No matter what you think of the writer, however, it’s pretty difficult to deny he’s the most prolific writer of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century (350,000 copies sold) and that he is a household name.
You think he has haters? I just did a totally random experiment. I’ve met few King fans who don’t feel The Stand is his best work. I even know a large number of King non-fans who still love The Stand. Let’s just agree for the purposes of this lesson that it’s his best book (he’d probably think so). Until this moment I had no idea what the reviews for The Stand looked like. I went and checked. Fifty-three ONE-STAR REVIEWS. I want you to think about that for a moment. The most well-known author of our time; the best book he’s written.
Fifty. Three. One-stars.
That’s a larger number than I have total reviews on a few of my books. So use the logic: bigger, more popular the writer, larger the number of one-star haters. I like to think of them as battle scars. You can’t win a war without a few scars from which to remember how hard were the constant sieges.
3) Not all one-star reviews are crap. I categorize them into three different types:
Non-sequitur: these are the reviews that I’ve gotten on my Detective Bobby Mac series that say, “I loved the Detective/Mystery part until he ruined it with a bunch of demon crap.” Actually you could call this the “sequitur” review. It’s the logical conclusion that’s non-sequitur: it’s described as a Mystery/Thriller with a twist of Good versus Evil paranormal in the SYNOPSIS. Oh, that, and the whole Prologue is about possession. So in summary, these are the reviews that actually slam the reviewer for buying a book and not reading what the book was about. Why should a writer about mountain-climbing get a one-star review because the reader hates mountains?
Personal Problems: One of my recent on-star reviews started by saying she LOVED the book “until the swearing started”. My book is not listed in the Christian Fiction genre. And I use profanity where it exists in the world, not like some teenager who gets a thrill using the F-bomb every other word. Why does the author’s writing ability and book quality deserve one-star because the reader has a distaste for profanity of any kind? She literally stopped reading the book because it has swear words in it. Again, not a reflection on the quality of a book. (Dear authors, so you see where I am going with this? Well hang on for category three.)
Honest Haters: The most recent one-star I received was actually someone who hated my writing. Hated my “four-dollar” words; said I couldn’t find a plot if it bit me in the testicles (my words, not his/hers); though my ending stunk like a pile of rotting corpses (again, my paraphrase). Here’s the thing: not everyone is going to love your writing, even if they’re in the 1%. And they have every right to hate your style, your plot, your ending, and even your name. Here’s what I do with “Honest Haters”: I see if there is anything useful in their criticism, just like any other review. Sometimes there is!
To summarize, don’t see the one-star as a negative. If it was clearly written to spit on you for no apparent reason, why should you care? If it’s about the reading (disliking swear words, or buying a book in wrong genre) then why should you care? And if it’s actually a well-written (“hated it”) review of your book, my guess is it’s in the 1-2% and you should see if there’s anything in it worth considering for cleaning up your writing.
This much is true: I’d take fifty-three one-stars of my books against one thousand one hundred and twenty-one five-star reviews any day of the week and a dozen times on Sunday. What book, you wonder, received so many sterling reviews?
Yep, The Stand.
Lay siege, dear authors.
Be fair, dear readers.
Yes, we can all get along.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author known to use spontaneous satire, sarcasm, and unannounced injections of pith or witticisms which may not be suitable for humorless or otherwise jest-challenged individuals. (Witticisms not guaranteed to be witty, funny, comical, hilarious, clever, scintillating, whimsical, wise, endearing, keen, savvy, sagacious, penetrating, fanciful, or otherwise enjoyable. The Surgeon General has determined through laboratory testing that sarcasm can be dangerous, even in small amounts, and should not be ingested by those who are serious, somber, pensive, weighty, funereal, unsmiling, poker-faced, sober, or pregnant.)
Excellent post, Rob. Every writer should read it!
Thanks much for the comment, Stavros. I think we give reviewers, critics, etc. too much power over our egos and should rather use our intellects. Try to find something useful and if you can’t, no biggie…move along! (Harder done than said, I know, from personal experience, but I think it’s what we should strive for.) 🙂
I can only hope that other author take your advice. One star reviews are good in the long run. It scares me when I see a book on Amazon with only 4 or 5 star reviews…especially when those reviews are vague. When I buy a book, I check out the 3,2, and 1 star reviews. I’m looking for why the person didn’t like it. Why tends to be subjective so if the only reason the person didn’t like it was because it had swearing, then I’d say it’s a good book for me. If there’s any mention of bad editing or typos, then I won’t buy the book.
I read a lot of books. In the past 15 months, 17% of the books I read/DNF I thought were one star books. I tried to be honest with why it didn’t work for me. It’s weird how books that I think are crap, a friend raves about, and vice versa.
I hope that all authors realize that people don’t give a book a one star review because they hate the author or think the book is the worst book ever (although I did have one of those recently). A one star review means that the book just didn’t work for them. Either they hate the characters, the plot, the writing, or the ending…or a combination.
You nailed it, Lizzy: try and understand the reasoning of the low review. It’s usually fairly obvious (whether honest or just hurtful). As I mentioned to Stavros, we need to check our egos at the door when reading reviews. I would ask you this (because when I switch to reader mode, it’s what I do): do you sample the book? I’ve never been big on reviews (for books specifically). Setting aside “dishonest” reviewing, still how can someone else tell me what I will like or not like. I go for the sample every time and within a few pages can make a 99% accurate judgement as to whether I’ll like the book or not. The Amazon rating system is so screwed up now anyway, I normally disregard it. Just my own personal “reader” experience. Thanks for the awesome comment! 😀
It is difficult to have a thick skin even though it’s a necessity. Criticizing our books is like criticizing our family because our books have our DNA.
Yep. It’s difficult, but we need to check our egos at the door and use our brains instead. Find what’s useful, disregard the rest.
I look at it this way. You hate me and my writing so much you need to publicly ridicule me? We would probably never get along in real life and therefore, I don’t need to concern myself with you. I don’t write to make friends. I don’t write to bring the world together in unity. I write because there is a story I want to tell. If that story has no place in your life, that’s too bad for you. Not for me.
I agree with you, Sarah, except to add one point: IF you care about getting better (and you may not; you may be perfectly content having told the story your way and your way only) even the one and two star reviews can have valuable suggestions if you let your head analyze them rather than your heart. Clearly some reviews are just hurtful/hateful and, as you and I both mentioned, why give a hoot about those? Thanks for the great commentary. 🙂
I received my first one star review a few months ago, Rob, and as bizarre as it might sound, I was thrilled! I’d arrived – me and the greats, we all have one star reviews!
Thankfully, the reviewer’s comments were balanced – she liked parts of the story but it was told from too many points of view for her. I haven’t received negative reviews from any haters. Yet. I’m sure they’ll come. I just hope they’ll have some nugget I can learn from, or they’ll be so blatantly hateful that potential readers will recognize them for what they are.
Great post – thanks!
As I summarized with Caleb: check your ego at the door, use your mind to read the review, find what’s useful and disregard the rest. Easier said than done, admittedly (Mr. and Mrs. Ego are tough birds), but in the end, you nailed it: you haven’t arrived until you’ve received your share of one-star reviews (and a spread of reviews absolutely lends authenticity to your book, or at least its reviews). Thanks for jumping in and sharing your first one-star! 😀
one star better than no star/ keep ’em reading those books
great article Rob
Thanks, Leslie, for yet another positive take on the one-star review! 🙂
Great post, Rob. When I read 1 star reviews of anything (a book, film, recipe, restaurant, product), I find that many of them aren’t even useful–they are just downright mean. I think these type of reviewers are either warming up to be flamers/trolls or already are. And just like with full blown flamers/ trolls–Don’t feed ’em!
Personally I just can’t see myself giving a 1 star review of anything. Surely most bad things have some redeeming quality? If I truly couldn’t find that, I would probably not review it. Sometimes I think 1 a lot of 1 star reviewers are just all around negative thinkers.
I agree…most halfway-positive human beings will add a star (especially to an unknown) just for having had the gumption write an entire novel AND put it out there for the world (although there are a lot of HORRIBLE writers who really NEED to see a lot of one-star reviews to understand their writing needs a lot of work before being published). So I have mixed feelings. Still, the predominance of one-stars are immediately recognizable as negative just to be negative (or some other other non-helpful reason). I have to admit, I’ve left one-star reviews once or twice on books that were heralded by the masses as bestselling gold. Literally these “everyone MUST read this book, it is SO outstanding…then I read it and it is HORRIBLE, based on expectation. Had I simply picked up said books by chance, I never would have given them a one-star. The other caveat is that I went into great detail in the review (in fact one used to be the “Most Helpful Negative Review”).
I think that’s the key: if you’re going to post a one-star review and you’re NOT just being a hater or doing it because of YOU and not the BOOK, be detailed. Tell the author what they could have done better and keep the negative, personal, insulting words OUT.
If a preview is available, I do read it first. This eliminates a lot books TBH. Most of the books that end up being one star for me are ARCs (so no preview) or recommendations from friends (they thought it was good, so I don’t bother sampling). But when its the plot at fault, you can recognize that from the first chapter. SHADOW AND BONE is a good example of me thinking that I’m going to love the book and end up hating it. There’s a twist at 60% that made me go from rating it 5 stars to possibly one or two. .haven’t officially reviewed it yet. A badly written ending can kill a book for me.
So, while previewing the book definitely helps, it isn’t a foolproof way to avoid reading books you hate. Particularly when you read 100+ a year.
But, I do love the article and thanks for replying to my comment.
Thanks for commenting. I figure if a reader takes the time to comment (and a cogent comment at that) I’m going to do everything within my power to remember to respond. Not just tit for tat, either. I’ve written comments that I should have (and might still) turn into blog posts (especially when they make you think of something you forgot—unfortunately not nearly as many readers read comments as they do posts. 🙂
“Why should a writer about mountain-climbing get a one-star review because the reader hates mountains?”
The entire article was good, of course. Your stuff always is, but this question struck out the most for me. Readers, don’t be mad because you made a stupid decision and didn’t actually LOOK at the synopsis. Sheesh!
I’ve also seen reviews that hate on other reviews and not the book per se. One reviewer even admitted that he didn’t read the book, didn’t even try. All the 5 star reviews turned him off before even trying. OK, so there are a lot of fake reviews out there. Is that a reason not to give a book a try? So what if the author bought reviews? Still not a reason not to give it try, especially after looking at the synopsis and beginning sample.
When I saw that review of the other reviews, I blogged about it and got more than a hundred people to vote the review unhelpful. The reviewer was bashed in the comments. I wouldn’t do that with a hater review, an honest negative review, but I felt obligated to do it with a stupid review. I named the blog post Shame on You: The Worst One Star Review I’ve Ever Seen. It was a popular post, as you can imagine.
The reviewer lashed backed, of course, saying that the author orchestrated the votes, which wasn’t true at all. I didn’t even know the author. I did it of my own volition (is that a $4 word?). Part of my blogging mantra is to be fair to everyone, authors and readers alike. So, reviews should be honest but fair. Never slanderous but not overly glowing either.
I would classify a personal problem review in the same light. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t stop reading a book that threw me a surprise like excess profanity, but I wouldn’t give it one star. If everything up to that point was good, three stars would be fair … but I’m more than a fair reviewer. I’ve never given a one star review because honestly, I’ve never read anything THAT bad. And if I did, I didn’t get far enough to even review it. I won’t review something that I haven’t at least tried to read. And reading three pages isn’t enough.
Another reality is that many readers are only going to take the time out of their day to write a review if they either really loved the book, or really hated it. That’s why I think the ratio means more than people give it credit for. I intentioned mention King’s “The Stand” having FIFTY-THREE one-star reviews on purpose. Later, when you put that up against almost THIRTEEN HUNDRED five-star reviews, the number pales in comparison.
Someone I know (not me — I checked) received a one-star review for a complaint against Amazon (can’t recall what it was but it had absolutely nothing to do with the book. Didn’t even mention the book. They were complaining about some function Amazon didn’t have or that hadn’t worked for them. How on God’s green earth does the author deserve a one-star review for that? People really can be disappointing sometimes (and you have NO idea how nice I am trying to be in that wording). 😉
Thanks, as always, for the thought-inspiring comment, Mark.
One day I do plan to do some kind of book-compilation of all the blogs I’ve written, and I figure reader comments to be a big part of that. Some of the best discussion happens there and most people don’t read comments. Of course then I’ll have to track down all the commenters and get their permission to use their comments. Blasted copyrighting. 😉
By the way, thanks for always making me feel better about doing what I do. I appreciate all comments, certainly not just the ones that are favorable or happen to agree with something I said, but yours are always uplifting. Blogging is fun, and very cathartic to me, but I do like it most when it helps someone or they enjoy it or they pick up a nugget of something decent. To me, blogging should add something to the grander scheme. Not every time. But overall (and I’m two shy of my 200th blog, so don’t think I haven’t been thinking about how to handle that). Seriously, man. Thanks for reading and thanks for taking the time to comment. You are at the top of my “regulars” list.
Of course that could be a negative thing if I ever snap and need easy access to a list, but the asylum says I’m doing much better now.
Very enjoyable article, very snarky.
Personally, I can’t wait to get one star reviews once my book’s out, just to see how I’ll react to that situation.
Thanks a million.
Thanks for the read and comment, Max! A friend of mine just suggested the “brandishing an iron pipe” approach. I have to admit, it excited me at a very basal level. I’ll call it “The Hooliganism Approach”. 😉
Your sense of humor is really definitely entertaining!!!!!! (Absolutely couldn’t resist the exclamation points – one of your personal hates. Personally, I don’t use ’em, either.
Oops. Adverbs. Dropped parenthesis. I’m going to h***.
I enjoyed “INK”.
Actually I think exclamation points (and emoticons) are CRUCIAL in email, comments (which are like emails: discussions, etc.). With personal conversation online there’s the issue of NO body language, inflection, etc. I use exclamation points all the time in email, comments, and even my blog! In a book, you’re crafting a story. If by the time something exciting happens you haven’t made it clear it’s exciting and need !!!!!! well, you know the rest. 🙂
Thanks for reading and commenting, Kathy! <~~see?
I kept looking for the “Like” button. 😉