Sometimes I think the Internet should come with training wheels.
Plot zombies, attack!
Well, for starters, the reviewers were not professional. They were not objective in what they had to say. I found their comments to be subjective and sometimes downright malicious. Two such blogs that have set themselves up as reviewers of books are “[Blog Name Redacted]” and “[Blog Name Redacted]”. Now, I don’t expect everybody to like my books, but what really gets me is when amateur reviewers use words like “predictable” and “one dimensional”, but they don’t quantify this. They don’t back up their comments with facts.
The above being a blog posting by an author who, having asked for an opinion (review), is unhappy with said opinion. It’s the writerly version of “Does this make my butt look big?”
It would seem that the unfortunate author is (somehow) unaware that the Author vs. Critic controversy has been flogged over and over on ye ole Interwebs. The end result is always the same. The critic comes out the victor with the author looking like a consummate asshat.
Bad reviews, like taxes and death, are inevitable.
My question to the aggrieved author would be this: What if the blogger(s) had posted a glowing, but simplistic review where she described your book as “wonderful?” Would you still have written a scathing indictment of her reviewing abilities, demanding that she back up her praise with facts?
I’m-a guessin’ the answer is, “No.”
