It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. I encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by Monday for my "You Can't Reach a Thousand Followers by Being a Jerk" post and followed my four blogger buddies! I’m happy to report that Matthew and Jesse both went over a thousand and Roland and Nicole are REALLY close! (And you guys boggled my mind with a record-setting two hundred plus comments – whoa!)
I've also been updating my Awesome Authors page. If you are one of my regular blogger buddies and you have a book out NOW, please make sure I've included it in the list.
Eventually, every author gets zapped. Doesn’t matter how good or bad your book, eventually you’ll have to face negative reviews. Nothing erodes away at confidence like a downer review:
“Its average. Nothing remarkable, nothing to write home about. The story is so flat and basic.”
“Totally a rip off of Star Wars.”
“This formulaic space opera aspires to be a bildungsroman for its petulant hero, but it confuses the archetypal with the clichéd.”
Yes, those are real comments and reviews about CassaStar. Enough to give any author a complex, isn’t it?
How do you handle it? Here are a couple things I keep in mind:
A reader who doesn’t write probably doesn’t understand how difficult it is to write a book. We need to give them the best of course, but even crap takes effort.
Maybe they are just negative people who feel it's their duty to complain and point out faults in others.
Writers who don’t have a published book yet haven’t experienced a bad review themselves. They might not understand how much a poor or average review hurts.
Writing is a form of art, and our book won't appeal to everyone.
Maybe it’s not that person’s style of read.
The reviewer doesn’t have a stake in the book.
Maybe that person was having a really bad day.
Perhaps there is just enough constructive criticism from which to learn and make the next book better.
Finally, there are always the really great reviews we can go back and reread:
Yeah, I think I’ll live!
So, if you're an unpublished writer, be prepared. Less than stellar reviews will happen. Remember, it's just one person's opinion. If you believe in your work and it's the best you can do, then that's all that matters.
Or just remember Bill Murray’s chant from Meatballs: “It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter!”
And now, drum roll please… The winner of a copy of CassaStar, review copy of CassaFire, and other cool stuff is…
Carol Kilgore at Under the Tiki Hut!
Congratulations! Email me your address and I’ll forward it to my publisher.
Thanks to all who entered – the amount of entries blew me away!
What’s your insecurity today? Have you received a negative review? How did you handle it? Did you make a voodoo doll of the reviewer? Someone should sell those - he’d make a fortune!I'll take the bildungsroman one please.
