Dealing with Negative Book Reviews

05/13/20 • 15 min

Dealing with negative book reviews can be difficult, especially if it's your first one. You have invested a lot of time in your book, sometimes even years. You have edited your book and finally published your manuscript. Then come the reviews. As much as you love your book, it will not appeal to everyone. People will leave negative feedback. Some will be a fair appraisal of your book, while others may just be mean spirited. Learning how to handle these unfavorable reviews is important; you don't want a negative comment to stop you from writing.

This episode was inspired by a negative comment that I received about a quote from Episode 06 "Why Your Book Won't be a Success and What You can do." The person who made the comment disagreed with my quote but clearly didn't listen to the episode. It stung a little but I had to push past it somehow. I did so in the same manner as dealing with negative book reviews.

Negative comments will happen to you. But you are not alone. Even the well-known authors like Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkein have received their fair share of not so positive comments from readers.

Highlights

04:29 Not everybody will like your book
08:43 Don't spend a lot of time focusing on the negative
09:20 Can you learn from the review?
09:42 Don't Argue with a reviewer
13:56 Understand Amazon's Guidelines for reviews and report abuse

Resources Mentioned

Amazon Community Guidelines

Amazon contact email to report abuse: [email protected]

Criticism is something that nobody likes, and it can be hard to deal with. Take some time. Deal with it. Don't focus on that negative review. Consider if there's anything that you can learn. Avoid starting an argument and know your rights. Know what the guidelines for Amazon are so that you can report anything that is actually abused.

Negative comments will happen to you. But you are not alone. Even the well-known authors like Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkein have received their fair share of not so positive comments from readers.

Highlights

Resources Mentioned

Amazon Community Guidelines

Amazon contact email to report abuse: [email protected]

Previous Episode

Why Your Book Won’t be a Success and What You Can do About it

In today's episode, find out why your book won't be a success. That may sound a little harsh, but there is something that you can do. If you want your book to be a success, then you need to define what success looks like for you. Failing to do this will ensure that your book does not succeed.

Highlights

• Defining success for yourself and your book is something that only you should do.
• Use your why to define what success looks like for you and your book.
•As you continue in your author journey, make sure that you are keeping your definition of success in front of you on a regular basis.

A Few Questions to Help You Find Your Why

What message do you want to share with your readers?
Is there a problem are you helping your readers to solve?
What societal issues are you trying to highlight?

Next Episode

How to Publish a Book on Amazon

There are so many different publishing platforms available. But which ones should you use? One platform that comes to mind when thinking about this question is Amazon. Today's episode will talk about how to publish your book on Amazon. It's actually easier than you may think.

The episode takes a detailed look at the publishing platform. It covers everything from signing up to uploading your first book and creating your author bio for Amazon. Much of what I share in this episode comes from my personal experience using Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP.

Highlights

01:31 You are not limited to just E-books
03:03 There are three pages of info to fill out for your book
05:49 Amazon can take up to 72 hours to publish your book
12:37 Set up your author bio on Amazon Author Central

Visit this episode's Show Notes page for links.