Is There A Point To Negative Reviews?

A major interest for all writers, quite aside from having their work accepted by a publisher and then selling, is the reaction it receives from the marketplace, from ordinary readers. With the advances in technology, it is now possible for absolutely everyone to review a work, to add their comment on one website or another, to make their feelings known. This doesn’t always meet with acceptance from everyone involved, sometimes with good reason, sometimes because they feel insulted or misunderstood.

Screenshot: Twitter

As an avid reader and occasional reviewer I can understand the point made here: why only the negative review – even if it is a minor point – why not a positive one on the ‘better’ works? Or, as one commenter seems to imply, why bother reviewing at all? Why not just lay the book to one side, unfinished, and move on to the next title?

It is sometimes hard to understand the motivation behind what people do, we do not know them, we do not understand what moves them. All we know is that they’ve bought or borrowed the title and were either happy or unhappy with their purchase. The vast majority of readers do not write a review at all, and we have no idea what they tell other people about their reading experience: do they recommend the title to friends, or warn them off?

As a writer I know that we have to accept the bad with the good, that is what makes life the way it is. Whatever we have written, whatever has been published is not going to appeal to everyone, and each work – hopefully – is different, it is going to speak to the reader in a different way. So of course some are going to be unhappy, or rate it lower than another work. Is that a bad thing? Wouldn’t we rather have some form of feedback from our customers, from our fan-base, than none at all? And with a negative review, bearing in mind that it is not seriously negative in this case, we know what to concentrate on for the future. And that is a good thing.

Love & Kisses, Viki.

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