Comments on: That First Bad Review

By: Samantha Hunter

Samantha Hunter — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:19:25 +0000

Oh! I love excerpting the bad review! I can’t wait to try that. What a great idea. I’ve only had one really bad one, from the evil AAR site, but I just ignored it, generally. I don’t make any secret of what I think of people who write about our books that way, tho: BAH.

I mean, let’s face it, no matter how they try to hide behind the “we have to share our honest opinion in service to our readers” crapola, romance reviewers are not usually paid professionals, they have no background in literary crit, they haven’t reviewed for the Post or the Times (or even RT) and the industry really doesn’t hold them to any standard because their views don’t affect sales or editor decisions.

So what service are they extending, actually, unless they are helping to promote our books, to support the romance industry, or to clue readers in to a good read? — none of which is served by a bad review, which serves the reviewers ego, but that’s about it.

Jill, you are wonderful and brilliant, and so are your books, and if anyone says otherwise, how sad for them.

Sam

By: gena showalter

gena showalter — Sat, 07 May 2005 14:16:08 +0000

I owe it all to Jill and Booksquare. They are beating…uh, training me well.

By: Susan Gable

Susan Gable — Fri, 06 May 2005 20:32:47 +0000

LOL – Gena! Well done on the rewrite! Excellence use of lifting the correct words from it.

By: Booksquare

Booksquare — Fri, 06 May 2005 14:23:17 +0000

Excellent job, Gena. It’s like I taught you myself! Seems to me there’s a second career in rewriting reviews to meet your personal needs.

By: gena showalter

gena showalter — Fri, 06 May 2005 13:15:38 +0000

I got a review once that said something along of the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Good writing couldn’t save this piece of crap.”

I think I’ll rework that to my satisfaction:

Gena Showalter offers…”Good writing.”

By: Rinda

Rinda — Thu, 05 May 2005 19:58:00 +0000

Jill, I’m creating stockpiles of wine in preparation for future bad reviews. Just kidding. Maybe there is something to this Sonic thing…

I didn’t see the review, but I’ll tell you a statement I have running across my screensavor. Different People, Different Perspectives… Some will never get it so… er… fly them. Yeah, fly them. That’s what it says.

Hugs. Ignore the bad review. I read the good ones above and saw that there are only five left at Amazon (more on the way) so obviously, you have more positive perspectives.

Rinda