My latest novel The Phoenix Codex released late last October. It hasn’t gotten a ton of Amazon reviews, but I appreciate every one. And I’ve been very lucky with them so far.
I don’t say “lucky” out of false modesty. I think it’s a good book, and I certainly tried hard to make it one. But no book is for everybody, which is why people can make perfectly legitimate criticisms about any book out there.
There are certain types of reviews, though, that can really annoy authors.
As problems go, bad reviews are trivial. I thought I’d talk about them, anyway, so that published authors can nod in agreement and feel validated, and future published authors can be warned that you’re going to get some squirrelly reviews and it’s normal.
1. The “Why Did You Read it?” Review
Let’s say you wrote a book about outer space. It has “alien” in the title. And there’s a spaceship on the cover, just in case readers still weren’t sure what they were getting into.
Then you get a review that says, “I’m not a fan of outer space stories and I didn’t like all the aliens.”
Why did the reader pick up the book? Who knows?
This happens a lot with romance writers. They can put a half-naked man on the cover and talk about sex in the blurb, but they’ll still get readers complaining about the sex. (Conversely, even if they have a bunch of daisies on the cover and no suggestion of sex in the blurb, they’ll get complaints if there’s no sex.)
This is still a perfectly fair review, of course. Someone read the book, and they didn’t like it.
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2. The “Not My Fault” Review
“I bought the paperback from a third party vendor and it arrived damaged. 1 star.”
“Amazon declined my credit card for no good reason!! Zero stars!!”
Okay, this type of review really isn’t fair to the author. It’s not your fault she bought your book secondhand…you prefer people to buy it new, to be honest. It’s not your fault he had trouble with his Amazon account. It’s worth at least asking Amazon to remove this type of review.
3. The “Amazing Book! Three Stars!” Review
Sometimes an author will get an enthusiastic review with a 3-star rating. I think most of us consider 3 stars an average rating, like a C in school, so it doesn’t feel like it matches up with gushing praise.
I imagine what’s going on here is that the reader likes to be positive, and also likes to save 4-star ratings for just a few books, and has only given zero to one 5-star rating in her life. That’s reasonable.
Although I’ve heard complaints about this kind of review — we authors are only human — it’s not such a bad thing. And if the Amazon algorithms choose the three-star review as the “most helpful critical review,” and it’s not at all critical, it’s pretty hilarious.
4. The Factually Incorrect Review
The review says your main character is a nurse. She’s a doctor. It says she travels to France. She travels to Senegal. It says someone gets murdered. Nobody does.
In this case, the reviewer is probably just remembering the book wrong. He might even be getting it mixed up with another book he read at around the same time.
This type of review amuses some authors. But it can sometimes make an author worry that potential readers will get the wrong idea of the book. Fortunately, more people are going to pay attention to the plot as it’s laid out in the blurb.
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5. The Personal Attack
I’ve seen this happen, and unlike the others in this list, it’s really bad.
The review goes up on release day. It’s not a verified purchase, and it says nothing specific about the book. It just calls the author a terrible writer and a shallow, vicious, or immoral person.
This can be the result of personal disagreements or grudges that have nothing to do with the book. The author may have a pretty good idea of who left the review, or he may have no clue.
In either case, it’s worth reaching out to Amazon and asking for the review to be removed, since it has nothing to do with the book.
Even if Amazon doesn’t remove the review, most reasonable readers will recognize that the review doesn’t contain substantial criticism, even if it does pull down your rating.
Dale Carnegie famously said:
“Nobody kicks a dead dog.”
And it’s true. The more successful you get, the more harsh criticism you’re going to get.
Reviews like these are sometimes inspired by rabid jealousy. If somebody can’t stand your achievement, use it as a motivation to achieve even more.
Has a review ever driven you bananas or gotten under your skin? Have you ever gotten a funny or mystifying one? Let us know in the comments! Happy writing, and I hope you have a 5-star week!
My fave is a three-star review for a book, the complaint being that the book was not a 36-count package of Jimmy Dean sausage. ?
I mean…they’re not wrong. 😀 I wish this were my review! Hahahaha!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1NOICITEBG86T/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0590442120
One-star review of a children’s book complaining she thought it was a poster and the book is too small :-/ I had to screenshot this because she literally says “it’s my fault” IN HER REVIEW and leaves one star anyway!
I used your link and clicked on “unhelpful”. What a ridiculous way of reviewing!
Absolutely on the mark. Especially the “So why did you read it reviewers?” They drive me crazy.
Right? It’s frustrating when you’ve tried to be very clear just what kind of book it is! 😀
I got this review, word for word, from a verified purchase:
“I absolutely loved this book. I need the entire series. I truly enjoyed this one. Maybe I can get hold of the rest of Dana and Mel’s story. And read them in their entirety. ❤️❤️❤️. I recommend this one to anyone who loves a good mystery, with a budding love thrown into the midst. Love, Love, Love ot!”
The reviewer gave me on star. Given that I don’t contact reviewers, I seethed about it for a few days and moved on. Readers to the rescue! Five of them have commented, trying to explain to the reviewer how the star system works.
Conversely, another 1 star review for the same book says simply: “Sucked”. You can’t please everyone…
Anne, oh my gosh. A glowing ONE star review. Sheesh, that is really frustrating!! I can just imagine how I’d feel.
As far as the other one-star review…I always remember how, a year or two ago, I finished a romance that I thought was _fantastic._ I went to Goodreads to leave a review, and the first other review I saw was one star and simply read “f— this book.” It was such a great reminder to me of how different readers can be!
I wonder if sometimes people are a bit clueless on the whole reviewing process. Maybe she thought she clicked five stars? When I see a review like that, I always make sure to comment with a question Why one star with a glowing review. They might not be aware.
This is such an entertaining post. It gives me something to look forward to (with a grain of salt) when I finally get the gumption to publish something. I think the whole “putting yourself out there” when publishing still just scares me so much that I keep procrastinating on everything. Editing, writing, you-name-it. “I’ll get it done someday.” Haha.
Also, five stars for this blog post. 😉
Aww, thanks for the five stars! 😀 It _is_ scary to put yourself out there. Hopefully it helps to remember that every published writer has gotten rejections…and if their book sold at all, they’ve gotten bad reviews, too! You’re tough, you can do it. 🙂
If it’s any consolation, I probably am not the only person who looks at the reviews and ignores any that do not say anything worthwhile or even appear to be intelligently written. I’ve seen books with nothing but 5 stars (though less than a dozen) and you get leery that it’s just the author’s friends and family helping out. And, in line with one thing you mentioned above, are the people who don’t understand the rating system and will write “Amazing Book!” and then give it 1 star. But if all the negative reviews are stupid or invalid, many readers do simply ignore them and look for ones that actually give a good appraisal of the book. Wheat and chaff.
That actually is a consolation! I’m sure other people are glad to hear it, too. 🙂 Thanks for commenting!
Hi Bryn, Great points made! I just completed a questionnaire for another blog I follow and one of the questions was whether or not think we think Book Reviews are a good thing. I have seen all of the above-mentioned things in book reviews. They can be helpful in deciding whether or not to read a book but also very subjective. I usually chose a book by what is written on the back cover, the description (in Amazon, Goodreads, etc), the author, and sometimes even the front cover. The reviews aren’t usually a factor in whether or not I buy.
Hi, Cheryl! Yes, I definitely take reviews with a grain of salt. Like you, I think the description is much more important (and I admit I do judge the cover, too.)
Thanks for sharing, Bryn! That’s good advice to contact Amazon if you believe someone is violating community standards/the user agreement or has posted an irrelevant/incorrect review.
I read a handful of Amazon reviews before purchase: The “most helpful” positive and negative reviews, and a couple that have headlines that indicate the reviewers share my reading preferences. Opinions on the same book vary the full spectrum of emotions, so I consider, “Who is this reviewer, what motivates them to post this review (what is their goal, to help or to hurt), and what might be uniquely affecting this particular review by them on this particular day?”
I shared a link to your post on my blog for yesterday’s Write it Wednesday. Write away!
Reviews are both a blessing and a curse. I once got a review for a short story I wrote and posted FOR FREE online. I got a review that criticized every single part of it, and by criticized I mean it tore everything to shreds. By the time I was done reading it, I felt like the worst writer in the world. It was so bad that I actually ended up taking the story off of the server I had posted it on.
They did make some valid points, and I thank them for that. It was early in my writing carrier so to speak. I was still learning a lot about my own personal writing process and style. I’m still learning. Thank God I had a few friends whil talked me off of the ledge and convinced me to keep writing.
Overall I think it’s good=d that most reviews are given by real readers and not professional critics. Do you find a difference between your Amazon and Goodreads reviews?
Great post about some of the most annoying Amazon reviews. The reviews that just say “S**ked” or “F**k this book” are usually from people competing for top reviewer status and they’re competing with somebody who gave you a good review, so they give a bad one. Lots of people play Amazon like a videogame, and their goal is to eliminate their “opponents”–honest reviewers. So don’t assume those crazy one-stars have anything to do with your book. The “reader” most certainly hasn’t read the book. They often buy and return within minutes in order to get a “verified” review.
There are also Goodreads trolls who give 1000s of one-stars to whole categories of books. I have no idea why, and when I complained to GR, they said it was perfectly okay with them. I got a 1-star (no review) on one of my new releases and I saw that the reviewer had only joined GR that day and left over 500 one-stars. All for cozy mysteries and vegan cookbooks (!)
So don’t assume that any of these silly things are legit in any way. People are playing games, not reading books.
Yes. So much yes. I read a lot of romance and the descriptions you give re poor reviews for sex or no sex always make me laugh (and snort and roll my eyes). I also have a 2* review for one of my books where the reviewer wrote something like: “it was really good.” Um. Okay.
I got my only 1-star review from “Earlene,” who titled my award-winning debut novel “Very Easy Reading.” This was her review: “Enjoyed this book very much. Good morals and caring characters. Devotion to family while getting a good future together,. Enjoyable.” I guess she didn’t understand the rating system. My request that she fix it went unanswered, even after another reader said what a shame it was. Oh, well. Ya gotta laugh.
The one I love was the reviewer who gave me a one-star and a worst-book-ever and she admitted she only read ten pages. Now, that’s talent . . . in a weird kind of way. Or the reader who gave me a bad review because she couldn’t understand the language. ????
The only one of these I haven’t gotten is the “Not My Fault” review. Otherwise, I’ve gotten them all. The one I’ve gotten that drives me the craziest is one that basically re-stated the blurb then complained it had so many grammatical errors it was unreadable. I know I’m not perfect. We’re all human and we all make mistakes. But my editor is a grammar Nazi; she’d never have let it go out if it was that bad. I also noticed this particular reviewer said the same thing about every book she “read” that wasn’t by a certain author. I’m guessing she picked the one thing that would stop readers from buying. And it worked. As soon as the review went up my sales went into the toilet and never came back. Thanks for the positive reminder. 🙂
I got one, my very first review, on a collection of stories I translated from a French author, that said “despite the author’s flat translations, the stories were hilarious.” Still wondering how I pulled that off.
Hahaha! Yeah, not sure how you did that!
I am so glad I know about this before it happens to me (so I know not to lose my head when it finally does!) I’m pretty sure I will see some bad reviews at least now I’m ready for them. Thanx
BTW 5* blog post! lol
Hi, Aurrynthea! Hahaha, thank you very much! And yes, it’s good to be prepared. Bad reviews are a drag, but they happen to just about everyone!
I find I’m better able to deal with the truly vicious review rather than someone who just couldn’t get engaged with the story. In the case of the nasty reviewer, they usually have an agenda that has nothing to do with your story: either (as you said) something personal against you or they’ve built a following out of being the Simon Cowell of reviewers–again, easier for me to ignore.
The person who was just ‘meh’ about the story tells me I might have failed them as a reader, and I take that kind of review far more to heart than the first.
Oh, that’s interesting! I don’t mind “meh” reviews, myself…I figure it’s just their kind of thing. But I can see what you’re saying, too. You’re so right about negative reviews sometimes involving personal vendettas…and that’s all I’m going to say about that, haha.