Up until recently I exclusively wrote medical romance for HMB which is a fairly niche market so my name wasn’t well known and hence I didn’t often get fan mail. Since branching out into RIVA/Presents Extra/KISS I’ve become a bit more mainstream and with my Entangled release, Taming the Tycoon, I’ve probably reached my biggest readership yet with some really great emails from readers.

About 18 months ago I received my first Dear Amy You Suck email. It was awful and confronting but I’m fairly pragmatic so I ignored and got on with it. Recently I received another not very nice email which, I have to say, made the first one look like an invitation to tea from the Queen by comparison.

I was going to share both letters here but decided not to. Suffice to say they’re not very nice. To be honest, they left me feeling horrible, unsettled and flat for quite a few days after. And it really doesn’t matter that both these emails say a lot more about the person writing them than about me and my books, I am still a human being and they rattled me.

I guess, in a way, it’s our fault. As writers we invite readers in via our websites and blogs and on public forums all the time. Writers are more accessible now than ever before. I can’t talk for anyone else but I know I personally enjoy interacting with readers on social media. They don’t need to kiss my arse. I have a thick skin and a healthy ego - I’ll survive negative reviews and snarky comments because that’s all part of the game.

But a personal email is different. It’s like these two readers knocked on my door and when I opened it, they spat in my face.

So what did I do, I hear you ask? Did I delete them? No. I didn’t. I kept them as a reminder that not every person who reads your book is going to get it. And that’s an important lesson to learn early as a writer.

And then, after much hesitation and careful contemplation, I wrote this blog :-)

So, in an effort to perhaps save another author the horrible sinking feeling of an awful letter, I’d like to suggest some other things readers can do if they don’t like a book.

Suggestion #1 Stop Reading.
This is the most important AND the easiest thing to do.
Stop. Reading. The. Book.
Put it down. Walk away. The power is in your hands.
I’ve read many a book I didn’t like. Years ago I would have persisted to the bitter end (as my two lovely readers obviously did) but now if they don’t hook me in the first three or so chapters, I just put it down. And hope to God I don’t suddenly drop dead and have that book be the last one in my head when I pop off my mortal coil.

Suggestion #2 - Throw it against the wall.
There’s is nothing quite so satisfying than the thunk a book makes as it hits a wall. It’s almost as good as book smell and those of you who are true book lovers will understand what I mean.
Granted, this level of satisfaction is much easier to achieve with a paperback than a digital version. In my experience Kindles/Nooks/iPads don’t fare so well with meeting hard surfaces at great speed. But they do have handy delete buttons which is the electronic equivalent of the wall banger. Without the noise.
Now if someone invented an app for that, it would be very cool!

Suggestion # 3 - Tell all your friends how bad it is.
Don’t hang back. Ring them. Email them. Whisper about it at the school gate. Slander it at the local book club. Hell, take it to social media. Facebook , Tumblr, Twitter. I’m not going to butt in. I recently followed a live twitter feed between two people who were patently obviously talking about one of my books, not in a particularly flattering light, and I didn’t say a word. I gritted my teeth and went and popped some popcorn and settled in for all the grizzly details. It’s okay. My books are out there in a public forum and people are going to talk about them and they are entitled to their opinions.

Suggestion #4 - Give it a one star review on Amazon/Goodreads/Review Site/Personal Blog.
In fact you should post one of those reviews that say how much you wish you could give zero stars because that’s three hours of your life you’re never going to get back. Or even better you could lament that there weren’t negative stars because there just wasn’t one single positive, redeeming factor whatsoever.
You could even include animations and funny cartoons.
Really, don’t hold back. One particularly memorable reviewer of Innocent Til Proven Otherwise certainly didn’t when she called me “crude” and “mysogynistic” and the book “appalling” and “extra awful”.
But bravo to her for stopping after the first chapter.

So there you are – four great alternatives to hitting the send button on a downer email.

My best suggestion? Save your letters for authors you love and books that blew your mind. Authors live for those kind of letters, it makes our day/week/month or, if you’re like me who rarely gets anything, year.

Fan letters are one of the joys of the job. Spread joy.