Week 14:
What I learned from my worst review.
Sorry this is late getting out this morning. Wow, week fourteen? I act like it’s a surprise. We’re back with another Marketing For Romance Writers 52-Week Blog Challenge using the hashtag #MFRWauthor.
Hmm, how do I choose? Hah, those words are something to laugh at if you’ve never received a bad review, and congratulations to you if you haven’t.
I don’t want to dwell on bad reviews. They make me sick for days, and now I have to recall those feelings as the bad ones flash before my eyes. Yes, I’ve learned that you aren’t going to please every reader who picks up a book. I understand. I can’t possibly love each and every book I choose to read, either, but I do read the blurb, “Look Inside the Book” sometimes, and take a glance at reviews. Try to please everyone if you dare.
The key is finding the readers you will please.
Through reviews in one book, I’ve learned what readers didn’t like, for example: rambling in a book that was already too long. Fear not, dear readers. This has been taken care of and in a major way.
In another book, I’ve learned that it has too much sex yet not enough. This can’t be fixed by anything I do unless I publish two versions.
For this post I’m picking one review that won’t go away, but it isn’t necessarily my worst. It’s at the top though. The worst reviews are the ones that attack and insinuate stupidity and being uneducated.
I knew better. Honest, I did. Too late. Too bad for me:
As I said in last weeks topic about research, I suggested triple checking, and then check a few more times before using the info in your book or whatever you’re writing for the public eye. I have no one to blame but myself. I knew better!
Yes, I made an error. (Not for the first time in my life, either.) I’m sorry for it.
I admit it. Ugh. 😦
It makes me sick to my stomach to have made such a silly mistake.
All it would’ve taken was one teeny minute to triple check a fact instead of depending on a street view thingy. Better yet, I shouldn’t have mentioned the real name of the damn town.
Yes, I corrected it in the book after the fact, but that doesn’t matter because the review is still there for the world to see. Potential readers don’t know I learned a lesson and fixed it, or that I had beat myself up more than they ever could. On my own defense… When I handed the manuscript over to someone who lived where my error appeared, and didn’t catch that freaking, glowering, embarrassing error, (insert a 4-letter word), it added to the painful burn inside of me.
Through this review, I also learned not to depend solely on others when my name is on the cover. It’s my job and my book. It’s my reputation. Boy, did I learn the lesson the hard way, when I knew better all along, anyway.
Too late. Too bad.
Y’all know the drill. This is a BLOG HOP. Feel free to visit the other participating authors. They’ll be as glad as I am that you stopped by.
Enjoy your weekend. I can’t believe it’s already Friday.
Blogger Milly Schmidt says she “went out on a limb” to contact some of her blogging idols… Check out Milly’s post to see how many took the time to answer her question:
Mary J. McCoy-Dressel 
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