Book reviews: The good, the bad, and the ugly
We all knew this day would come.
Photo by @towfiqu999999 from Unsplash.
“Beware of the man who denounces woman writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell.”
Late in 2021, I had the goal of publishing a romance novel every two months in the coming year. I knew it would take a lot of writing to gain traction as a romance writer, and, coupled with the fact that Just Us is coming out later this year, I also knew that meant I would likely get several reviews — good, bad, and worse than bad. Absolutely, soul-crushingly awful.
After all, I just finished Sequoia Nagamatsu’s debut fiction novel How High We Go in the Dark, and while I thought it was a wonderful exploration in science fiction (albeit, with a few parts I thought unnecessary or didn’t fully understand), when I went on Goodreads to enter my review, I saw some startling harsh ones.
One review in particular stuck out to me, calling it repetitve drivel undeserving of all the critical acclaim it was receiving. And, reading this review made me feel shame for enjoying the book. Watching the replies populate thanking the reviewer for marking a book off their to-be-read list instilled a fear in me I didn’t realize I had.
I knew the potential for bad reviews existed. I knew it would likely have a negative impact on my mental health. And then, it occurred to me that a bad review on an indie book could be the death blow that sends it into the oblivion of the internet, never to be seen again.
Lucky for Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark is doing really well. Props to him. Love his work, and despite that review, it’s more than worth reading.
Photo by @mitchel3uo from Unsplash.
But let’s dig into what reviews can do for us as authors — both mentally and in terms of sales. Recently, I published my first romance novel (under a pen name) on Amazon. Since it’s my first, and I’m just starting to get my pen name out there, I’m not expecting it to sell well. That doesn’t mean I’m not doing my best to promote it. I’m putting a fair amount of time (and money) into it, but still, there’s not a lot of traction with sales just yet.
That’s okay. The more I publish and the more I publicize, I anticipate readership to go up. But — I did pay for it to go on Reedsy Discovery. Authors or publishers can pay a fee for their book to go up on the site, and for it to be delivered to reviewers and then recommended for readers. My book was reviewed, and I received for the first time in my life, a two-star review.
The reviewer said a lot of things that, in retrospect, were helpful and that will aid in the quality of my future romance writing endeavors. They also said I was a good writer (but confusingly that the book wasn’t written well lol).
When I read it though, I thought I was gonna throw up. It made me question whether or not I should even continue writing. That’s foolish, yeah? Of course it is. I know a lot of that is my inability to handle serious criticism. I’ve been like that from a young age, and we could delve into the psychology of that, but I’d really rather not.
What was worrying to me about that is I went into this year knowing I would get negative reviews on my romance novels (and probably Just Us) as well. But it was just startling to me how quickly that review came. And when you only have two reviews on a book (luckily I also got a five-star review posted on Amazon), and one of them is bad, it’s a death call for that book. No one wants to waste their money on a book they probably won’t like, myself included.
So you can see how, on a new author especially, that can be demotivating. I read that review and considered giving up on the idea altogether of being an author. My WIP is a hot mess, and apparently I’m not a good romance writer hah.
But after sitting with it for a few days, I made the decision to keep writing. Why? Because people are reading my book. I can see when you buy it off Amazon, peeps. I can see how many pages you read if you get it off Kindle Unlimited. And, yeah, people are reading it. And knowing that I’m connecting with people, even one person, makes it more than worth it.
The lesson in all this? Keep writing. Fuck the haters. They’re probably small-dicked men anyway.
Want to read my romance novel? You can either subscribe to my Patreon or shoot me a message on my contact page. I’m happy to share the link with you. :)
Don’t forget to preorder your copy of Just Us! And remember to leave a good review once you finish ;)
