Hello, as promised, here’s part 2 of my thoughts on Amazon Kindle Reviews, specifically talking to authors, and more specifically what reviews should mean to you, and how to handle negative reviews.
I’d like to start out by saying that I’m in no way an expert on reviews. At the time of writing my single published novel has around 100 reviews on Amazon and around 400 ratings and 40 reviews on Goodreads. I do have some background in e-commerce, though, and that’s given me a bit of insight on customer reviews.
Reviews on Amazon are a hard thing to reconcile, and it hurts when you get your first super-negative one. I know from experience, and I’ve seen other authors talking about the same thing. Shout out to this thread on Reddit that helped inspire some of this. So, let’s talk reviews.
Amazon reviews aren’t for you
First and foremost, as an author, you need to reconcile that reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are not for you. They’re for other readers. When you send your book away to a developmental editor or beta readers, and they give you feedback, that’s for you, but that’s not the intended function of Amazon or Goodreads reviews.
That said, however, I have to admit I struggle to take my own advice here. I, at this point, do still check in on my reviews from time to time, just to see how the book is being received, and try to integrate realistic feedback into the sequel. If you also feel the need to look for good feedback, but hate reading the needlessly rude or demeaning reviews, try this:
Have a friend read them for you
If you must read the reviews, consider having a friend or relative read them for you, and give you any actual useful advice, while omitting any needlessly insulting content. This obviously needs to be someone you trust, but it can really help to take the sting out of the negative reviews. I know from experience how bad a negative review can hurt. I barely slept the night I made the mistake of looking at my reviews right before bed and reading one of my first one stars.
If you can’t be bothered to do that, or don’t know who you’d ask, consider only reading negative reviews once. This is advice I follow myself. I’ll read every review once, note anything in my random thoughts doc that is helpful, and if it’s negative I’ll never read it again. There’s no point in hurting yourself.
Art is subjective
Books are a form of art, and art is hugely subjective. Like art, there is no writing that is universally loved. I think Brandon Sanderson said it well in his interview with Daniel Greene here (paraphrasing) – he doesn’t like salmon, so no matter how great a chef is, if they give him a salmon sandwich, he won’t like it.
The same story could be loved by one reader and hated by another for the exact same reason. There are no books in existence, even the most wildly popular ones we can think of, that don’t have critics (assuming they have readership). If you look at the bad reviews of the Harry Potter series on Amazon, you’ll see people leaving negative reviews because of the “witchcraft” involved in the story. That leads me to my favorite trick to get over the bad feelings of receiving a negative review.
Cure the emotional hurt
My favorite trick when I’m feeling down about a negative review is to look up some of my favorite books of all time and read their negative reviews. These are books and series that I reread time and time again every few years, that I consider to be some of the greatest fiction around.
For instance, The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton, a two book series set in a larger universe shared among many of his works, is some of my favorite science fiction of all time. It’s garnered, at the time of writing, 44 one-star reviews on the first book. Looking over these, it became apparent how wide a range of opinions people carry around in their heads. Facets I loved about the books, how large they are (so I don’t have to stop reading as quickly), how descriptive the author is, and more were the reason some people didn’t like it. Next time you’re feeling down, give it a try, search up your favorite books and read their worst reviews.
Keep writing
At the end of it, all I can say is keep writing. You’ll only improve with time and practice, and as long as you enjoy writing, don’t let some internet trolls convince you to give up. If it’s true that there’s always someone out there who will hate what you write, there’s also always someone out there who can appreciate it.