Authors, Reviewers, Readers

In this last week there has been a lot of conversations around authors, reviewers and readers.

What has been happening in a nut shell, is some authors are feeling the need to take reviewers to task for posting negative reviews of their books, then when other readers defend the reviewer the author becomes even more upset. Language used by the author is inflammatory, derogatory and darn right shameful (In my opinion.).

I do not agree with an author doing this, to me, it means the author is lacking professionalism.  Reviewers and readers are the mainstay of any authors career, they mean everything.  If readers don't read your book, then you have no career.  If reviewers don't like your book, maybe there's a reason for it.

I have received negative reviews, but I also realize what I write is not everyone's cup of tea.  As a reader, I pick up books I figure I'm going to enjoy, but that doesn't mean I enjoy all of them.

Reading is subjective, along with everything else in media.  What I like, someone else may not.  What they like, I may not.

The key is to be professional about it.  Reviewers are stating their opinion of the book good or bad, they try to be objective, but sometimes the subject matter isn't for them.  Does that mean they should be raked over the coals because they posted a negative review?  Not in my book it doesn't.

I sometimes read reviews of books I'm not sure about, these reviews both good and bad help me see if the book is for me. There could be something in the book that I don't want to read.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, good, bad or otherwise.  I have had spirited discussions with critique partners, family and writing friends when we disagree on something, but it hasn't damaged the relationship because we have different opinions.  We're all entitled to our opinions and that's find.  Just don't put the other person down, call them names, make inflammatory or derogatory comments.

As a reader or author or reviewer, how do you feel about this?