Someone tried to sabotage my book release

... over something I said on Threads

So, my new book comes out at the end of this month (please pre-order my book, I’m literally begging you…), and, because I am me, I’ve been worrying fairly obsessively about it, so you can imagine my surprise when my husband told me the book had somehow managed to pick up its very first Goodreads review, before anyone had even read it. I mean, you have to admit, that’s quite the achievement, no?

Oh no, wait, scratch that: it’s actually the worst thing ever. My bad.

Here’s the thing, though: this ‘review’ was posted on April 2nd — before I’d even finished writing the book in question. So it wasn’t just ‘Yolanda’ who ‘DNF’¹ it: it was also ME. *I* hadn’t finished it at that point — by which I mean I hadn’t finished writing it. So, for her to have read any of it at all, let alone enough to know it’s the worst writing she’s read in ages, she’d had to have been somehow reading it directly from my mind. Which is a whole new level of creepy for me, really.

But, of course, she didn’t. This isn’t some kind of weird sci-fi plot (Although don’t think I haven’t made a note of it, just in case I decide to go in that direction at some point), it’s just someone being petty and vindictive AF, and trying to sabotage my book launch by forcing me to publish with a one-star rating which would doubtless have put people off buying it, had it been allowed to stand.

But the ‘review’ wasn’t about the book at all. It was all about that one time I went onto Threads and said I’d prefer not to be tagged in negative reviews, thanks. The post in question is here, if you particularly want to dive deeper into this drama, but that’s really all it says: NOT “don’t leave me a bad review”, just “don’t TAG me in bad reviews, because that will make me cry, and I don’t want to cry because it makes my face all red and puffy”.

And, honestly, I stand by that. (Especially the bit about my face: two minutes of tears and I look like I’ve been in a fight…) I don’t even think it’s particularly controversial, really. Most authors I know don’t read their reviews — not because they ‘can’t take criticism’ but because the type of ‘criticism’ you find on Amazon and Goodreads is often contradictory, and rarely helpful. To take this ‘review’ as an example, Yolanda says I need to learn to use criticism to “be a better writer”, but the only “criticism” she gives me is either vague — “worst writing I’ve read” — or personal — “grow up”. How am I supposed to use that, Yolanda? WTF did I do to you?

For me — and for a lot of the authors I know — reviews are for readers, not for authors. And sure, authors can certainly go onto Amazon or Goodreads and read the reviews of their books if they particularly want to, but they are not expected to respond to those reviews — especially not to argue with them —because those sites are generally held to be reader spaces, and readers don’t want authors in them, making them feel like they can’t speak honestly about the books they read.

All of which is just fine by me. As I said, I don’t want to read my reviews. I don’t need to read them to figure out how to ‘become a better writer’. That’s what editors are for. What beta readers are for. What critique partners are for. There are so many ways for authors to get useful, constructive ‘criticism’, from sources whose opinions they can trust, that the idea that we need to be tagged in all of our negative reviews so we can ‘learn’ from them is wild to me. I can’t take on board every single opinion people might have about my book. I just don’t have it in me. I’d never get anything done if I was constantly having to read about how awful I am. But some readers do want to tell you how awful you are — which is what my original Thread was about. For some people, it’s just not enough to leave their review on Amazon or Goodreads, where it belongs. No, they’ll want to rub the author’s face in it, which just makes us feel bad, without actually helping us in any way.

And that’s what I was talking about in my Thread. Not about people who read a book, hate it, and write an honest — if negative — review of it on Amazon, where I will never have to see it if I don’t want to, but about people who write those reviews and then try to force the author to read them, in the mistaken belief that their opinion is so important that it will change that author’s life.

That’s not cool. It’s not necessary. But apparently I’m not allowed to say that, or I will be “punished” for it with a one-star review that has absolutely nothing to do with my book. Wild.

So, just to recap, authors can’t respond to negative reviews because they’re posted in ‘reader spaces’, but we can’t avoid reading them either, because some people will bring them to our spaces whether we like it or not, and we can’t politely ask them not to do that, or they’ll one-star us just to teach us a lesson. I’m starting to think the only way for me to do this job and remain sane is to stay off social media altogether, but then, all I hear about is how *ESSENTIAL* it is for marketing, so… yeah.

In the end, thanks to a tremendous amount of support from people on Threads, who reported the review for me, and even responded to it on my behalf (It, as I said, being frowned upon for me to have attempted to do this myself, even in a situation like this one, where the review is obviously malicious…), Goodreads did remove the review, and the day was saved. So I’m no longer in a position where I have to launch my new book with a one-star rating and a comment branding it the “worst writing” ever. I am, however, feeling a bit like there are no safe spaces left for me on the Internet now; because if I can’t even say I’d rather not be tagged in negative reviews without someone wanting to take me down because of it, what’s the point? It’s starting to feel like authors are expected to allow people to say whatever they like to/about us, with no right to respond, and no choice in whether we see it or not. And that sucks.

In other news, the neighbours who posted Max’s photo on Facebook to ‘shame’ him for chalking on their fence kicked off again at the weekend, with a new FB post claiming the street now looks ‘like Brixton’ because Max and his friends have been using sidewalk chalk outside their own houses, so that’s another reason to avoid social media, I guess. And, well, people.

For context, here’s a photo of the chalk outside our house:

There goes the neighbourhood, folks…

Until next week,

1. Did Not Finish