As a new author, I’m doing what almost every experienced author advises against: reading the reviews of my book.
I don’t regret doing it. I knew several things from the outset:
- I’m a new author. I know that I’m not as good at writing as I will be with more experience.
- Every book has imperfections, and I expect that my first book has more of them than later books will.
- No matter how good a job a book does at being what the author is trying to make it, some people will like it and some won’t. This is why libraries and sites like Kindle Unlimited are so wonderful—readers can try a book at no cost, and can abandon the book at any point if they’re not enjoying it.
However, there are a couple of things I wish reviewers understood:
- Ratings are nice, but reviews are much better. If I am curious about a book and it has a two-star rating, I will almost certainly read the review to find out what the reviewer disliked, so I can decide whether it makes me want to avoid the book, or whether it actually makes me more interested in reading it. But I will ignore a two-star rating without a review, because it gives no information other than that a particular reader did not like it.
- Speaking as an author, If you liked my book, but especially if you disliked it, I would like to know what made you feel that way. If you felt that the writing, character development, plot development, story line and/or voice were inadequate, I would like to know why so I can work on improving those things in the future. If you felt that some of those things were great, I would also like to know that, to make sure I don’t change things that are good.
- It’s important to review the book that the author wrote, not the book that you wanted to read. For example, if you don’t like books with magic, that’s a perfectly valid opinion, but giving a book a poor rating or a poor review because it has magic in it does a disservice to people who like books with magic and are trying to figure out whether or not this particular book is a good example of its type.