*headdesk*.

[megwrites]

Unprofessional author is unprofessional. Or: there is a damn good reason that you don't respond to reviews and this is fucking well IT.

This is now the second professionally published author who has come to my journal and displayed their fail (the first being Lois McMaster Bujold who MammothFailed epically). Do I have a beacon out that says, "Welcome to the Fail Lounge. Feel free to take your pants off!"?

Let me just enumerate, for any one listening, the biggest reason that it is not a good idea to respond to reviews: you're not going to change their minds. Ms. Stein certainly did nothing to make me feel differently about her book.

Have you ever heard of an author going to a reviewer, arguing, and honestly changing someone's opinion? Has it ever helped that author look like a better person, improved their sales?

If it has, please throw me a link. Because all I can think of are the many authors (*coughcough* Alice Hoffman *coughcough*) who have done it to their detriment.

Comments

[nebris.livejournal.com]

If a review doesn't upset one enough to actually shoot the reviewer, well, best to just leave it alone.

~M~

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I started to read what was posted behind the link and I just stopped as soon as I saw my name mentioned.

I am not a confrontational kind of person.

[cericonversion.livejournal.com]

In the roleplaying game world, Rich Dansky's calm, kind, tremendously witty responses to people slagging off the concept of Charnel Houses of Europe, the Wraith supplement about the legacy of the Holocaust, impressed me a lot and made a White Wolf fan out of me.

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

I don't see the "you're misinterpreting/reading my book wrong/too stupid to understand it/being mean/it's only fiction (I can make up whatever I want)" arguments working well, especially when mixed in with "my poc friend said" and the default to white people as normal. (Although I have heard the term "Eurasian" before, but no poc I know refer to themselves that way -- maybe it's different outside of America or Canada. 'Course, I don't refer to myself as poc either, outside of race discussions.)

The only author I can think of who has responded without failing to a not-so-favourable review of her book is Nora Roberts (http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/07/12/review-tribute-by-nora-roberts/#comment-167008), who did *not* argue with the reviewer or commenters to try to change their minds.

But then, possibly there's also a difference between a bad review in the sense of poor plotting or unbelievable characters or "this book did not work for me buti'mnotsayingitsabadbook" and calling an author out on their privilege (not that authors can't or haven't flailed around and insulted their audience based on the former type of review alone)... (And Nora Roberts is an author who seems to like the word "exotic" to describe non-white people, so either she has not been called out on it yet or chalks it up to a "difference of opinion", which, well.)

Has it ever helped that author look like a better person, improved their sales?

I don't know about the better person part, but I seem to recall Elizabeth Bear bragging posting that her book sales increased after the initial round of racefail09.

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

Yow, sorry to hear about this. I thought your review was rather insightful, detailed, and fair, inasmuch as looking at everything was considered. What the book came out a few years back, I had issues with the whole rape elements; they really left a bad taste in my mouth, and I couldn't bring myself to go back for the subsequent volumes to see if things had improved. I swear, writers need parental controls for the Internet, and a responsible adult to watch over them. (My wife's threatened to do it for me if I publish a book.)

[lilacfield.livejournal.com]

When you write something, at least one person will disagree with it, sometimes strongly. That's just something you have to live with.

[fashionista-35.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny-- it really absolutely astounds me to see an author respond in a confrontational manner to an unfavorable review in a reviewer's journal/comments to an article. If an author is going to respond in any way, they should do it on their own turf (and even that comes with its own set of rules and restrictions *coughAliceHoffmannLaurellKHamiltoncough*).

I mean, the other day, I got a Google Alert for Adiós-- I clicked it and it was to a blog review, which-- holy hell, the book came out over three years ago, right? And it wasn't the most favorable review. The characters and story were too perfect with a side of squick (which, admittedly, the squick had never occurred to me before, so it surprised me). It wasn't completely negative. Apparently, my voice and writing were kicky and perky and some other adverbs and really, deserved better than my shitty plotting and storytelling.

Yeah... I was mildly annoyed. But then, after I got over the initial annoyance and back into my right head, I realized that a) this post had no responses to it and b) who cares? It's this chick's opinion and she's entitled to it. I don't happen to agree. If (and big if there) I had chosen to respond in my blog, what it would have amounted to would have been this: I refuse to apologize. I can't write the book that everyone wants because then I'd be writing a book for every single reader out there, not the book I want to write. Adiós was not only my first published novel, it was my very first young adult novel after four adult manuscripts. I was feeling my way through the process and learning what worked and didn't work. The book, for me, still works. Clearly, it worked for a lot of people, given the reviews and awards it garnered. It's not going to work for everyone-- for some it was too simple, too easy. What I was trying to do was present a story that showed how even when things are "easy" they don't come without cost and you can still grow from the situations that are engendered. If people don't see that or choose to not see that, well then, I would question whether I was successful.

Overall, I think I was, because I have yet to receive a consistent criticism about that book. The people who have disliked it, have done so for varying and in some cases, vastly different reasons, so all I can put it down to is personal preference and that, I can't do a thing about, so why waste the bandwidth trying, right?

Very little positive can be gained by going onto a reviewer's site and publicly losing your mind. But a hell of a lot can be lost.

And to quote Jimmy Malone from The Untouchables: There endeth the lesson. *g*

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

wait... what?