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Jane wrote: "There is another issue here and that relates to the nature of the review. There is a popular tendency to confuse the author with the text; few readers seem to be able to accept a narrative for its ..."

Jane all reviews are subjective. I've seen a few "real" reviews from respected publications that were less fair than "it didn't work for me". Look up Rex Reeds fat comments about Melissa McCarthy and tell me which is worse. Most of us readers aren't professional critics, so don't expect a detailed professional critical review. Especially on sites like Amazon. Those are basically product reviews, like everything else they sale. It might not be fair to say, "I didn't like the vacuum I bought because the shade of red was different than the picture." Though product might work for someone else, that consumer's opinion is valid to them. If a customer reviews every item purchased on Amazon out of habit, don't expect them to be any less harsh with the books they purchase because your feelings aren't a priority in their thinking. No more than, the scathing review for the dog lease that broke after one use. It's harsh but it's how most consumers think. In all honesty, it never even occurred to me that an author gave any concern about my book reviews until joining Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. And then my introduction to that awareness was the random self created crazy that happens here from time to time.

Thank god for a two star rating I received here a few days ago. Looks like the 3 star ratings Ive got now as legitimate.

Jane wrote: "There is another issue here and that relates to the nature of the review. There is a popular tendency to confuse the author with the text; few readers seem to be able to accept a narrative for its ..."

Jane, I so agree. It is completely unfair to give a poor rating to a good book simply because it strayed from the reviewer's taste. When that happens to me in the course of reviewing a book, instead of "not my cup of tea" (cliche anyone?) I say readers who like vampire/zombie liaisons in dirigibles may enjoy this novel.

Deb wrote: "Jane wrote: "readers who like vampire/zombie liaisons in dirigibles may enjoy this novel. ..."

That made me choke on my coffee :D

Renee wrote: "Deb wrote: "Jane wrote: "readers who like vampire/zombie liaisons in dirigibles may enjoy this novel. ..."

That made me choke on my coffee :D"

Odd, it inspired me. I've already got the outline half done. **snicker**

Al wrote: "Ahummmm. Are there ANY READERS in this group? The person who set this up, specified "READERS" and all I see are writers commenting here (piling on?) and any poor "reader" is probably being scared ..."

Actually Readers should not feel intimidated by this thread, they should feel empowered. Readers' opinions are what all writers really want to see, other than royalty checks with their names on them.

Those are better than your name on the cover.

Melissa wrote:Live the dream, Stephen, live the dream.
...."

I am, everyday. Cold beer, Scotch on ice and a beautiful wife.
She doubles as the friendly, hot secretary, but it makes for a wonderful life.

Deb wrote: "Jane wrote: "There is another issue here and that relates to the nature of the review. There is a popular tendency to confuse the author with the text; few readers seem to be able to accept a narra..."

This makes no sense to me. If the book strayed from the reader's taste, then in that reader's mind, it was not a good book.

Most people don't pick up a book expecting to hate it. If I pick up a romance, and it has an abusive hero, then I don't have to cloak my criticism in niceties, just because some people don't mind an abusive hero.

I have to agree with Reyna's Mom here. Just because a book is well-written does not mean it is worthy of a good review. That is just the nature of the beast. A well-written book does not insure a good story. The simple fact is that each story IS subjective to the reader's taste. I find this to be true all the time. I may be given a glowing recommendation only to read the book and just not get it. It has nothing to do with craft, but whether I related to the story. Having said that, if the craft is crap, I dismiss it straight-away. If the story has promise and the craft is crap, I lament on what could have been.

'Awe-inspiring?'

I'd feel weird about my readers thinking about me as some kind of...idol figure. I mean, I write smutty romances and sci-fi. That doesn't mean I'm, like, on par with the second coming.

Mostly, I just kid around with my readers and chat books with them. :)

Cphe wrote: "If your "friends" review your book then how can you be absolutely 100% certain that their review is unbiased."

Unbiased, no. Honest? Yes. I'm more honest to my friends than to strangers. If a friend looks a mess, I will comment on it. If a stranger looks a mess, I tend to ignore them. If a stranger cheats on his wife, I don't care. If a friend cheats on his wife, I'll sit him down and straighten him out.

On the subject of writers, I only befriend real authors. People who take the craft seriously and behave like professionals. I don't befriend the spammy crap artists, so yes, my reviews of the books from GR friends are likely to be positive, because if their books were crappy and unprofessional, I wouldn't have befriended them in the first place...

great discussion goin on here...

Shari wrote: "Right now, I'm reading a book that was on the NYT best-sellers list, and I'm wondering why. It's just not connecting with me. ..."
I read one of those, too, one that's even got a movie deal, and was not all that impressed with it. Wasn't bad, just could have been a lot better. I'm now reading one of those Amazon award winners and I'm finding grammatical errors already.

I see errors in pretty much every book I've read that's been published in the last decade, the big houses as well as others, real errors, not grammatical or spelling sorts of things that could be part of how the story is told, although there are a few (like it's/its) that are obviously mistakes.

Even houses like DAW, which I've always found to be one of the best.

Budgets are getting cut to up the profit margin for the benefit of shareholders, and good editing is one of those cuts.

Now it is even more imperative for a writer to assume responsibility for their own product. And take the lumps for screw-ups gracefully.

Remembering that writers are real-life humans is a nice touch, though, and addressing problems we have with their product like civilized, reasonable people, remembering that, shouldn't be too hard either.

In the words of Bill & Ted: "be excellent to each other." No reason to make personal attacks out of critiques. That takes away any reason for a writer to get snotty.

Okay, a little snark here and there, mixed in with the frabjous-ness . . . We are human. ;-)

And yeah, I'm working on a book project and I know not everyone is going to love it, or even like it, and some are going to loathe it and damn me to the nth circles of Hell over it, and I might even let a mistake or two or five slip through, but it won't be because I don't care, or haven't given it my full attention. And I'll try to roll with the punches when they come and keep in mind what it's like to be on the reader side of the relationship.

This thread has been interesting. I've been thinking about the "old days" before the Web, when authors received fan mail via letters that their publisher collected and shared with them. Authors might or might not respond to some or all of that correspondence. The communication was more one-way, from reader to author. Authors always seemed delighted and grateful for the letters. I would be. I am grateful for any e-mails or ratings that communicate to me from readers.

To be Honiara at the movement any reviews would be nice.
So far onley Margery springer has given me one thank m

Lisa wrote: "James wrote: "This conversation suddenly reminded me of Steven Kings novel, Misery, where the fan became obsessed to the point of nearly killing the author because he was going have Misery die in t..."

Yeah, I'm a little worried because one of my readers asked me (via my blog) that she (or he, I don't know) wanted to start a dead pool in my comments section. :-DDD I'm horrified and laughing at the same time. I told her to go ahead.

I talk to my readers quite a bit via my blog, but that's them coming to me, not the other way around. The vast majority of them don't. A few do. Of that group, a couple of them have actually become people I chat with fairly regularly about just about anything.

I do not contact readers otherwise, unless they have indicated specifically that they want to be contacted (for book updates and whatnot.) In fact, there was a BOTM thing on here in another group, and I specifically avoided posting there while that was going on. I only conveyed info (for freebies and such) through the group mod. But I stayed on the down low because I didn't want to make people feel like they could not speak freely. That would have been awkward and weird, I think.