That was quick. Now I'm wondering when I'll get a phone call from Peter Jackson, telling me he wants to pay me millions of dollars to make movies out of the goblin books!
::Drums fingers impatiently::
I'm not stressing about the 2-star review. Different people, different tastes. But what got me thinking about it was a blog entry by David Anthony Durham, in which he said, "The stinker reviews are always disappointing, but they're also a sign that the books are getting read by a wider range of people - and by more people, which is important."
That's an interesting thought. In my case, this was a review by someone who had already read Quest, so it's not really a sign that my books are reaching a wider audience. But it does make sense that the broader your sample size, the more likely you are to get outliers on both ends of the bell curve: people who passionately loved your story more than anything else in the world, and people who despised you like you drove to their house and beat their dog to death with your books.
It always stings a little, but it helps to think of it as a sign of growing readership.
- Mood:
busy
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Comments
If one person loved the book and one person loathed it, we would sell more copies than we would with just the glowing review. Because people want to know whether it's the greatest gift to literature possible, or the worst waste of trees, and there's only one way to find out.
I know some authors hate, with a passion, negative amazon reviews, but I think the mix of reviews fills the same purpose, even if it's hard not to feel the sting of the bad ones. Fwiw.
So this means sales of Hero should take off now, right? ;-)
more serious note - sometimes, I'll watch a movie or read a book a reviewer disliked, but then it's a case of where I know the reviewer well enough to be able to suss whether I might like it. It's not always about the one star, or the five start ratings, but about how well the reviewer can explain the why of it. To me, in any case, it's also why I don't mind spoilers in reviews. I care more about the why, than any personal endorsement/ disapproval.
Reviews that contain no spoilers, and only stars? David skips, in his world they're useless.
Besides, I never remember spoilers, only stuff I read and watch myself.
Funny funny. :)
< insert Andy Warhol "no bad publicity" comment >
Now I can imagine a day when more sophisticated publicists start hiring people to post 2 star reviews just to legitimize the higher ones... Cats and goblins will lie down together and frogs will rain from the sky.
(Still, reading negative reviews of your own work doth suck!)
Cheers
- tkersh
Friends and families and sock-puppets stuffing the virtual ballots, that I've seen. But not much in the way of pay-per-review.
Alas, or rather, fortunately, books are not perfect little pills popped out in bland similarity. Some are a little tart, some are sweet, and some make your eyes roll around in your skull.
Thought you might appreciate this.
Well, where else would one expect to find people reading that nasty fantasy stuff?
That's awesome. Thanks for passing it along!