Recently, we promised one of our blog readers we would give an example of something an author should never do. This is it. Below is a perfectly legitimate review done by a well-known review site and following, is the author’s response to it (we’ve purposefully kept the name of the site and the author anonymous).
Please, authors, don’t ever do this:
No. Just no. If a reviewer, especially a reviewer involved in a blog tour, writes a review that is this professional, don’t ever do what this author did. This review was not a bully review (i.e. a review that personally attacks the author or is written for revenge). This review was also not mean-spirited in any way. The reviewer simply wrote what he/she thought of the book. That is not bullying.
Edit: Also, in this particular case, the author experienced a huge backlash from this, which we don’t condone either. Bullying an author for a mistake like this is wrong, but it does happen. We’ve seen it happen over and over. This is why we’re warning our readers and giving them an example of what not to do.
There has been some debate over whether reviews are for readers only or for authors or both. STGRB has stated our opinion on the matter both here and here. In general, we agree that reviews are for readers, but there are a few fine points to be considered (see conversation linked above).
We may be doing some more posts on this topic in the future, but in the meantime, we have several posts planned for next week, a few of them, requests by some of our blog readers.
So stay tuned.
