How to Deal With Bad Reviews

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin

Every now and then, not often, but a few times a year, I receive a panicked call or email from an author which goes something like this:

"I just noticed that someone left a terrible review of my book on Amazon.com (or some other online bookseller).  How can we get it removed?"

Well, the short answer is:  you can't.  Customers are able to leave reviews of your book on most any bookselling web site, and you may as well get used to the idea now that not all of those reviews are going to be positive.  That's just the nature of the business.  That doesn't mean people can go on these sites and attack you personally, but they can just about say anything they want about your book.

The great thing about the Internet is that it allows anyone to go online and instantly communicate anything they want to say.  The bad thing about the Internet is that is allows anyone to go online and instantly communicate anything they want to say.  Some people say things online that they would never say to someone face-to-face.  The anonymity of the Internet gives them free reign to say mean things.

Take this one-star book review from Amazon.com, for example:  "The character development was shoddy, unrelatable and unbelievable, the plot kept changing along with character perspectives the actually story never really getting anywhere, it was written as if it was a bunch of stories that someone decided to string together with random sentences and pieces of other stories."

The book being reviewed?   The Holy Bible.

When you publish a book, you are putting a piece of yourself on public display.  Just as in everything else in life, not everyone is going to like you, or your book.  Book reviews are subjective.  Opinions will vary from person to person.  In the not-so-subtle words of my company commander from Navy boot camp:  "Opinions are like a hole in your butt.  Everybody has one, and some of them stink." 

I once shot a TV commercial for a radio station where I used to work.  The kindest review I read about it was "Terry doesn't look as old as I thought he was."  Another review contained the world "yuck."  The local newspaper named it "The Best Worst Local TV Commercial" in its year-end edition.  My morning show's ratings were increasing, so I got a chuckle out of the reviews.  When you are in a public position like radio announcer (or author) you've got to have a thick skin.  

So, what can you do when your book gets a bad review?  Should you respond to bad reviews online?  My recommendation is "no." Why throw fuel on the fire?   Let the positive (and negative) reviews speak for themselves.  When your readers contact you to tell you they like your book, encourage them to leave a fair and honest (and hopefully positive) review on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and other book review and bookselling sites.  Let your loyal readers be your cheerleaders. 

Don't let negative book reviews get you down, and don't let them dissuade you from writing more books.  Every author has received bad reviews for their books.  It happens to everyone.

Just ask the guy who wrote the Holy Bible. 

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Newspaper Book Reviewers on the Chopping Block

It's not just bookstores that are struggling in today's economy.  Newspapers are having a tough time of it, too.  As they look to cut costs, one of the positions they are putting on the chopping block is that of newspaper book reviewer. 

According to Publisher's Weekly, the L.A. Times gave the ax to all of their freelance book reviewers.  In addition, some long-standing book review columns will also be disappearing from the L.A. Times.  For authors who depend upon reviews from major newspapers to give their books a promotional boost, this comes as bad news.  It is also another sign of the times.   Newspapers are seeing less of a demand to dedicate valuable space to book reviews when readers can get that information online at places like Amazon.com, written by fellow readers. 

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, then you already now that you don't have to depend upon the blessings of a review from a traditional major newspaper (although smaller local newspapers will still sometimes dedicate page space to book reviews and interviews with authors).  These days, there are a number of different places online where you can get your book reviewed, which we have mentioned here before. 

While this is bad news for book lovers who read the L.A. Times (and for the folks who last their jobs) it is a further reminder that authors need to work ahead of the curve and not be so dependent upon the traditional ways of promoting their books.  The days of hoping a newspaper will review your book and doing one or two hugely-attended book signing events at the biggest bookstore in town on your book's release date are over. 

Now, authors are doing blog tours, getting their books reviewed by readers on Facebook, doing interviews and book club appearances via Skype and conducting book signing events at local, well-attended fairs and festivals.  The successful authors are those who keep up with the changes in the marketplace. 

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The Illegitimate Book Reviewers and How to Spot Them

The Illegitimate Book Reviewers And How to Spot Them

By Irene Watson


Authors need book reviews to sell their books, and of course they want great ones. Authors who learn their craft, do their research, and produce quality, well-written books deserve good endorsements, and by putting in the proper time and effort, such authors usually receive glowing praise from reviewers. But even good books can receive bad reviews-and I don't mean reviews that say negative things about the book. I'm talking about ones written by people not qualified, no matter how highly esteemed, to write them. Why are they not qualified? Because they do not read the books.

Let's face it. Books are a business, and reviewers know authors need them. Free reviews are becoming harder and harder to find. Reviewers are now being paid for their services, and they should be; their time is valuable, and reading a book and writing a decent review can take many hours. Authors need to be prepared to pay for the service and to realize it's a business investment, just like advertising and marketing, where money is invested in hopes it will result in book sales.

But unscrupulous people-let's call them illegitimate book reviewers-are willing to prey upon authors' needs. They realize they can make money off an author without providing a legitimate service. Let's say you make $100 for every book you review, and it takes you eight hours to read a book. That's $100 a day. But wouldn't it be nice to make $200 or $400 or $1,200 a day? What if, instead of reading the books, you just skimmed them, or you just regurgitated what the back cover said? Think how many fake ones you could pump out, and how much money you could make, while giving authors what they want. So what if the review is only four sentences? As long as you give it five stars at Amazon, the author will be happy, right? Cha-ching!
Sadly, yes, in many cases, authors have been happy. But mostly they are first-time or self-published authors new to the business who got lucky getting accurate descriptions of their books. I've known many such authors rave about how their book was rated by one of these "esteemed" or "top" reviewers, often one close to the top in Amazon's rankings.

Early on when I started offering book reviews, I realized it was unlikely I would ever be ranked in Amazon's Top 10, not because my reviews lacked quality or I didn't cover enough books, but simply because I was not a robot, and I actually read the books. If you look at Amazon's list of top Amazon reviewers, many of them have reviewed over 5,000 books. If you are a service with several reviewers on staff, that number is understandable, but most of the top ranked are individuals. How can this be? Even if it's your full time job and you could read a book a day, or even two books a day, that's only ten a week or about five hundred a year. You'd have to have been reviewing at Amazon for ten years to break 5,000. Okay, I guess that's possible, but take a look at some of the top ones on Amazon. Some of them have posted on up to fifteen books a day. Yes, some of them are legitimate and write quality write-ups, so I don't mean to disparage those individuals.
Granted, a few of these people might be speed readers, but the jury is still out on the legitimacy of speed reading. I had a friend who claimed to be a speed reader. I gave her three mystery novels to read that she returned to me the next day. When I asked her whether she had figured out who the murderer was in one book, she couldn't remember "whodunit." If you're reading so fast you can't retain the basic plot, you're not really reading the book.

Worse, some of these write-ups have nothing to say that an author can even use. I've seen some that are only three or four sentences of plot summary without anything that states the book is "good, excellent, engaging, or not to be missed." An author can't get a blurb for a back cover if a review only summarizes but does not rate the book's quality.

Still worse, many of what authors hope will be useful endorsements for their books end up, because the books weren't read but text was quickly reworded from the back cover, with characters' names misspelled, factual errors about the plot, and sometimes even mistakes about the theme, content, and whole point of the book-all dead giveaways a book was never read. Sometimes the plot summaries then only result in confusion, and if a reader is confused, he's not going to buy a book or waste his time reading it.

Some authors might not care about such details. If the review is good, it's good enough to sell books, right? But if it's misleading, readers are not going to be happy when the books they buy do not reflect what is said about them. Hopefully, when readers have those experiences, they'll know better than to trust those reviewers again.

Sadly, as long as money is involved, illegitimate reviewers won't be going away any time soon. But as an author who is paying, you deserve to have your book read. Most authors, myself included, want legitimate feedback on what readers think about our books. We write our books as much to entertain, inform, educate, or invoke an emotional response from our readers as we do to sell a few books. As authors, we deserve better.

So what can an author do about this situation? I don't see any point in getting angry over the situation since I don't think it will change anything. You can write to these phonies and complain, but it's unlikely to do any good. A few things you can do are:

1. Do Your Research. Look at a reviewer's history and what they have written in the past. How well-written is their work-is it more than just plot summary? Ask yourself whether it's worth your time and money to pay for such a service, or even just pay the postage and give away a free book to such an individual.
2. Request Corrections. If you get reviewed, and the write-up has errors such as misspelled character names or the book is incorrectly listed as a sequel to your last book, contact the individual and request that corrections be made. I have known several authors who have successfully had the review corrected-especially when they paid for the initial work.
3. Vote. Every review posted to Amazon gives you the opportunity to vote whether or not it was helpful to you. Reviewer rankings are not based solely on how many postings they have. While figuring out how Amazon determines these rankings remains largely a mystery, votes do impact the rankings. Voting may do little to help or hurt a reviewer but it's better than nothing.
4. Learn from the Experience. You've learned your lesson, and it might not even have been a difficult one, but you now know in the future to stay away from these unscrupulous individuals. If you're traditionally published, your publisher might use such a reviewer anyway but you can request otherwise. Nevertheless, remember that publishing is a business and that makes it a dollars game; sadly, accurate representation of your book may not be as important to your publisher as making a buck.
5. Share Your Knowledge. Share with your fellow authors your experiences. That doesn't mean you're gossiping about reviewers. You are assisting other authors in making legitimate business decisions about how to spend their money. Legitimate business decisions should not end with illegitimate results.

Many good book reviewers are out there. Find them and build lasting relationships with them; then you won't need to depend on illegitimate ones to find readers and sell your books.
Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

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Seven Simple Tips to Getting Your Book Reviewed by Paula Krapf

Today's guest post is courtesy of Tony Eldridge, creator of Marketing Tips For Authors.
http://blog.marketingtipsforauthors.com/


I am excited to introduce our guest today, Paula Krapf. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., a company that has its finger on the pulse of the publishing industry. She will be blogging on a subject that every writer wants to learn more about: How to get your book reviewed.

You may also want to check out the Publishing Insiders Wrap-Up: Blogging Ideas the Whole Year Through. This is the summary of the Blog Talk Radio program that Paula interviewed me on as a guest. You can also replay the interview on demand when you want to listen to it.

Make sure you check out the great additional resources that Paula lists at the end of the post.

7 Simple Steps to Getting Your Book Reviewed
By Paula Krapf

Your book is ready for reviews and all you need to figure out is where and how to find the appropriate reviewers – so you can add the reviews to your website (you were planning to add the reviews to your own site, right?), find blurbs for your book cover if you don't have any yet, and just generally spread the word about your book.

But first, you need to know what to look for and where to go online to find reviewers.

1. Google is your friend

You can always start with Google and type in your “genre” + “book reviews” to start building your list; or, if you are familiar with books already published that are in your genre you can type in the “book title” + “book reviews” in order to discover reviewers who have reviewed similar material and might therefore be open to reviewing your book. When doing these searches, be prepared to do some serious groundwork, however – you'll need to visit each of these sites not only to collect contact information but to learn about the blogger and his or her site. You'll want to make sure they're still accepting review requests, see the genres they typically review and get a general feel for the blog and its tone and whether you feel it fits you.

2. Use the free tools

If you can, download Google's free toolbar which includes the Google Page Rank (GPR) algorithm. This is a useful tool for determining the “weight” of a given site; the higher the rank (from 0-10), the more important Google deems the site. What you want to try to do is find the most active people who review in your genre. A rank of 3 is very good for a review blog; although that doesn't mean you should discard anything below a GPR of 3. You should also read the blog and get a sense of whether the blog attracts readers; one sure sign of this is the fact that there are comments following the blog posts. Certain factors don't weigh as heavily – for instance, many blogs have Google subscribers, but this number can be misleading as those who join have to sign up to do so. There are many regular blog readers who simply won't take the time to sign up, so the number of Google subscribers may not mean much. You'll also want to see if the blogger is active on sites like Twitter and Facebook; if so, then the books they review are most likely posted to those popular social networking sites, which is great additional exposure for you and your book.

3. Read the fine print

In addition, most bloggers post their blog policies and genre/publishing preferences – it's important to read their policies in order to understand what they review, preferred genres, whether they'll consider self-published books and how long they may need to review your book. Here's a great example of a review policy: http://blog.mawbooks.com/contact-me/. If you're working on a tight timeframe and they indicate it could take 6 months to get to your book, well... you probably won't pitch them. Then again, if your book is in a small niche and this blogger and site seem perfect for you, a longer wait might be worthwhile. Many authors do not read the review policies before pitching bloggers, which is a bad idea. This information is readily available and there for a reason. Also, never send attachments via email but DO send links: to your author bio, photo, press release, books blurbs and book excerpts. These should all be on your website, and including them in your pitch is a great way to make it easy for prospective reviewers to learn about you and your book.

4. Reviews versus blog tour considerations

There is a difference between pitching for reviews versus seeking a blog tour. Requesting reviews could lead to coverage at any time, really, unless you work out a timeframe with the reviewer, but each situation is handled separately. A blog tour is typically coverage of your book by a certain number of bloggers within a given timeframe – a week, two weeks, a month. Blog tours can consist of reviews, interviews, guest posts and giveaways – there are many options. But before you seek bloggers to fill your tour dates figure out in advance what you'd like to do, how long you'd like to do the tour (so you know how many bloggers you'll need) and if you can't prepare guest posts in advance at least have some topics ready to present. Some bloggers love blog tours, others don't want any part of it. Your research will uncover the best prospects to pitch; just give yourself plenty of advance time to set up your tour. Bloggers are busy so you may find a certain number must decline due to other commitments and you'll need to seek others in their place.

5. Be thorough

The key is to do your homework – research the blog, the blogger and learn the things that matter, such as the blogger's name, contact information and preferred genres so you can send a professional, personalized pitch. If your genre is a natural fit for them it's a fact you can use in your pitch by indicating that your book is similar to other books they've reviewed (and provide examples). Also become familiar with their style – some bloggers tend to emphasize the positive and if they can't say anything nice, they may decline to review the book. Others prefer to be honest (brutally) if need be. Some bloggers are not afraid to tear and book and its author apart and are quite merciless in their approach. You need to know this before you pitch and be honest with yourself – look at the tone of the blog as ask yourself how you'd feel having your book reviewed the same way. If you can't handle it, don't do it. There are hundreds of blogs out there and there's room for you to decide that a certain blog or blogs don't work for you.

6. Free versus paid

One final note regarding paid reviews or tours. There are some review sites that charge for reviews claiming that they must compensate their reviewers for their time. There are sites that will charge you for a blog tour. They do not do anything you can't do yourself – research and identify bloggers, pitch, schedule, send books – so let the buyer beware, as the saying goes. You may be much better off going the free route in the book blogosphere where hundreds of bloggers connect with each other daily and work hard to provide as much exposure as they can for each book.

7. You do know best

Don't be afraid to trust your gut, either. You might find a gem of a blog that has a low Google Page Rank, but it's a nice-looking site, well written, has regular commenters and basically demonstrates a commitment to reviewing books – if you like what you see don't sweat the statistics, make a pitch! There are things you can do to boost your reviews such as posting your reviews on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, and those techniques will help you gain even wider exposure for that review. Once you find blogs you like, you can also look at their blogrolls for additional blogs to check out – often bloggers who like similar books list each other on their blogrolls.

Additional resources

Looking for sites to pitch? Here are some great and useful lists:

* Book Reviewers on the Web – this list includes industry standards, literary blogs, off the beaten track blogs and the more opinion-driven book bloggers, http://robinmizell.wordpress.com/book-reviewers

* Midwest Book Review – a listing of a number of sites to check out, http://www.midwestbookreview.com/links/othr_rev.htm

* Best of the Web blogs – blog listing with a description of each blog listed, http://blogs.botw.org/Arts/Literature/Book_Reviews/

* YA Book Blog Directory – bloggers who specialize in Young Adult books, http://yabookblogdirectory.blogspot.com/p/ya-book-blogger-list.html

* Kidlitosphere Central – bloggers in Children's and Young Adult Literature, http://www.kidlitosphere.org/bloggers/

* Book Blog Directory – a large list of blogs followed by a brief description, http://directory.kaysbookshelf.com/

* FSB – search by genre(s) for bloggers, http://www.fsbmedia.com/book_blogger_search.php

* Book Blogs Search – a huge listing of blogs, http://fyreflybooks.wordpress.com/about/book-blogs-search/

* Things to know about Blog Book Tours - http://blogbooktours.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-tips-to-consider.html

Paula Krapf is Chief Operating Officer of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., a marketing and publicity firm that specializes in Internet promotion, strategically working with social networking sites, blogs, micro-blogs, ezines, video sites, and other relevant sites to push an author's message into the virtual community and connect with sites related to the book's topic, positioning the author in his or her market. In the past 15 months their creative marketing strategies have helped land 10 books on the New York Times Bestseller list. Get free tips from our blog, http://www.amarketingexpert.com/blog/ and our biweekly newsletter Book Marketing Expert, http://www.amarketingexpert.com/. You can find Paula on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PaulaatAME.

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Guest Post: It's All Relative - Family Members Expect Free Books From Authors

It's All Relative - Family Members Expect Free Books From Authors

By Irene Watson

Authors think of their books as being like their children, and while authors can often be thick-skinned enough to deal with critics and reviewers they don't know, they need to be toughest when it comes to dealing with criticism and responses from family members and friends. Just what should an author's expectations be for support from those he or she knows?

Let's face it. Publishing your book has been a top priority for you. You've spent a long time working on that book and now you've seen your dream brought to fulfillment. But remember, your dream is not Aunt Milly's dream, or even your best friend's dream. They might be happy for you, but your book is not a major event for them.

I'll say up front that the best advice I can give you is to have no expectations concerning excitement or support from family and friends. Do not coerce people into reading your book, and don't expect anyone to do anything to promote it. Let people know your book is being published and that now you have to figure out how to promote it; then if they offer help, take them up on the offer. If they don't, don't badger them. In the long run, you'll have less hurt feelings and disappointment.

Here are a few considerations regarding dealing with family and friends and their reactions when your book is published. I've collected several of the examples from different authors I know.

Buying Your Book

One author I know tells me that when he told his best friend his book was going to be published and it would cost "$25.95" his friend replied, "That's a pretty big burden to put on all your family and friends." The author of course gave his best friend a free copy, but he also realized that the cost of giving free copies away was not going to help him any. He limited free copies to his parents, siblings, and a few friends who had previously read parts of the manuscript.

While several friends and family members bought this author's book, he heard many others tell him, "I can't afford it." After watching those same people going out to eat and spending money on several other non-necessities, it's clear to him that it's not the price that keeps them away. They are just using the cost as an excuse when they simply have no desire to read his book. As authors, we have to remember that everyone is not a reader, and everyone may not be interested in the topics of our books. Bottom line: don't expect people to buy your book.

Giving Away Books

If you really want people to read your book, you might decide that you will just give copies away to your family and friends-especially those people who "can't afford it."

I've heard many authors complain that they give copies of their books to people who never read the books. Even brothers, sisters, and parents don't always read the book.

We have to remember that reading a book is a big time-commitment, but again, if people don't read the book, or don't express interest in reading it, there's no point in giving books away.

One author I know has published several novels. He gave away quite a few the first time. By the third book, he had cut down the number he gave away to about just a half-dozen people. He found that the friends he no longer gave free books to did not even ask him for a free book-they simply were uninterested. He has also quit sending gifts when these people have babies or embark on their third marriages.

As for the "I can't afford it" people, the best thing to do is to let them know they can check out the book at the library. I suspect most of them won't.

People Reading Your Book

Believe it or not, more books get purchased than are ever read, by a huge percentage. Another author I know has a cousin who has bought all five of his books, but she's never read a single one.

People who get free books do not necessarily read them-in fact, I suspect many people are less likely to read the books because they got the books for free-therefore, the value of the book appears to be less to them.

And always be prepared for negative criticism. You will have many people tell you they enjoy your book, but then there will be the ones who will say something like, "I found seven typos in it"-that will be the only feedback they give you. Ignore these people. Just respond with, "Thanks for telling me" and move on.

However, if someone points out good and bad things about the book, you may want to pay attention. You always want to learn how to improve as a writer.

And then there are the people who will just be plain jealous-even, and perhaps especially siblings. Even if out of kindness, you give these people free copies, do you really care whether or not they like your book? Authors are the last people who should let others' negativity affect them.

Book Reviews

Even if people read your book, it is unlikely they will do anything beyond that. Make a point when someone tells you he or she read and liked your book to ask the person to post a book review on Amazon and to tell other people about it. The truth is that most people won't think about how they can help an author unless it is pointed out to them.

If people ask for a free book and you feel inclined to give one to them, then make the stipulation that you only give away free books to people who promise to write a book review for you.

Exchanging books and reviews with other authors is a great idea for helping each other; however, many authors I know have found that even other authors are unlikely to reciprocate. I know an author who has written a couple of dozen different reviews for authors he knows, and yet, he has only had one or two of those authors ever reciprocate. Nevertheless, every time he writes a review, as long as his name and his book are attached to it, he still builds buzz for his own book.

In short, the lower you keep your expectations for a response from family and friends, the less disappointment you will have. Celebrate when a loved one does buy, read, or review your book, but don't spend too much time worrying about why Uncle Joe has let your book gather dust for two years.

Plenty of readers are out there beyond your friends and family members. Remember, no man is a prophet in his own town. Similarly, few authors achieve celebrity status among those they know, but the greater world of readers may be waiting to embrace you as a favorite author.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

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Five Sources for Online Book Reviews

One of the first things an author is looking for when their book is released (or just prior to its release) is a review of their book. Book reviews can be a very helpful way of letting prospective readers know what the book is about, if it's something that would interest them, and if the reviewer thinks it's any good. If a reviewer doesn't like a book, more often than not they will not print a review of the book at all, but that's not always the case. Books can and do get negative reviews. Still, book reviews are more ammunition for authors to use in their marketing arsenal.

Getting a book review from a traditional reviewer, such as one who writes for newspapers, magazines or other publications, can be just as challenging as getting a book published. Producers for network television shows can receive 50-75 review copies per day and they may only feature a book on their programs once or twice a week. One newspaper book reviewer told me he has stacks of books in his office, and he receives about 200 books per month. He is only able to review about six books per month. Most book reviewers only publish reviews by authors they know, or books from particular genres or books from the major NYC publishers. As you can see, getting a book review is not always easy.

But, it can definitely be done. The internet has made getting a book review a bit easier these days, but the author has to realize these reviews won't appear in their local papers. They will mainly be available online. That's OK, because readers are turning to the internet to search for reviews of books they may have heard of, or books relating to a particular topic. With so many blogs and websites online, it has become easier to get online book reviews, although sending a review copy to these sites is still no guarantee your book will be reviewed. However, it is often easier to get an online review than a review published by the "traditional" media. With that in mind, here are five sources for online book reviews that you may find helpful:

1. Midwest Book Review. This is a website operated in Wisconsin, but they do literally dozens of reviews each month. Even better, if they review your book they also post that review to your book's listing on Amazon.com.

2. Blogcritics. Blogcritics.com has more than 2,000 contributors and publishes hundreds of original articles and reviews each month. They are also a source for articles for Google News and Yahoo news.

3. BookReview.com. Although this site also offers paid services, authors can send review copies and get them reviewed at no charge. If the reviewer likes the book, they will write a review. They also post their reviews at Amazon.com, which is a good selling point for your book on Amazon.

4. Christian Review of Books. For authors who have written a Christian fiction or non-fiction title, the Christian Review of Books will fit the bill. They not only write reviews, but they do book giveaways, interviews and even accept articles written by authors.

5. Amazon.com. Have you been getting rave reviews for your book from your readers? Great! Tell them to put their thoughts into words and post their reviews on your book's listing on Amazon.com. Amazon itself doesn't write reviews, but anybody can post a review on Amazon. Don't contact everyone you have ever met and tell them to post glowing reviews of your book. Not only is it not honest, but Amazon customers can see right through that tactic. Do encourage your readers to post honest reviews of your book (after they have read it) on your book's page. If they love it, that will be no problem for them. Pick out the two or three best reviews and include some of the quotes from the reviews in the press releases for your book.

There are many other online reviewers of books, of course. You can find more at The Complete Review.

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