Authors should never respond to reviews?

It sounds like this thread should be renamed to when authors attack.

I can't imagine getting worked up enough to do something like this over what a stranger thinks of my work. Bad reviews suck, but it's just someone's opinion - one person's opinion.

I think the advice not to read any reviews is good, unfortunately it's the one's who should follow this advice who wouldn't.

Hapax Legomenon said:

To pay so much attention to a few negative reviewers is disrespectful to the positive reviewers, because you're saying that their perspectives matter less.

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Ha! There's a good point. I hadn't thought of it this way, but you're right.

Heh. I Googled "when authors attack" and came up with an author who threatened to report reviewers to the FBI (maybe that's where Jaid Black's security detail got the idea about sending names to Interpol). Plus the author who offered a bounty for information about a reviewer.

Last week, Jaime Clark, a first-time novelist who was reviewed negatively in P.W., decided to take matters into his own hands: In an e-mail sent to a list of literary editors, Clark offered to pay $1,000 to anyone who would tell him the name of the reviewer. “You need not reveal your identity to collect this bounty,” he assured his potential Judas, “but you must be able to substantiate your information.”

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I read somewhere yesterday (maybe on Facebook?) that the book blogger community is considering a temporary review strike. I'm not sure it would make much of an impact -- however, if that could become a news story in itself it would help to counteract the terrible Guardian story. The Guardian apparently is deleting or not publishing most comments criticizing Hale on that story, and is just sitting it out. After all, these are just no-count amateur book bloggers...


ETA: yes, it's on Twitter, a review blackout planned. Just saw this tweet:
"Wish I had reviewed some books recently so participation in #HaleNo reviewing blackout would be less empty gesture for my intermittent blog."
There's a twitter storm #haleno and it seems to be going viral.

Perks said:

Ha! There's a good point. I hadn't thought of it this way, but you're right.

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I'm just going to keep telling myself this, because on Friday my first published story goes live on a site that has at least one person who seems to give harsh criticism to every single day's story...

But yeah, I don't know. When it comes to works that have already been published professionally, the work is kind of out of the author's hands. The best you can do is be glad that some people did enjoy your work even if you grow to hate it. I guess this counts more when it comes to more traditional venues where writers go to a publisher and the publisher takes it. I mean, yeah you wrote it, but it's their fault for buying it, right? People write tons of crappy stories every day and most of them don't get published at all.

I guess with self-publishing this is a bit harder to justify, but it sounds like before Hale's explosion, she was doing fairly well and lots of people did like her story, so it's kind of the fault of the people who like it that it exists and is being perpetuated.

I don't know. This sort of thinking is the kind of thinking you use to keep harsh criticism from destroying you. The people described in this thread seem like they took it way, way, way further than that, though...

aruna said:

I read somewhere yesterday (maybe on Facebook?) that the book blogger community is considering a temporary review strike. I'm not sure it would make much of an impact -- however, if that could become a news story in itself it would help to counteract the terrible Guardian story. The Guardian apparently is deleting or not publishing most comments criticizing Hale on that story, and is just sitting it out. After all, these are just no-count amateur book bloggers...


ETA: yes, it's on Twitter, a review blackout planned. Just saw this tweet:
"Wish I had reviewed some books recently so participation in #HaleNo reviewing blackout would be less empty gesture for my intermittent blog."
There's a twitter storm #haleno and it seems to be going viral.

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I've been tweeting way to much with the #HaleNo tag and actually had to take a break from it today.

Salon has covered the KH story now.

And her number of one-star reviews on Goodreads is growing exponentially. Have to say, she walked right into that one.

I've been squirrelled away for the last 2 weeks with a very severe flu and so am a little tardy to the party, but holy shit. Actually physically attacking reviewers? That's a new low!

aruna said:

The Guardian apparently is deleting or not publishing most comments criticizing Hale on that story, and is just sitting it out. After all, these are just no-count amateur book bloggers...

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I had a Twitter exchange with a Guardian columnist who said I and another tweep were boring him with arguing against Hale's actions. I did consider storifying it.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I'm just going to keep telling myself this, because on Friday my first published story goes live on a site that has at least one person who seems to give harsh criticism to every single day's story...

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Then definitely keep it in mind. And many congratulations to you!

Mod comment regarding the above removed posts: There are surely lots of times when naming writers and journalists is fine, but in this circumstance, given the heated nature of the entire situation, I'd prefer that this type of side commentary take place in PMs.

Thank you.

Kylabelle said:

Mod comment regarding the above removed posts: There are surely lots of times when naming writers and journalists is fine, but in this circumstance, given the heated nature of the entire situation, I'd prefer that this type of side commentary take place in PMs.

Thank you.

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Sorry, Kylabelle!

Was glad to see the more balanced article in the Guardian. Still find it strange they haven't commented further, especially with numerous people I respect saying they've been censored in the comments thread (which I haven't ventured into myself for a few days as it wasn't good for my blood pressure!)

Mmmm, sorry.

I gotta say, at first when I read The Guardian post regarding Hale, at first I found her kind of endearing... In a way, she was standing up for herself. Yeah it was just a reviewer and things got out of hand, but it did seem like it was more extreme bully-reviewing than some people are making it out to be. And that reviewer was kinda bitchy. >_>

....And then some of the other tweets and follow ups with Hale and other reviewers, and... Yeah. Sigh. It wasn't just a one-off instance.

That's one thing I worry about when I go to publish. My skin isn't as thick as I'd like it to be, so I'm going to need to put some filter blocks on my browser to keep me from googling reviews.

aruna said:

A balanced article on the Guardian.

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Thanks, that was a breath of fresh air. I like that she points out the old-school reviewing system isn't always so genteel, either.

What I just don't understand are the commenters on that piece who insist that one bad review can ruin a book and an author forever. Maybe I'm naive, but that seems totally implausible to me unless the review appears in the NYT or something (and even then, doubtful). I'm thinking of one recentish instance on Goodreads where an author got in trouble for responding poorly to a snarky (but civil) review by a prominent blogger: Despite some readers' public vows to avoid that author, the book and its sequels sold extremely well.

Sure, there are these myths about poor sensitive writers being "murdered" by bad reviews. Shelley was so convinced that was what killed Keats that he wrote a whole amazing poem about it. But scholars know from Keats' letters that's far from the truth.

Not to mention, the proliferation of amateur reviews today means that every review has less weight. When I skim reviews, I see a lot more diversity of opinion than "ganging up" going on. When I do see ganging up, I discount it. There's no reason to assume that the readers of reviews are naive enough to take the first one they see or the loudest voices as gospel truth.

And anyone who chooses books or films entirely by star ratings, the way they might choose a vacuum cleaner, is going to be disappointed. Taste happens. With a vacuum cleaner, we all have the same goal: we want it to work. When it comes to creative work, people can have radically different goals (one person wants character development; another prioritizes kick-ass action) and hence radically different takeaways (that book was mindless/ that book was kick-ass).

The trick is to find trusted reviewers whose goals in reading a genre more or less align with yours.

Channy said:

I gotta say, at first when I read The Guardian post regarding Hale, at first I found her kind of endearing... In a way, she was standing up for herself. Yeah it was just a reviewer and things got out of hand, but it did seem like it was more extreme bully-reviewing than some people are making it out to be. And that reviewer was kinda bitchy. >_>

....And then some of the other tweets and follow ups with Hale and other reviewers, and... Yeah. Sigh. It wasn't just a one-off instance.

That's one thing I worry about when I go to publish. My skin isn't as thick as I'd like it to be, so I'm going to need to put some filter blocks on my browser to keep me from googling reviews.

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As someone who's read an awful lot of reviews by Blythe, I'd love to know what she did that was 'kinda bitchy'. She started a book, updated her status to say she was really enjoying it, then updated her status again when she felt there were issues in it. While the actions Hale accused her of could be fairly said to be 'kinda bitchy', I see no reasons to believe that any of them happened anywhere except in Hale's imagination.

Also, is it me, or is it really strange to obsessively stalk someone on the internet for that amount of time and not take any screenshots of their behaviour towards you? (As in, stranger than obsessively stalking someone is in the first place.)

I just found a tweet from another Harper-Collins/HarperTeen author named Danielle Paige who said that Hale did "what we all want" umm no that isn't what we all want.

As in, we all want reviewers to be intimidated into only writing nice things about our books? Yowsa.

Good God. I have no desire at all to stalk people who don't enjoy my books. If the Hale supporter wants to do this, she should speak for herself and leave the rest of us alone.

Anyway, I now have another author to add to the DNR list.

Channy said:

It wasn't just a one-off instance.

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I've written some snarky reviews. I wonder, if an author stalks and harasses me because of such a review, would people excuse the author provided it's the first time the author's done that and the author promises it won't happen again?

I do wish these authors would speak for themselves.

Fuchsia Groan said:

What I just don't understand are the commenters on that piece who insist that one bad review can ruin a book and an author forever. Maybe I'm naive, but that seems totally implausible to me unless the review appears in the NYT or something (and even then, doubtful). I'm thinking of one recentish instance on Goodreads where an author got in trouble for responding poorly to a snarky (but civil) review by a prominent blogger: Despite some readers' public vows to avoid that author, the book and its sequels sold extremely well.

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I agree. Also, unfortunately, bad author behavior doesn't seem to have much long-term negative effect either. Exhibit A: Emily Giffin, who sicced her fangirls on a reviewer several years ago but still managed to hit #1 on the NYT list this year, IIRC.

[FONT=&quot]"Reviews are only important when no one knows who you are."--John Irving

I suspect this plays a lot into the mindset of people like Hale. She's a new author, she's struggling to get her book out and in a lot of hands, and every review seems super important. And she presumably doesn't have the experience (or, apparently, the makeup) to let the bad ones roll off her back.

Obviously, there are plenty of cases of 'big' authors getting seriously PO'd by bad reviews and taking inappropriate actions, but I wonder if the worst of it comes from those who are still trying to get a name for themselves.

I hope to have first-hand experience with this one of these days.....
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jeffo20 said:

[FONT=&quot]I suspect this plays a lot into the mindset of people like Hale. She's a new author, she's struggling to get her book out and in a lot of hands, and every review seems super important. And she presumably doesn't have the experience (or, apparently, the makeup) to let the bad ones roll off her back.
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She went to Harvard. She's published by Harper Collins. Her future in-laws are powerful publishing people. She had essays published in major outlets before this. How much more validation does she need?

Side note: I'm tired of people saying she's crazy for what she did. She doesn't strike me as crazy at all. Privileged, narcissistic, self-absorbed, entitled, clueless, and lacking empathy? Yes. Crazy? No.