Bad Reviews: Can They Be Good for Your Book?
I don’t have a photo that matches the subject of this blog post. So here’s a picture of a manuscript with a hole in it?
One crucial but often ignored truth about being a writer? Getting your first book published is just the beginning of your journey. There’s no “happily ever after” when you sign the publisher’s contract, press the Publish button on KDP, or open that first box of books with your name on all the front covers. These are indisputably moments to celebrate: the vast majority of writers never get this far. And yet authors are often blindsided when they discover the new challenges waiting for them on the other side of the finish line.
Some of these challenges, of course, involve receiving—or not receiving—reviews. It’s often hard to get your first reviews, especially if you’re shy about asking. (Having an ARC team that provides honest reviews in exchange for advance copies is one way to get them. However, not all authors find this feasible, especially if they’re self-publishing or writing in a small niche.) And then once you manage to get the reviews, it can be difficult to figure out how to deal with getting them.
We’ve all heard of famous writers, performers, and so on who just don’t read reviews of their work or performances—and that’s the best solution for some creators. However, now that we’re all on the internet, it’s extraordinarily difficult for authors not to see their Amazon and Goodreads ratings. And if an author has any social media presence, readers often tag them in reviews or message with feedback. This means that for most of us, wilful, blissful ignorance is no longer a viable option.
And especially for newer and self-published authors, reviews can be a source of feedback that’s too important to pass up. If you’re a world-famous writer, hearing that some anonymous reader on the internet thinks your books are boring and your jokes aren’t funny won’t be very valuable. But if you’re a newer writer, all that feedback can contain useful information that you’ll use to improve future books, even if you have to sort out a lot of rubbish to get to it. So most writers, in my experience, watch for new reviews with eager anxiety.
But what happens when you get that first one-star review? Or that page-long anonymous screed attacking your novel?
First, of course, don’t panic. Getting a bad review feels terrible—but it’s a rite of passage, and most of the time, it’s actually a great thing for your book.
Why Are Bad Reviews Great for Your Book?
When a reader sees a book with only five-star reviews, they usually get the impression that the other reviews are biased. No book will please every reader, and a book’s having only excellent reviews is a sign that something’s fishy. Most likely, the reader will conclude that the reviews are from friends and family, and that the book isn’t good or popular enough to have been read outside the author’s circle of acquaintances.
When a book has mixed four- and five-star reviews, those good reviews are much more likely to seem credible. Still, there are numerous reasons that bad reviews can be helpful:
They can appeal to readers who enjoy the qualities the bad review derides. I’m a reader who enjoys challenging literary fiction, so a review that calls a book “boring,” “dense,” “slow,” or “depressing” might help signal to me that this is exactly the kind of book I’m looking for. Similarly, if I were looking for a fun light read to distract me from life stress, reading a negative review that calls a book “frivolous,” “formulaic,” or “silly” might pique my interest.
They can filter out future bad reviewers. Getting a few nasty reviews is one thing; drowning in them is another. And although you want your book to sell, you want it to sell to the right readers, not the wrong ones. If a negative review lets people know they aren’t going to like the book—say, if you’ve written a book with an element some readers are strongly opposed to, like a cliffhanger at the end, or dialogue that lacks quotation marks—that bad review might lead to a few lost sales in the short run. But it also means that you’ll head off bad reviews before they happen, and your book will ultimately be more likely to reach the readers you’re trying to reach.
They can energize fans. Who wants to leave yet another positive review when all you see are positive reviews? On the other hand, when readers see a bad review that trashes an aspect of a book they love—a favorite character, an exciting literary technique—it can get those readers fired up to hit back with their own glowing reviews.
They communicate the book’s importance. Bad reviewers flock toward popular and noteworthy books, whether they’re international megabestsellers or books that are simply popular in a small niche. A bad review tells potential readers that someone found this book worth spending time on. Bonus points if the review is especially long or quotes from the book at length, or if the reviewer seems annoyed that so many readers like the book!
Of course, some bad reviews really are bad—but even those aren’t worth too much stress. Especially when authors self-publish, consistently bad reviews are often the first sign that the book contains serious editing errors, or even craft issues. These situations aren’t ideal, but they can (and should) be treated as opportunities for growth. If a book is rife with grammatical errors, a good professional copyeditor can help. If readers are unhappy with a book’s plot, characters, or prose, then a writing group, developmental editor, or book coach can help. Some of the most successful authors I know got terrible reviews of their first books, and they learned from these and improved.
Yeah, We Know This. So Why Does It Still Feel So Bad?
Of course, it’s easy to see (and say) this all when you’re an outsider. When it’s your own book, it’s harder. So there’s nothing wrong with taking bad reviews hard. The whole reason so many famous people don’t read reviews of their work is that it doesn’t matter how intelligent or confident or successful you are as a creator: a bad review still feels bad, and it can feel deeply wounding, even if your logical mind says it’s nothing to worry about.
So if a bad review makes you feel like you’ve been sliced open, don’t apologize for that. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or silly or naive. It’s normal, and you’re in excellent company.
What is a problem is reacting in unhealthy or unproductive ways. Authors who publicly react to bad reviews often do irreparable damage to their reputation—damage the review itself wouldn’t have done. And stewing over a nasty review, making unfounded guesses about who wrote it, or letting it impact one’s self-image are all reactions that can be severely damaging, and unnecessarily so.
Remember, even if the negative review made some accurate points, it’s not a death sentence. A book plagued by editing errors can be reedited and rereleased. Other types of critical feedback can help you with your future books, whether that means improving a specific aspect of your craft or simply creating a publishing and marketing plan that’s more likely to get your books in the hands of people who will appreciate it. Did your book get negative reviews because the cover makes it look like a thriller but it’s actually a slow-paced literary novel, so the readers who picked it up were disappointed? Change the cover to reflect the genre, and use that lesson when choosing the cover for your next book. Did readers dislike your romance because it lacked a happy ending? Use this as an opportunity to learn about genre expectations and consider whether you want to work within them or choose another genre.
We put so much of ourselves into a book that negative responses can be shattering. Even when you don’t take reviews personally, it can be tremendously depressing to feel as if the hundreds of hours you spent on a book, all the personal sacrifices you made and the immense resources you poured in, can be negated by some random person on the internet who read a few pages and didn’t like it. As we know, that’s not true at all—a random person on the internet is just one of many, and the next review matters just as much the last one. But coming up against negativity is simply something that feels bad, and when that negativity is directed at you, it’s even harder to brush off.
Ultimately, remember to trust your readers. You’re writing for discerning audiences, aren’t you? How many books have you picked up and loved after reading bad reviews that made you quirk a brow or laugh? The internet is full of terrible reviews of Moby-Dick, 1984, The Great Gatsby, Ulysses, Jane Eyre—and also of Babel, The Secret History, Fourth Wing, and The Housemaid. This hasn’t stopped readers from reading and loving them. People are too smart to be scared away by a scattering of nasty reviews; they aren’t going to let some random reviewer dictate how they feel about a book.
Give it time. Take a breath. Watch a film. Go for a run. That bad review will lose its sting, and your book will carry on. Keep on writing.
