Bad Review after Kindle give-away

I call these kinds of reviews "Ugly" reviews. And ignore them. In this case, I bet this one ugly review gives you more sales than any given good review.

Couldn't resist a reply

As a woman who earns roughly $0.79 to the male dollar . . . Vituperative bitchery, hyperbole and willful ignorance don't help the cause of parity one bit. On the contrary; thanks so much for helping to set us back a few decades -- or maybe centuries. I have to wonder if you are what you declare yourself to be, or are perhaps a die hard misogynist playing a part.

Or maybe you're an ex?

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Bloo said:

She responded with this:

so not only did she not read it, she didn't download it, she based this all on a description.

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Your responses were spot on. For some demented reason, I've been following the responses to her review. Leaving a review about a book you haven't read is against Amazon's TOS (and personally something I think is completely unethical). Usually they can't prove it because sometimes people buy the books elsewhere or are given ARCs and post the reviews on Amazon. But your response got her to admit she hadn't read the books (which was fairly obvious from her "review," but couldn't be proven) so I clicked "report review" since she admitted she hadn't read it. Not sure if it will get the review removed, but at least other people who bother to investigate that one bad review will see that she even admits that she didn't actually read the book so her review should be ignored.

Barbara R. said:

She sounds like a moron, and will sound so to everyone who reads that.

It's truly a bad idea to respond to reviewers. But here's an idea: we could do a Stranger on the Train deal. One writer beats on another writer's unfair critics, and vice versa...

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Barbara, I realise you're being supportive here, but I'm really uncomfortable with name-calling like this; and while I'm sure your Strangers On A Train suggestion was a joke, I hope no one takes it seriously and considers doing that for real because that really would be a very bad idea.

milkweed said:

Is she illiterate?

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More name-calling. Please don't do this. It makes us all look unprofessional, nasty, and mean.

areteus said:

When someone has a personal beef about something, often logic and commen sense go out of the window.

And I'm afraid you've been forced to suffer due to having been born into the easy level of the game of life - white male. Until society gets itself properly sorted out and balances out all the inequalities in society, this is going to keep happening. Again, the crazy here often rears its head in the form of men not being allowed to be feminist (despite many being staunch supporters) and similar nonsense.

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Hmm.

merrihiatt said:

Writing on a public forum about negative reviews (rather, thoughts about negative reviews) makes me uncomfortable. What if someone did a Google search of your name and found these posts? I ask myself quite often if I would want what I've just posted to be the first thing a reader learns about me. It's worth a few minutes of consideration, IMHO.

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Well said, Merri.

I'm tempted to close this thread if it carries on in such a negative direction.

If anyone wants to sneer at reviewers or argue with them I can't stop them, even though I think it's foolish in the extreme. I can, however, stop people from gloating about such actions here.

Please, everyone: sharpen up your acts. I hope we're all better than this.

Apologies here as well. I didn't mean to go as negative as I did and I've edited out my quotes and the reviewer's quotes from my past on the first page. I got caught up.

Thanks, both. I really appreciate your comments.

sarahdalton said:

The weirdest thing is that this guy has never reviewed anything on Amazon before. What's with the random numbers? Do people have to type a certain number of words?

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Yep. 20 words minimum.

Old Hack I was genuinely concerned when I asked if she was illiterate, not snarky, not sarcastic, not hateful. My apologies if it came off that way.

It almost seems like the content of the review isn't even speaking to the book's purpose. Does that make sense? I mean, criticizing someone because they want you to "tell your sob story to someone else," seems a bit weird.

If I saw that on someone else's book or product, I'd probably flag it for removal. It doesn't seem to review anything. She just seems angry about her own life and challenges, I guess?

I don't know.

CrastersBabies said:

If I saw that on someone else's book or product, I'd probably flag it for removal. It doesn't seem to review anything. She just seems angry about her own life and challenges, I guess?

I don't know.

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That's exactly how it's coming across and while I'm sorry the book has taken the 1-star hit, anyone reading the review and comments will realize that she's got her own agenda going on and that it has nothing to do with the book. The review will then get ignored.

Well, All publicity is good publicity they say. Except when it's not. In this case, I doubt it's hurting you in any way so I wouldn't sweat it.

I like reading what more seasoned authors say about responding to bad reviews ....can't you just thank them and say their point is taken? I would think that would do more to shame them than anything. When the author is just a faceless entity, that's one thing, but when the author responds to you as a human being, I would think that would be worth something-that is, if it's not just some snarky, jealous pretender or something. Maybe not though, I haven' yet experienced it! I'm sure I will when my book is released! LOL Like hearing your advice...sorry if this is hijacking the thread?

Reviews are for readers, not writers.

Don't respond to them at all. Not to the good ones or the bad ones. There's far too much potential there for things to get complicated.

ok thks

OK Thanks old hack...I do have a lot to learn...and always prefer to learn it from someone else's experience!