f ( 5t +/- 1 ) About 1-Star Reviews
I’ve arrived!
It was bound to happen. And because of it, I now feel as though I’ve arrived. Yes, just one week after the BookBub free promo started, On the Buckle got a one-star review (and a couple of 2 and 3-star ones). Somehow, I knew it the night before. I went to bed thinking that I would see a one-star review in the morning. Weird, right? Did I make it happen?? Law of Attraction? Don’t know. But I’m dancing.
One-star reviews are kind of like rejections. I want my work to be accepted, everyone does. But you have to put it out there to get either accepted or rejected. You have to take that risk. No one can please everyone. The important thing is to get it out there, to submit, to be read. I don’t believe a story is real until others read it. I do believe that if a story evokes strong emotion, then it’s successful.
If a book is getting reviewed, it means people are reading the story and having feelings about the characters and plot. How cool is that?! Think about it. Something I wrote, something that came out of my head, was strong enough to make someone react and take the time to write about it. Awesome! This is way better than being just meh.
What’s interesting is this reviewer had good things to say, too. There was just one thing he or she didn’t like, and that was enough to give up on the whole book.
“Honestly I am not a horse person but was actually enjoying that aspect of the book. The characters were great the banter between Vi and Malcolm funny and sexy but come on… I’m really supposed to believe that a total novice at criminal investigations will withhold a potential piece of evidence of a murder? All the while trying to solve the crime based on what occurs in her dreams? Seriously? Really ruined a book I was otherwise enjoying. I didn’t get past the 75% mark before throwing in the towel.”
Woo hoo! I’m learning a lot from the reviews. I read reviews for all sorts of things I’m thinking of buying. Now that I’ve been on this side of them, I will read all future reviews–especially the extremely glowing or very harsh ones–differently.
That review made me do a little research to see what others have written and felt about 1-star reviews. For today’s friday-five-things-plus-or-minus one, I’ve collected a few of these articles for you here. They helped me. Maybe they will help you.
Priceless Lessons Learned from Scathing 1-Star Reviews on Amazon
The One-Star Review
Major Bestsellers with More Than 150 1-Star Reviews
Dealing with Bad Reviews
One-Star Reviews of Beloved Books
Bad Reviews–Six Reasons to be Glad You Have them
This one isn’t so much about the genuine 1-star review, but if you read through the comments, there’s lots of useful discussion about the Amazon review process in general:
Authors: How Are You Handling the New Batch of 1-Star Reviews from Peeps Who “Haven’t Read It Yet”?
Bonus: A collection of epic 1-star reviews of
movies, TV shows, books, you name it…
Do you read/write reviews? As a book buyer or author, how do you feel about 1-star reviews?
C’mon! Dance with me!!
Oh, and you, too, can read this awful book right now for only 99 cents through December.