Handling Negative Reviews about Your Book

As a writer, you will hope anyone reading your book will find it noteworthy and write a positive review or make a nice comment about your work. Of course, an author wants to get as many good reviews as possible. Many sites that sell books offer a rating scale system and the opportunity for consumers to comment on your work. One negative review may not have that much of an effect on book sales. No matter how great, informative, or entertaining your book is, not everyone will have those same sentiments.

Most of the time, reviews by laypersons are subjective. Even professional book commentators may not be completely objective. As an author, you can never take it as a personal attack if someone gives you a low rating or a bad assessment. However, if the majority of the evaluations are negative, then maybe a re-examination or some changes to the book may be necessary. For the most part, the lay reader is judging your book from his or her own angle and not yours. Ten people may read your book and all ten of them will interpret the content differently. They may have despised the characters, the plot or the ending. Sometime the font size, the texture of the paper or a particular scene may have turned the reader off. Whatever the rationale, not everyone will like your work. That is a given. Remember some of the greatest authors have had their work torn to shreds. In addition, many of these authors have sold millions of copies and some have had their books made into high grossing movies despite the bad reviews. How often have you heard people say, "The movie was better than the book; the book was much better than the movie, or the book and the movie were terrible?"

The idea is to never take a negative review or a low rating to heart. Of course, you may feel hurt, angry, or perplexed as to why someone would trash your work, which you worked so hard on, and that is okay. The idea is not to allow depressing reviews or stumpy ratings prevent you from writing again.

Your work has value, no matter what people may think or say. If you believe your book is a great masterpiece, then that is all that matters.