![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Over on the Whatever, John Scalzi is being very much, well, John Scalzi. While I was reading this entry, I said to my husband, hey! I want to do this!
And, before something like sanity, or at least dignity, could take hold, Mr. Scalzi closed his post with: A challenge to other authors with blogs, LiveJournals and etc: Post your one-star (or otherwise negative) Amazon reviews, if you have them, and you probably do. Oh, go on. Own your one-star reviews, man. And then, you know. Get past them. If you're lucky, some of them might actually be fun to read.
My husband Thomas said: People will feel they should praise your work to compensate for the negativity of those reviews. Which is sort of beside the point of the exercise, and if you do this, you will make me feel very, very, very guilty.
For the record: I don't really care about the one star reviews. If they have a point, I generally wince and take a mental note not to mess up so badly the next time. If they have no point, I think they're kind of funny. The West bad reviews are less inherently funny because I often can't tell if they have a point or not (but when I am having this dilemma, I remember the Starlog review for Broken Crown, in which the reviewer very perceptively noted that you will either love the book for the level of detail and cultural tapestry, or you will loathe it for the same reason. Which reminded me that in some cases, what people hate is the book I did try to write, as opposed to the obvious failure of the attempt to write the book I tried to write. If that makes sense.)
( Amazon 1 Star reviews :D )
And, before something like sanity, or at least dignity, could take hold, Mr. Scalzi closed his post with: A challenge to other authors with blogs, LiveJournals and etc: Post your one-star (or otherwise negative) Amazon reviews, if you have them, and you probably do. Oh, go on. Own your one-star reviews, man. And then, you know. Get past them. If you're lucky, some of them might actually be fun to read.
My husband Thomas said: People will feel they should praise your work to compensate for the negativity of those reviews. Which is sort of beside the point of the exercise, and if you do this, you will make me feel very, very, very guilty.
For the record: I don't really care about the one star reviews. If they have a point, I generally wince and take a mental note not to mess up so badly the next time. If they have no point, I think they're kind of funny. The West bad reviews are less inherently funny because I often can't tell if they have a point or not (but when I am having this dilemma, I remember the Starlog review for Broken Crown, in which the reviewer very perceptively noted that you will either love the book for the level of detail and cultural tapestry, or you will loathe it for the same reason. Which reminded me that in some cases, what people hate is the book I did try to write, as opposed to the obvious failure of the attempt to write the book I tried to write. If that makes sense.)
( Amazon 1 Star reviews :D )