Reading Amazon Reviews

Today is a day that I feel like someone should warn my characters that I am coming. Due to feeling generally like something from my cat's litterbox last night, I took nyquil. I am definitely a little loopy today so please bear with me.

Anyway, I wanted to write about something that I did yesterday: read amazon reviews. Now, before you roll your eyes and accuse me of being utterly self-absorbed, let me explain. It isn't actually my own reviews that I am talking about (although I can't deny that I have read those more than once and sincerely appreciate them).

This habit actually started back in January, right before my book came out. I was excited, of course, but I was also absolutely terrified. Once the book was out...that was it. It was a real thing that people would be reading, which was great, but it also meant that soon I would start hearing people's opinions about it.

Trying to prepare for this I read a lot of articles and blog posts about criticism and had intellectually accepted that once it was published my book would don its blindfold and begin its march towards the literary firing squad. However, I am not too proud to admit that I was terrified. I started questioning myself and asking if I could really handle it. I have a pretty thick skin, but suddenly everything was very real. And imminent.

Dragon Touched came out and was summarily sent out to friends, family, and reviewers and I found my anxiety growing. Every little flaw suddenly seemed bigger and uglier than my worst monster and I was pretty sure that everyone was going to come back and say: “THIS? This is what you spent all that time on? Really? You hack.”

One night, in a desperate attempt to not think about all of that anymore, I happened to be on Amazon reading over reviews of a bunch of books and trying to decide what I'd be bringing home on my next trip to the library. I'm pretty sure I was reading a review of a new Tamora Pierce book I hadn't read yet when an idea occurred to me. I picked a few other authors who I've been reading for years, like Mercedes Lackey, J.K. Rowling, and the grandfather of epic fantasy himself, J.R.R. Tolkien. Then, with a degree of trepidation, I began to read their one-star reviews. Yep, you heard me correctly. The one-star reviews.

It was probably the best thing in the world that I could have done for myself at the time. Bear in mind, these are authors who I LOVE, whose books have inspired me both as a person and as a writer. It was really hard to pick a book like Wild Magic, by Tamora Pierce (which is the first fantasy book I ever read, I'm pretty sure) and read the bad things people had to say about it. I found myself getting defensive, wanting to jump in and argue with the reviewers and defend these books. I found myself asking: “How could anyone not love___? Inconceivable!”

And that was the epiphany moment, the smacking myself on the forehead moment. Well of course not everyone was going to like those books. There are plenty of books who people around me love and I can't stand. There are books that I just can't get into, books that, while I can see that they are well-written, just don't speak to me.

In other words: “...if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time.”¹

It may seem very basic and maybe it seems silly, but it was a really important moment for me. If someone as brilliant as any of those authors could have bad reviews what grounds do I have to worry? An enormous amount of pressure was lifted with that realization.

A few months ago I had a very kind blogger tell me that my book didn't speak to him. We had a fantastic conversation about my book and tastes in fantasy in general, but the fact that I'd read those reviews helped me have that conversation.

When I start getting anxious about sending out review queries, or as I worry about an upcoming submission deadline for a genre that is outside my comfort zone, I read the one star reviews. They remind me that it is really ok. That I all I can do is what those authors do: write the best story I can and learn from my mistakes. The criticism is important to me as a writer, whether it be my own work being critiqued or the work of authors I deeply respect. Reading those reviews has helped me to look harder at my own work and assess it more honestly, which is never a bad thing.

1. Rowling, J. K. "Rita Skeeter's Scoop." Harry Potter #4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York, NY: Scholastic, 2002. 454. Print.