The good, the bad, and the disappointing

Toby from Rose­burg, OR, writes: “I guess you feel good when one of your books gets a good review. How does it feel when (if) you get a bad review?

I do know writ­ers who say they nev­er read any reviews. I am not one of those people.

It is always a pleas­ing expe­ri­ence when you get a pos­i­tive review. It’s tru­ly grat­i­fy­ing, because I’ve worked long and hard. It’s nice to know that some­one thinks I’ve done okay. Reviews of children’s book are often quite short, and a plot sum­ma­ry can take up many of the words. Thus, when I get a good review, it is mean­ing­ful. That said, I admit, I too often jump to how my pub­lish­er looks at them: is there a quotable phrase? Such phras­es are a key aspect of marketing.

After all, one wants read­ers to read your book. Good reviews do a lot of good.

Neg­a­tive reviews are a whole dif­fer­ent kind of expe­ri­ence. I would sug­gest my first response is dis­ap­point­ment. Dur­ing the whole pub­lish­ing process one hears pos­i­tive remarks, hopes, and high expec­ta­tions from your pub­lish­er. Neg­a­tive reviews can douse all that quickly.

There is also a dif­fer­ence in the kind of reviews. How they are writ­ten. That is to say there are pro­fes­sion­al reviews (from Book­list, SLJ, Kirkus Reviews, Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, and news­pa­pers, etc.) These, even when neg­a­tive, tend to be well writ­ten, and mea­sured. You under­stand what the review­er is say­ing, and think­ing. There have been moments I may even agree with it. “Wish I had seen that.”

How­ev­er, in these days of the inter­net, review­ing skills are all over the prover­bial map. They may be quite pro­fes­sion­al, or they can be high­ly per­son­al and sub­jec­tive about the writer, even dis­mis­sive. Such reviews are painful to expe­ri­ence, and one won­ders (or at least I do) why they are writ­ten at all.

Then, of course, with a giv­en book, one can get neg­a­tive reviews and pos­i­tive ones. That can be a puzzle.

Beyond all else, if you are a pro­fes­sion­al writer reviews are part of your pro­fes­sion­al life. When reviews are well writ­ten and thought out—there are real skills involved—one can learn from both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive reviews.

That’s the hope, anyway.