Should Authors Read Their Reviews?

It seems like a simple yes or no question: Should authors read their reviews? The consensus, of course, is no, and believe me, I completely understand that and agree with it in theory. I once wrote a whole post rant about a negative review I'd received (on Goodreads, naturally). One might read that post and logically assume I was angry. But I wasn't angry; I was hurt. And for a time, devastated. I don't do well with criticism, particularly criticism of something I created.  

The standard line is, reviews are for readers, not for authors. I get that, but why is that a positive take? Authors want readers, and ideally, buyers. Sure, glowing reviews could lead to more readers, but mostly negative ones will surely tank a book's chances. If a book's not selling, it's only natural for an author to explore the reasons. Maybe the novel's Amazon page is weighed down with negative reviews---how do you know if you don't look?

And face it, there's the temptation factor. I don't exactly memorize the number of reviews my novel has on either Amazon (okay, ten) or Goodreads (maybe four?), but if I pull up my book's page on either site and the review number looks different*, it's difficult to stop myself from taking a peek. Subconsciously, I'm hoping for a few words of praise, but what if, instead, I'm hit with a steaming pile of dung? I'm better at talking myself down from looking now, but it's still a struggle. 

*I see it's now fourteen on Amazon. Suddenly.

Honestly, I generally only look at my book's overall average. If it stays the same or goes up (not likely), fine. Then it won't hurt to read a new review. Otherwise, forget it. 

What brought this whole topic to mind is that I received a notification from Pen Pinery, informing me that I (finally) received a review for Running From Herself. Pen Pinery is one of those obscure ARC sites that I read about somewhere. It seems that they've recently changed their business model to become less obscure, because now all they push is romance. While it was still featuring all genres, though, I managed to secure eleven or twelve ARC readers, but zero reviews. This number remained at zero for months, so I ultimately forgot about it. Do I want to read my review? Probably not. The plus of even bad reviews on a place like this is, who cares? Its subscriber base is only about 1,000. That's even worse than the smallest of the small book promo sites. 

When I fell into the trap of entering book competitions, I received email feedback from one of the judges for one of them. This was sent my way on January 13, and I still haven't opened it. I don't know if I ever will. My feeling is, well, I obviously didn't win, so what's the upside of someone telling me why? It's not as if I'm going to revise the book. (I'm not revising the book!)

What I have discovered is that I care less, now that I've put some distance between my fragile ego and reality. Probably the worst time for an author to read his or her reviews is fresh off of publication. One of the only two times I solicited ARC readers (both times for novellas), I thought those books were great. But according to the reviews, they were average at best. Well, that was disheartening! I'd put a lot of effort into making the stories compelling. Had I gotten those same reviews further down the road, they wouldn't have had the same sting. If anyone leaves a new review for either of those novellas now, I probably won't even notice.

If you're worried about your book being "seen", there's much more to it than simply reviews anyway. SEO is huge (learn about it), Obviously, the cover and the blurb are crucial. 

One factor that's rarely mentioned is the "look inside" feature. Most book browsers look inside, and for good reason. I personally will rarely take a chance on a book without doing so, and the times I don't are because I'm already familiar with the author. But for indie books? You bet I look inside. In my blog research, I've checked out a bunch of indie books that way, and lemme tell ya....yikes. (Just stop with the prologues. Please.) I'm not even necessarily put off by an occasional typo. (They're pretty much inevitable. Ask me how I know.) For me, the dealbreaker is what I call "not getting to the point". No one has the patience anymore to scroll through page upon page before finding out what the story's about. One preview I read spent the first few pages describing how attractive the MC was---and it was written in first person! (She was admiring herself in the mirror.) I already hated her.

I recently watched a video from a book editor who said that one author he read had done one of those "backward" beginnings---sort of like in a Mad Men episode that's not making sense until you realize the events are being shown out of order. This author put chapter three at the beginning, then a note about, "If you think this is exciting, just wait"...or something like that. I suppose that could work. I'll just go with the simple solution of starting the story in the right place.

What all this is meant to convey is, there's more to visibility than reviews. So try not to sweat 'em. That's what I keep telling myself. Sometimes I even listen to my own advice.