Goodreads - if you don't have anything nice to say...

Toothpaste said:

Amadan - I'm not sure why this is such a personal thing for you

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I'm not taking it any more personally than you are.

I don't think your opinion in particular has been extreme. I have been boggled by the people saying that no one should ever post a negative review, that commenting negatively on a book is a waste of time (or worse, says something unsavory about your character), or that only professional reviewers should do so. (Actually, you did kind of imply that yourself.)

I think perhaps also you're conflating every type of review together. To me, there's quite a big difference between me clicking one star on Goodreads for a book I hated and writing a lengthy, vitriolic trashing of the book on my Big Professional Author Blog. Yes, I totally get that the latter would probably be inadvisable, unless you feel so strongly about the book that you're willing to take the backlash. But as far as people combing my Amazon and Goodreads reviews and giving me shit because I gave some book one or two stars? Yeah, I'm willing to take the risk that someday my dream agent will see that and take offense and I'll die lonely and semi-unpublished. That's not "sticking my fingers in my ears," it's saying that I don't think living in fear of such petty people is worth it to me. Yes, I understand that such petty people exist.

Incidentally, I do not post a lot of vitriolic reviews, and there aren't that many books that I give one or two stars. Just like everyone else, I tend to read books that I at least expect to enjoy, and consequently, there aren't that many that I've finished despite being disappointed. But when I do, I participate in various reader communities as well as Goodreads and Amazon, and I think honest reviews and ratings are a service to fellow readers. Of course no one is going to choose or not choose a book solely on its Amazon rating, let alone based solely on my review, but I've found it usually is significant when a book has a markedly higher or lower average rating than others in its genre. So adopting a "Never click less than 5 stars" policy, to me, would be not only dishonest, but subverting the purpose of ratings.

Nor do I think you have to be an "expert" reviewer to review helpfully. People who read my reviews will decide for themselves how close their tastes are to mine. I've had a number of people react to my reviews by saying "I will read this" (or "Sounds awful, I'll give that one a pass"). Conversely, I've had people respond to reviews by saying "What you said you hated about that book is exactly the sort of thing I love, so I'm going to check it out." Cool. Do I have to be a professional reviewer to be worthy of wielding such immense reviewing power that one or two people might make a book purchasing decision based on what I post?

(P.S. I gave Alex and the Ironic Gentleman 4 stars. I hope that's not offensive. )

Perks said:

Toothpaste makes a good point - who really cares what I think?

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Well, actually--I do.

Hey! You wanna set up a private list of Books I Wished I hadn't Bought? If so, I'm interested.

I'm increasingly paying attention to reviews/comments about books, films and music by people I "know" in some way--like you--because I have very little discretionary income, and while I do use the library, I take very seriously my commitment to supporting pushers people in the arts.

So I do read reviews--and follow blogs (like Author Scoop).

And I should probably have noted that while I post reviews on sites I own or co-own, I also am Managing Editor/Webmaster for a couple of review sites.

So I take this conversation very seriously.

Amadan said:

I'm not taking it any more personally than you are.

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Yes, I changed that line in my post. Didn't quite think it made sense on rereading it. But you have to admit you have been using words that give the impression that you are overwhelmed with shock by some of the attitudes here, and thus makes it seem like you have a personal investment in the issue. Which you do. I didn't know you wrote Goodreads reviews until this post.

Amadan said:

I don't think your opinion in particular has been extreme. I have been boggled by the people saying that no one should ever post a negative review, that commenting negatively on a book is a waste of time (or worse, says something unsavory about your character), or that only professional reviewers should do so. (Actually, you did kind of imply that yourself.)

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Didn't just imply. I don't have a problem at all with blog reviewing, but I will say that I find what has happened with the democratisation of reviewing isn't altogether a good thing. Not everyone's opinions are equal, and yet many are treated as such. It's the same thing with the 24 hour news cycle, with all these "pundits", some of whom are just people with strong opinions but no expertise in the field. At any rate, I don't think it's a waste of time to critique books. And I don't think only people who work for known trades are experts. There are many bloggers who I very much respect. But this is a discussion for another thread.

Amadan said:

I think perhaps also you're conflating every type of review together. To me, there's quite a big difference between me clicking one star on Goodreads for a book I hated and writing a lengthy, vitriolic trashing of the book on my Big Professional Author Blog. Yes, I totally get that the latter would probably be inadvisable, unless you feel so strongly about the book that you're willing to take the backlash. But as far as people combing my Amazon and Goodreads reviews and giving me shit because I gave some book one or two stars? Yeah, I'm willing to take the risk that someday my dream agent will see that and take offense and I'll die lonely and semi-unpublished. That's not "sticking my fingers in my ears," it's saying that I don't think living in fear of such petty people is worth it to me. Yes, I understand that such petty people exist.

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I'm not conflating them. I am merely saying that any time a person states an opinion it is subject to criticism. From a vitriolic review, to a brilliantly sensitive critique, to a one star. And that's great that you don't live in fear of such petty people. My point, as I've said numerous times, is that it's up to each of us to choose which battles to fight. And in order to make such a decision one ought to be well informed of all sides. You have chosen to keep reviewing knowing that you'd never want to work with anyone who'd take something like that personally. I think that's a very sound reason. For me, as I've also said before, since I don't review books anyway, I don't see any sense in running the risk of offending when I don't have a need to.

But I do write film reviews, and I'm an actor. And I have chosen to stick with the film reviews despite maybe offending potential people I'd like to work with. Why film over books? I like writing film reviews and I have no desire to write book reviews. I'm willing to take a bit of a risk with something about which I have a passion, but not with something I couldn't care less about.

Amadan said:

Incidentally, I do not post a lot of vitriolic reviews, and there aren't that many books that I give one or two stars. Just like everyone else, I tend to read books that I at least expect to enjoy, and consequently, there aren't that many that I've finished despite being disappointed. But when I do, I participate in various reader communities as well as Goodreads and Amazon, and I think honest reviews and ratings are a service to fellow readers. Of course no one is going to choose or not choose a book solely on its Amazon rating, let alone based solely on my review, but I've found it usually is significant when a book has a markedly higher or lower average rating than others in its genre. So adopting a "Never click less than 5 stars" policy, to me, would be not only dishonest, but subverting the purpose of ratings.

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And like I said, for me it's not about only clicking 5 stars, it's about not bothering to click in the first place. For you you have a very specific motivation to help readers. And so you have your reasons to want to. My public persona is more to help would be writers, and as such I comment in threads like these .

Amadan said:

Nor do I think you have to be an "expert" reviewer to review helpfully. People who read my reviews will decide for themselves how close their tastes are to mine. I've had a number of people react to my reviews by saying "I will read this" (or "Sounds awful, I'll give that one a pass"). Conversely, I've had people respond to reviews by saying "What you said you hated about that book is exactly the sort of thing I love, so I'm going to check it out." Cool. Do I have to be a professional reviewer to be worthy of wielding such immense reviewing power that one or two people might make a book purchasing decision based on what I post?

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I don't know. Like I said, it's a very complicated issue to me, and I don't feel that only the trades should be allowed to review. I also think it's pretty obvious you read a lot, and write a lot, and thus know both of what you review and how to do it in a compelling fashion. So, in a way, you are an expert. But I can't say that I like the idea that someone can write a cruel review of my work with personal threats and their star rating contributes to the overall average my book gets. At any rate. Like I said before, this is a conversation for another thread.

Amadan said:

(P.S. I gave Alex and the Ironic Gentleman 4 stars. I hope that's not offensive. )

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Well I do wonder where that last star went . . . . (seriously though, that's lovely of you to do so, thank you)

Look I'm not "offended" by reviews. I can be hurt by truly thoughtless ones, but at the same time I discard them because clearly the reviewer is crazy. I'm not one of the authors you need to worry about, though I will say that if say you had given me a bad review and then asked me to blurb your work, I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about that . I'd like to think I'd set the review aside and read your work and judge it based on its own merit, but if you'd written one of those scathing reviews? One of the ones that got personal with attacks on the author herself? Chances are I wouldn't want to blurb someone I didn't respect. But there are other authors out there who ARE petty. And agents. And editors. And you don't care and that's awesome. I'm not trying to convince you to care. I am trying to make sure everyone is aware of all sides to the argument so that they can make informed choices. I don't, personally, think there is a right or wrong to the question. I truly don't. I'm just trying to help and offer some insight.

Amadan said:

No, what's being said is "Give shiny happy reviews or shut up (or else be known as a spiteful meanypants that none of the cool kids will want to sit with)."

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Who is saying that? I don't recall posts where anyone has said that.

What we are saying, and what you seem to not be understanding, is that while people on the internet are free to spew whatever they like in a book review (be it positive or negative or so badly written you don't have a clue what they're saying), people in the industry have to be careful what they say in public.

Are you going to walk into work tomorrow and bad-mouth your fellow employees to their faces? Are you going to trash-talk your boss over the loudspeaker for everyone to hear?

Didn't think so.

As an author working within this industry, I'm not going to publicly trash another author's work. If I love a book, I'll say so. If I'm so-so with a book, I'll try to be fair about what worked and didn't work for me. If I passionately hate a book, I just won't comment on it at all. Just like in my day job, I'll praise a good job and offer constructive criticism on a so-so job, but I'll never blast an employee when they do badly. The latter does no one any good.

Folks are free to read and review however they like. But if you hope to be a professional in this industry, tread with caution. Use common sense. The internet is not private. As has been attested to in this thread, negativity unfortunately can come back to bite you.

ChaosTitan said:

What we are saying, and what you seem to not be understanding, is that while people on the internet are free to spew whatever they like in a book review (be it positive or negative or so badly written you don't have a clue what they're saying), people in the industry have to be careful what they say in public.

Are you going to walk into work tomorrow and bad-mouth your fellow employees to their faces? Are you going to trash-talk your boss over the loudspeaker for everyone to hear?

Didn't think so.

As an author working within this industry, I'm not going to publicly trash another author's work. If I love a book, I'll say so. If I'm so-so with a book, I'll try to be fair about what worked and didn't work for me. If I passionately hate a book, I just won't comment on it at all. Just like in my day job, I'll praise a good job and offer constructive criticism on a so-so job, but I'll never blast an employee when they do badly. The latter does no one any good.

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I understand what you're saying perfectly well. I disagree with your reasoning.

Writing a negative book review is not the same thing as bad-mouthing a fellow employee. It is accepted and encouraged for people to comment publicly on books. It is not accepted and encouraged for people to comment publicly on how good a job a non-public facing employee is doing.

The average employee, unless s/he wears a polyester uniform, doesn't want or expect someone to come in off the street and give them a job performance evaluation. But as authors, you invite that.

And I still think there's a big difference between publicly teeing off on another author on your blog and giving their book a low rating on Amazon because you didn't like it.

(And since I gave Twilight one star, no, I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to ask Ms. Meyer to write a blurb for my book...)

ChaosTitan said:

...while people on the internet are free to spew whatever they like in a book review (be it positive or negative or so badly written you don't have a clue what they're saying), people in the industry have to be careful what they say in public.

As an author working within this industry, I'm not going to publicly trash another author's work. If I love a book, I'll say so. If I'm so-so with a book, I'll try to be fair about what worked and didn't work for me. If I passionately hate a book, I just won't comment on it at all.

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For instance, you are never going to see Anne Rice say "Twilight is a donkey-dug pile of manure the size of Rhode Island." -- Even if she thought so. She'd couch her words to remain as cordial and professional as she could... as she did in this recent interview:

Anne Rice said:

"['Twilight']’s based on a really silly premise: that immortals would go to high school. It's a failure of imagination, but at the same time, that silly premise has provided Stephenie Meyer with huge success," Anne said. "The idea that if you are immortal you would go to high school instead of Katmandu or Paris or Venice, it’s the vampire dumbed down for kids. But it's worked. It's successful. It makes kids really happy."

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-- http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2010/10/interview_with_anne_rice_vampi.html

There's also the consideration that, when you review for print, or well-known review zines/blogs, if you piss of the publisher or a major editor, that can be the last ARC you ever receive.

Which, if your business is the review business, is not good.

I've seen this happen with scholarly journals, btw.

Perks said:

Right. Now Anne Rice is also saying this from a secure position perched atop the achievement of several dozen best-selling books, many of them about vampires.

Would a hopeful, writing to enter the paranormal market, be wise to be so bold?

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Absolutely not.

I was at World Fantasy Con last week, where I was reminded again--FORCIBLY--of why you don't want to spout your mouth off or act like an ass around people in the industry. I saw a couple of people blow any and all chance of ever get published by doing things like (a) badmouthing an author to people at her publishing house; (b) by cornering a REALLY BIG WIG (think first name Tom last name Doherty) with this REALLY GREAT NEW NEVER DONE BEFORE epic fantasy about an orphan with a sword that your (and I quote) "stupid submissions people passed on, can you tell me why?"; (c) opining loudly why agents ruin the whole business while handing a business card with web address to...an agent; (d) going to a mass signing and while standing right in front of an author's table saying very loudly, "I really didn't like that book *insert title here* no matter where it's at on the bestseller list.

So, here's the deal, and it's very simple. If you want to work for a company, you don't tell the CEO that their product is crap. If you want to find someone to represent you, you don't act like a horse's ass in public. If you expect to write and be published, you don't stomp all over toes in the publishing industry. Period. This isn't brain surgery.

If expressing your opinion is more important than building business relationships in the hope of furthering yourself in your chosen field, then perhaps review writing should be the career choice instead of writing for publication. So many people are trying to break into the business, and every one of them is getting vetted in lots of different ways--and online behavior is one of the big ones.

*shrug*

Just sayin'...

Flies. Honey. Vinegar. This advice is older than the printing press.

Perks said:

I've seen a few authors on Goodreads who 5-star every single book on their list. If anyone does that, I flat out don't believe them. For me, that's when the rating system becomes useless.

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Perks, to respond to this comment--on my GR page my reviews are mostly five stars, no one stars, a couple four, and a maybe one two and one three. The reason isn't that I am too easy on books. The reason is I'm a very picky reader with a good eye for choosing books I'm going to like. Also, I have a strict rule about not reviewing books unless I've finished the entire thing, and I rarely finish a book I'm not enjoying a lot.

Though I do tend to decline to review books I wasn't thrilled about...

I just wanted to make that point, lest people thumb their noses at pages with too many good reviews (I know that may not have been what you meant Perks, but wanted to make the point anyway.)

Amadan said:

(And since I gave Twilight one star, no, I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to ask Ms. Meyer to write a blurb for my book...)

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Consider this, if you will: You don't (generally) get to decide who blurbs your book. What if the people who secure that kind of thing get you a great blurb from SM then, later, someone discovers you hold a low opinion of her work?

It creates a pretty awkward situation, no? I figure it's part of my job to save my editor, my publisher, and all their staff from embarrassment--and (in doing so) protect my own interests as well. Like I've said before, this is teamwork.

Anyway, I think Toothpaste and ChaosTitan have mirrored my own thoughts on the matter with far more eloquence (and greater detail) than I can muster. I just think it's smart to consider the long term consequences of such actions.

Perks said:

Mealy-mouthed? If it's any consolation, I don't think Medievalist (capital 'M'; AW fixture) has ever been in the same zip code as 'mealy-mouthed'.

I'd like, on Goodreads, to freely recommend books I've really enjoyed (with or without supporting reasons) so I think perhaps I'll just keep it to a Recommended Reading List. I really don't have the time or inclination to write negative reviews, and although it might give a more honest picture of my reading tastes to include one-star rated books, Toothpaste makes a good point - who really cares what I think?

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You'd be surprised by how many reviews on Goodreads say things like, "I wasn't going to read this book, but my favorite author blurbed it, so I did!"

Readers do care, which is why I think it's important to give an honest reflection of your feelings--and again, people looking at goodreads reviews generally are looking for a variety of opinions on books, not just the professional reviewer's. It's part of the conversation of the site--asking what anyone thinks.

There are also options on there to keep your ratings and reviews hidden except for people you friend. That's always an option, too.

Okay, just in from work - not read everything super fully but...

Irysangel said:

I don't mind what people think of my books -- I have plenty of bad reviews and every person is completely justified to feel how they do. My stuff is not for everyone and that's just fine with me. I didn't write it for everyone.

But straddling the line between author and reviewer is hard.

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It is and it isn't and yes everyone is entitled to per peeves etc. I sometimes write reviews for a UK fantasy site. (really must get back up to date on that) But when I write a review, I also hold on mind the sudience it was intended for. That is not always me. So I might say 'I personally didn't like X. y or Z, or the book particulaly. But if you liked 'book by well-known author in a similar style' it might be your kind of thing. I might say 'I didn;t like it, but for fans of this it's well-written' or I may indeed say 'if you like this genre you could do worse, but be warned there's this, this and this'

I can express my opinion. Loudly. I do or do not like the book. But at the same time I can appreciate that those with different tastes might love it, and my score reflects that, and the people who wil love that style. I can say I don't care for it but it is well-written. Or I can say it's rather clumsy but if you like the genre... And so I say so. Opinion with professionalism + an appreciation for others tastes. One review the guy hasn't published is one I thought had serious editing problems (among other, quite, er, basic things), and then found it was given from a borderline scam/vanity pub. So we didn't pub the review.

"Give shiny happy reviews or shut up (or else be known as a spiteful meanypants that none of the cool kids will want to sit with)."

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No one said that.

You haven't seen my reviews. I'm not sugar coated or nice unless i LOVED it (which includes Chaos' Three Days to Dead btw). That doesn't mean I trash the author or the editor or the pub.

It can be done. But not really with just a 'number of stars'. That said Perks, many many people star books at Goodreads without an explanation. Yeah, they're readers though. I'd suggest that if you really feel it's a one or two star, explain why, even if it's only a line to say 'not my cup of tea'

Perks... this might interest you. It's from Editor-in-Chief, Kelli Collins, from Ellora's Cave. While the article talks mostly about an author's website and the impact is has on editor's and publisher's decisions to sign said author, she talks a bit about the impact of making derogatory comments about other authors/editors/agents/publishers/books in public..

http://redlinesanddeadlines.blogspot.com/

Perks said:

Yep, BC, these are the things I'm hearing. That's a handy little article and a fairy godmother's reminder about professionalism. It matters.

That said, I've have my website's changes in with my webmaster for a little while now. Lol! Too much stuff on that site.

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*lol* I hear ya... my website needs serious overhaul... ug, but sadly, I do all the work myself... so its a matter of finding the time really. This article lit a fire so-to-speak and I plan to bump revamping my web up my priority list.

Brindle Chase said:

Perks... this might interest you. It's from Editor-in-Chief, Kelli Collins, from Ellora's Cave. While the article talks mostly about an author's website and the impact is has on editor's and publisher's decisions to sign said author, she talks a bit about the impact of making derogatory comments about other authors/editors/agents/publishers/books in public..

http://redlinesanddeadlines.blogspot.com/

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Excellent link.

I'm also on Goodreads, and I'm politely honest about the books I've read, however, I do use a screenname - just for that reason. Personally, I dislike receiving rah rah reviews when I've posted stuff on writing boards I'm on. If something doesn't work, I'd like to know it and why. I know certain people will tell me if what I wrote is crap or not, which makes me feel good when it isn't. But I do think only honesty is helpful.

When in doubt, use a screen name.

Screen names aren't anywhere near as anonymous as you think. Seriously. It's so darn easy to figure out who's who online that using a screen name is almost a waste of time.