Taste of Cyn

I was yapping with the always awesome Felicity Kates about dealing with negative or 1 star reviews. She mentioned that I should share this information with others so here goes…

You’ve edited your book to be the best it can be. Beta readers love it. YOU love it. The quality is there. You’re confident that it is a solid story. You send it out into the world.

You get some great reviews. Then you receive a negative review.

Hopefully.

Negative reviews on a quality story often mean your story is selling well or it does something different or it is reaching a new-to-you readership. This isn’t a bad thing. This is a GOOD thing.

It still hurts. We want every reader to love our stories. But that isn’t possible. Some readers will love our stories and some readers will hate our stories. This disagreement creates buzz and that is how many bestsellers happen. Reviewers, bloggers, critics discuss our stories, prompting more people to read them. No one discusses a story everyone loves. We do need those lovers but we need the haters also (note: Don’t look for haters. They will find you).

Trolls

Some of these haters will be, what many writers call, trolls. They haven’t read your book. Their reviews are (usually) easily identified.

They tend to be something like this

“This book was boring. I couldn’t force myself to finish it. The characters were too stupid to live. I wanted to strangle them. Save your money and don’t buy this book.”

They’ll be verified purchases so they’ll look legit but they (likely) aren’t. How can we determine that they aren’t? There’s no mention of character names or significant plot points. With Releasing Rage, there’s one scene that is mentioned in almost all legitimate 1 star reviews (you know the scene). Trolls never mention it.

But-but-but they are verified purchases. Trolls know the significance of those two words. If the troll is paid to leave a bad review (which, unfortunately, happens quite often), the person purchasing the review usually covers both the reviewer’s fee AND the cost of the book.

(Writers are contacted about these ‘services’ so we all pretty much know how it works.)

The interesting thing is… Amazon usually promotes stories with XX (and this XX seems to continually move) reviews more heavily than stories with fewer reviews. 1 star reviews count toward this number. The trolls are helping you promote your story.

And, as any book reviewer will attest, 1 star reviews also sell books. I was a reviewer for a huge site years ago and I had a readership that would buy EVERY story I didn’t like. They didn’t even read the review. They looked at the 1 star rating and made a purchase.

There are some ‘negative’ reviews that sell truckloads of books. Hearing that an erotic romance has too much sex or is too dark or too taboo will encourage some readers to buy the story.

Sales Killing Reviews

There are some reviews that are sales killers however. The biggest one for any romance author is “This story doesn’t have a happy ending.” or “The hero/heroine dies at the end.” or “The characters don’t end up together.”, any twist on “This isn’t a romance.”

When I first started out, I received this type of review quite often from trolls (many of these reviews magically disappeared when Amazon banned writers from reviewing their perceived competition’s stories). This is why I usually include “(My story title) IS a romance and has the expected romance ending.” in the From The Author section.

Notice how I don’t address the reviewer or the review directly.

What To Do When You Receive A Negative Review

When you receive a negative review, do NOT address the review. Do NOT contact the reviewer. Do NOT talk smack about the review. Do NOT send your readers or street team after this reviewer. Do NOT ask people to vote down the review.

Why? Because a) it is unprofessional and it makes you look like a doufus and b) it ends the discussion about your story. You WANT this discussion to continue. What I usually see is, after a 1 star review is posted, a 5 star review immediately follows. This occurs naturally. There’s no need to prompt it. It simply happens.

What can you do?

Some writers don’t read reviews. Ever. Or they have friends filter the reviews and send them the positive reviews only. They find reading negative reviews sucks their creativity and there’s nothing they can do about the reader’s concerns. The story is published. The writer/editors/publisher is happy with it. They aren’t going to make any changes to it.

I read reviews after my fresh writing for the day is done.

There are five main types of negative reviews

1) I intentionally did something different in my story and the reader didn’t like it. – This is an expected review whenever I do something different (which, ideally, should be always).

2) I unintentionally did something different in my story and the reader didn’t like it. – This might be something I change in future stories. For example: When I first started writing romance, I didn’t necessarily have the hero say he loved the heroine. He might have thought it. He might have showed it. He didn’t say it. Many readers need the hero to say the words. I included these three words in future stories and that made these readers happy.

3) The reader doesn’t like my style/niche/genre. – Congratulations to the reader for trying something different and congratulations to me for being that something different. I’m bringing something fresh to the publishing world.

4) The reader doesn’t like the story or the characters. – Every story, every character I write is unique. A reader won’t like them all. If she does, it is an indication I’m not writing fresh stories. This review tells me I AM writing fresh stories.

5) The reviewer is a troll and hasn’t even read my story. – These reviews are ignored.

The Games We Play

When you’ve been in this business for a while, you start to anticipate the negative reviews. I knew some readers would have an issue with that one scene in Releasing Rage. I knew a reviewer would call it ‘porn.’ I have a list of key words trolls use.

A writing buddy plays Bad Review Bingo. She puts the key words from anticipated bad reviews on a bingo card. Every time, a reviewer uses one of these words, she marks the card. When the card is completed, she treats herself to a reward.

I have bets with my dear wonderful hubby about what type of bad review will be first or next. I find anticipating these bad reviews make them hurt less. Your strategy might be different. Figure out how to deal with it.

Because we WILL receive negative reviews (we’ll also receive hate mail and I tend to receive a death threat every once in a while but those are entirely different posts).

Negative reviews are part of this business, a necessary, healthy part. Accept that they will happen. Learn how to deal with them without losing your mind or your love for writing.

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Crash And Burn

Crash was manufactured to be one of the best warriors in the universe. The cyborg has spent many human lifespans fighting the enemy. But, unlike his battle-loving brethren, he doesn’t enjoy killing. When he escapes the Humanoid Alliance, he vows to never end another life.

Then he meets Safyre, an infuriating human female, and he considers breaking his vow.

Safyre will do anything to save her friend, the being she loves like a sister. She’ll ravish a huge hunky cyborg, kiss his best friend, and invoke scorching hot desires the male never realized he could feel. Dark soulful eyes, a quick wit, and a tempestuous passion won’t divert her from her mission.

Love, and a planet-destroying weapon, however, might stop her permanently.

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