Guest Article: J.L. Hickey's guide to leaving reviews for indie authors

Reviewing the Review

As an author and a college student who sat through hundreds of writing workshops to attain his BA degree in Creative Writing, negative reviews are nothing new to me. I have thick skin, and to be fair, not everyone will love my books, no matter how much of my heart and soul (and wallet…) I pour into it.

We as writers and authors understand this. It’s the game we signed on to play. The question that this blog post aims to dissect is the lack of tact and tastefulness that seems to bleed through into some reviews and why it is hurtful and useless to all people involved.

 So, despite my aforementioned thick skin, when I receive a hateful and/or disrespectful review about one of my novels, (or even worse, towards one of my indie author friends), and the review is written with a lack of tact and favors bashing, hurtful, and mocking language, my blood boils. There is nothing more disrespectful and ignorant than voicing a negative opinion without offering positive criticism. You can be open and honest… we would prefer you to. The main concern is to remain positive, explain the strength and weakness’, offer idea’s to aid the author to make the book better. Last but not least… don’t leave a review if you didn’t even read the book! If you read the first page or chapter… in my opinion you did not read enough of the book to leave an honest opinion. If you still feel inclined to do so, at the very least call it out in the review…

So, are there rules about writing reviews? There should be, but it would be too hard to monitor. Instead, there should be an unwritten rule about curtesy and respect, but then again we’re talking about the internet here...  As far as Amazon goes, it has no hard rules about writing reviews… you can report abuse and sometimes Amazon will drop reviews if they think that certain criteria for the reviews lack integrity. This is usually saved for online bullying where dozens of fake negative reviews pop up in a short time span due to some sort of dispute… Yes folks… there are people who go out there and swarm author’s books with negative reviews purposely to hurt them…

In order to really dig deep into this issue, I am going to use a couple of incidents that happened to me recently. The first is a simple review of my first novel entitled the Deity Chronicles; it includes my response to the reviewer.

This is the sort of constructive review we as writers are thankful for.  The reviewer is honest, explaining that this book shows potential but needs a serious look into editing.  For her, it took away from enjoying the story, to the point she is not sure if she would read book two (that sucks, but I understand her point of view). There is a balance between positive and negative, the language used is polite and respectful.  You can tell by my response that I was genuinely thankful for her honesty, and that it opened me up to revising my first book. Since she posted this review, I have partnered with a new editor and it is currently in the works of a proper edit. Kudos for the review!

So, that’s the proper way to write a review on a book that you felt was justified a lower rating. If you deem a book should be given a low rating, just use thoughtful and honest verbiage to express yourself and explain why.  It’s not rocket science… Respect the author, they are a person too, with emotions and feelings. Just because you downloaded a book for free does not give you full reign over being an ass and trashing someone… which brings me to my next example.

 This review was short, but definitely not sweet.  The error mentioned in the review is on page two of the book. The reviewer didn’t even read the entire first chapter before she decided on writing a very negative post which bashes and promotes ignorance. The language used is aggressive and confrontational.  This is the perfect example of what not to do when leaving a review. Comparing the two posts which delve into the same issue, it speaks volumes to your character in how you deliver your message. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM is gold for any author, we want it, hell we beg for it. Downright negative reviews do nothing for either party. The author gets nothing from it, and the reviewer will probably see their helpful rating drop.   

After reading this review, I would be lying If I didn’t feel jaded. It wasn’t the fact that she gave me a negative and bad review, but that she did so with such spite and elitist approach.  So, I took my frustrations to social media where I saw a handful of my loyal fans go to the link and argue her tactics used in the review. You can read them here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IHTPJNCVYWND/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00H4GCUWY#wasThisHelpful

Now, since these reviews dropped I have had all three of my novels revised once again with a third and fourth editor (pending the title). It’s true, you can never slack on editing, and it is a pitfall that too many Indie authors fall into it. For me, it’s a touchy subject. Readers and reviewers often fall into assumptions. At one point in the above review thread, someone makes the assumption that I lacked heart and didn’t car enough because I did not, and I quote:  “put much effort” into my story.  Wow, throw the negative review out the window, this takes the cake for ignorance. When you write a positive or a negative review (hopefully contrastive) leave out your assumptions on why an author did or did not. Don’t assume because they are Indie they don’t care enough about proper editing. In my case, I care deeply. I have spent over three grand on editing my three books, but because I am limited in resources, they were not perfect. I tried and I busted my butt doing everything in my power to make them as perfect as I could, using beta readers, beta editors, paying money for real editing services multiple times per book. In the end, they have been revised once again.

There is a third type of review that we should discuss as well. It doesn’t really fall into either negative or positive, as it could be rated anywhere from terrible to amazing. I call this the summary review.  Sure, you leave a star rating, but the actual review itself is just a quick summary of the plot. I get these quite often. Of course, I enjoy seeing the four and five star summaries, because it always feels good to know that people enjoyed the book.  The actual summary doesn’t do much in forming the reader’s opinion though. If you want to write a review that will help the author out, tell us why you liked it, who your favorite characters were and why, who did you not care for, where do you think the story is going, etc. Enough of these types of reviews give us an idea of what characters are working, what storylines are popular, etc.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. If you're one of the people who do summary reviews and rate the books you read, kudos! Thank you for taking your time out and helping out the author with the review. Knowing how important those reviews are, a mere thank you for taking the time out of your day is the least we can do.

To wrap this up… If you’re going to review anything, just remember to stay classy. Life’s too short to spend all day being a negative person. If the book lacked certain skill or polish, be honest and resourceful, just because we’re writing over the internet doesn’t give anyone the right to throw their social skills right out the window. 

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