On Reading your One-Star Reviews...because Your Book is a Work of Art

by: Julie Cantrell

(Today, author Julie Cantrell provides a counterpoint to Randy Ingermanson's blog post last month, which likened reading your one-star reviews to eating rat poison. Even as I struggle to decide which reviews I'll read as a now-published author, I find both arguments compelling. Again--if you're an author and you take Julie's approach, please share in the comments! If you can't handle reading those one-stars, go ahead and admit that too if you want! And a massive thanks to both talented authors for sharing their strategies with us. --Heather Day Gilbert)

Julie Cantrell’s debut novel, Into the Free, earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly and went on to become both a New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller. It received two Christy awards, including Book of the Year, as well as the Mississippi Library Association Fiction Award. Like Into the Free, the sequel, When Mountains Move, was named a top read of 2013 by USA TODAY and LifeWay Christian Stores. Julie is writing her third novel from her home in Oxford, Mississippi where she operates a sustainable organic farm with her family. 

Learn more: www.juliecantrell.com

The Author as Artist
by: Julie Cantrell

What happens when we watch a film? View a painting? Listen to music? We not only expose ourselves to a work of art, we react to it at an emotional level. And if we’re willing, those emotions can take us to a higher intellectual plane as well, nudging us to think more deeply about our own beliefs and actions in this world.

Each person reacts differently to each piece of art based on personal experiences, psyche, and mood at the time we view it. Art is meant to evoke strong reactions – whether positive or negative – and as artists, writers must accept and acknowledge both extremes from our readers without taking any of that feedback personally.

As a novelist, I separate myself from my work. It’s not always easy to do because these characters become such an integrated part of me by the time the stories hit shelves, but I never take a review to heart. I don’t swell when the books are well-received, and I don’t plummet when they aren’t.

I rarely read my reviews, to be honest. But sometimes I do visit Amazon and skim through the latest reader posts. While there, I don’t just read the five-star reviews, as some authors insist is the only way to maneuver these minefields with my soul intact. Instead, I go straight to the one stars and then work my way up. 

Today, Amazon lists my debut novel, Into the Free, as having 402 reviews. Here’s how it breaks down.

            5 Star               305

            4 Star               69

3 Star               17       

2 Star               7

1 Star               4

So what did the folks who hated this book have to say about it? I want to know. Not because I want to get my feelings hurt, I am human after all, but because I enjoy hearing other people’s opinions.

One reader said, “This book has a worldly view of Christianity” and advised readers not to waste their money or their time on this story, while another gave it a one-star because: “This is a Christian book.”

Another said folks should read it “only if extremely bored,” while another thought the level of abuse described in the beginning was so intense she could “not make it past the first chapter.”

See how subjective these are? Those are the comments that make up the four one-star reviews this book received. And each one contradicts the other. It’s either too Christian or not Christian enough, too boring or too dramatic.

How can a writer please every reader? The simple answer is, we can’t. (Click to Tweet!) And we shouldn’t even try. Our job is to provide the art and then to sit back and let readers react as they may.

I value those one-star reviews as much as I do the five-star ones. Why? Because those readers FELT something when they read this book. The words I put on paper stirred their emotions on a strong level and got them thinking. That is my goal as an author. Not to convince everyone to feel or to think like me, most of my characters don’t even think like me, but to get my readers to feel and to think. Period. 

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On Reading Your One-Star Reviews...and Eating Rat Poison

By Randy Ingermanson 

(This is a two-part series of posts arguing why authors SHOULD versus SHOULD NOT read their one-star reviews. I knew Randy had strong feelings on this, and I think he nearly has me convinced I shouldn't read mine. Check in next month for the pros of reading low reviews with Julie Cantrell. I respect both authors so much and don't wish a one-star on either of them.--Heather Day Gilbert) 

Randy Ingermanson is the award-winning author of six novels and the best-selling book WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES.  He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UC Berkeley and is the creator of the wildly popular Snowflake Method of writing a novel.  He edits the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine and gets ridiculous amounts of traffic on his web site at AdvancedFictionWriting.com.  Randy sits on the Executive Board of American Christian Fiction Writers and lives at an undisclosed location in the Pacific Northwest where he attends to the needs of three surly cats.

Don't Eat the Rat Poison

by: Randy Ingermanson

I was visiting my friend JimBob last month and we were having breakfast.

JimBob was reading the newspaper, doing the crossword, and I had my iPad out, reading reviews of my latest book on Amazon.

I slapped my hand down on the table hard. “Idiot!”

JimBob gave me a strange look. “I was just about to ask you for a five-letter synonym for ‘moron’ that ends with a T. You must be clairvoyant.”

“No, I’m furious.” I shoved my iPad over to JimBob. “Take a look at what this reviewer wrote about me.”

JimBob scanned the review. “Hmmm, what does ‘soporific’ mean?”

“Sleep-inducing. Which is ridiculous.”

JimBob kept reading. “What about ‘tepid dialogue?’ Dialogue doesn’t have a temperature. How can it be tepid?”

I just stared at him. “Do you think my books are sleep-inducing?”

“Why would you say that?” JimBob asked.

“Well, you didn’t say anything when I said it was ridiculous that this guy said it was sleep-inducing.”

“Because it was ridiculous.” JimBob shook his head. “This guy doesn’t like your writing. So what?”

“He’s an idiot!”

“So why do you care what an idiot thinks?”

I began spluttering. “Because … this review is out there in public.”

JimBob pointed at the screen. “He misspelled ‘boring’ right there. He spelled it ‘borring.’ And his grammar is horrible. I bet he’s 15 years old.”

Acid welled up in my stomach. “Is my writing really boring?”

“No.”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Yes.”

I stared at JimBob.

He punched me. “Teasing.”

I wanted to go punch a wall or something. I knew I was going to have another crappy day. This review was going to stick in my mind all week. I’d be thinking of all the horrible things this guy said about my book, and there was nothing I could do about it. I’d be so mad, I wouldn’t be able to write. And it was all his fault.

“Why do you do that?” JimBob said.

“Do what?”

“Read your 1-star reviews.”

“Because they’re there.”

“That’s not a reason. These people aren’t in your target audience. You don’t owe them anything. Nothing you do will make them happy. Why should you care what they think?”

“Because … I might find ways that I can improve my writing.”

JimBob shoved the iPad back toward me. “This guy wants you to have zombies in your novel.”

“I don’t write zombie fiction.”

“And cussing.”

“I don’t need cussing to get my point across.”

 "And graphic sex scenes.”

“That’s not what I write.”

“So how is reading a review by a guy like this going to improve your writing? You don’t write the kind of things he wants, and you’re never going to write the kind of things he wants.”

“What, I should just bury my head in the sand and only read my 5-star reviews?”

“Who writes 5-star reviews?” JimBob asked.

“Well … that’s obvious. The people who really like my stuff. My biggest fans.”

“So if you read their reviews, will it tell you the things they like best, and remind you to do those more often and better?”

“Sure.”

“And if you read reviews by people who hate your writing, are you ever remotely likely to take their advice? Have you ever found any useful advice in a 1-star review?”

“It’s just something I have to do.”

The doorbell rang. A thunderstorm of footsteps clattered outside on the porch and down the steps.

JimBob went to answer the door.

I kept trying to think if I’d ever found even one helpful piece of advice in a 1-star review.

“Idiots.” JimBob slouched back into the room carrying a bowl. He went to the fridge, poured some milk in the bowl, grabbed a spoon and sat down at the table.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

JimBob put a spoonful in his mouth and began chewing. His face twisted into a horrible grimace, and then he began gagging. Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.

I pounded him on the back.

He retched up something and spit it out on the table.

I stared at it. “What is that stuff?”

“Gift from the neighbor kids.” JimBob took another bite.

I looked at it closely. “It looks like rat poison.”

His face twisted again and he chewed furiously, then took a big swallow of orange juice and forced it down. His face had turned a sickly shade of pale green. “It is rat poison. The neighbor kids hate me.”

“Why?”

“Last month I called the cops on them because they were having a huge party with giant speakers out in the streets at 3 AM. They’ve had it in for me ever since.”

I stared at him. “So they bring you rat poison?”

JimBob nodded. “They leave a bowl of it on my doorstep every day.”

“And you eat it?”

“Yeah.”

“Why in the world would you eat rat poison?”

“Because it’s there.”

“That’s not a reason. Those kids hate you. You don’t have to eat what they give you.”

“Well, I might figure out what they don’t like about me so I can be a better person.”

“JimBob, that’s nuts! You already know why they hate you, and that’s not going to change. You’re not going to become a better person by eating rat poison.”

“What, I should just bury my head in the sand and only eat things made by people who like me?”

“That’s a whole lot better for you than eating rat poison from your enemies.”

JimBob put another spoonful in his mouth. “It’s just something I have to do.”

“Well, you’re crazy if you eat rat poison.”

He chewed and chewed and chewed and finally gagged down the mouthful. A terrible look crossed his face. He went running into the bathroom and I heard the sound of vomiting. JimBob was moaning. “I’m gonna be sick all day. And it’s all those kids’ fault.”

I shook my head. That was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard of.

I drank the rest of my orange juice and scrolled down to the next 1-star review of my book.

My face started getting hot. Here was another guy who didn’t get my writing. Didn’t like the kind of books I wrote. Wanted something completely different. And insisted on telling me all about it.

Idiot.

***Thank you for that well-written and very convincing post, Randy! Authors, I'd love it if you'd share your thoughts on reading low reviews--do you or don't you, and why or why not? Watch for next month's follow-up post!***

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An Open Letter to my Fellow Authors from novelist Richard Russo

It’s all changing, right before our eyes. Not just publishing, but the writing life itself, our ability to make a living from authorship. Even in the best of times, which these are not, most writers have to supplement their writing incomes by teaching, or throwing up sheet-rock, or cage fighting.

It wasn’t always so, but for the last two decades I’ve lived the life most writers dream of: I write novels and stories, as well as the occasional screenplay, and every now and then I hit the road for a week or two and give talks. In short, I’m one of the blessed, and not just in terms of my occupation. My health is good, my children grown, their educations paid for.

I’m sixty-four, which sucks, but it also means that nothing that happens in publishing—for good or ill—is going to affect me nearly as much as it affects younger writers, especially those who haven’t made their names yet. Even if the e-price of my next novel is $1.99, I won’t have to go back to cage fighting.

Still, if it turns out that I’ve enjoyed the best the writing life has to offer, that those who follow, even the most brilliant, will have to settle for less, that won’t make me happy and I suspect it won’t cheer other writers who’ve been as fortunate as I. It’s these writers, in particular, that I’m addressing here.

Not everyone believes, as I do, that the writing life is endangered by the downward pressure of e-book pricing, by the relentless, ongoing erosion of copyright protection, by the scorched-earth capitalism of companies like Google and Amazon, by spineless publishers who won’t stand up to them, by the “information wants to be free” crowd who believe that art should be cheap or free and treated as a commodity, by internet search engines who are all too happy to direct people to on-line sites that sell pirated (read “stolen”) books, and even by militant librarians who see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to “lend” our e-books without restriction.

But those of us who are alarmed by these trends have a duty, I think, to defend and protect the writing life that’s been good to us, not just on behalf of younger writers who will not have our advantages if we don’t, but also on behalf of readers, whose imaginative lives will be diminished if authorship becomes untenable as a profession.

I know, I know. Some insist that there’s never been a better time to be an author. Self-publishing has democratized the process, they argue, and authors can now earn royalties of up to seventy percent, where once we had to settle for what traditional publishers told us was our share.

Anecdotal evidence is marshaled in support of this view (statistical evidence to follow). Those of us who are alarmed, we’re told, are, well, alarmists. Time will tell who’s right, but surely it can’t be a good idea for writers to stand on the sidelines while our collective fate is decided by others. Especially when we consider who those others are. Entities like Google and Apple and Amazon are rich and powerful enough to influence governments, and every day they demonstrate their willingness to wield that enormous power.

Books and authors are a tiny but not insignificant part of the larger battle being waged between these companies, a battleground that includes the movie, music, and newspaper industries. I think it’s fair to say that to a greater or lesser degree, those other industries have all gotten their [butts] kicked, just as we’re getting ours kicked now. And not just in the courts.

Somehow, we’re even losing the war for hearts and minds. When we defend copyright, we’re seen as greedy. When we justly sue, we’re seen as litigious. When we attempt to defend the physical book and stores that sell them, we’re seen as Luddites. Our altruism, when we’re able to summon it, is too often seen as self-serving.

But here’s the thing. What the Apples and Googles and Amazons and Netflixes of the world all have in common (in addition to their quest for world domination), is that they’re all starved for content, and for that they need us. Which means we have a say in all this.

Everything in the digital age may feel new and may seem to operate under new rules, but the conversation about the relationship between art and commerce is age-old, and artists must be part of it.

To that end we’d do well to speak with one voice, though it’s here we demonstrate our greatest weakness. Writers are notoriously independent cusses, hard to wrangle. We spend our mostly solitary days filling up blank pieces of paper with words. We must like it that way, or we wouldn’t do it. But while it’s pretty to think that our odd way of life will endure, there’s no guarantee. The writing life is ours to defend.

Protecting it also happens to be the mission of the Authors Guild, which I myself did not join until last year, when the light switch in my cave finally got tripped. Are you a member? If not, please consider becoming one. We’re badly outgunned and in need of reinforcements.

If the writing life has done well by you, as it has by me, here’s your chance to return the favor. Do it now, because there’s such a thing as being too late.

Richard Russo

December 2013

Richard Russo is the author of numerous novels, including Straight Man and Elsewhere, and won the Pulitzer Prize for his fabulous novel Empire Falls. This letter was forwarded to me by novelist Scott Turow, president of The Authors Guild, in order to build support for the Guild.  We at Novel Rocket believe in the role, goals, and objectives of The Author’s Guild, and I've joined. Novel Rocket encourages all authors to consider the benefits of the Guild. You can find more information and a membership application at www.authorsguild.net or authorsguild.org. Tell them Novel Rocket sent you!

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