Christian Speculative Fiction discussion

Christian Spec-Fic Authors, give us (readers) a hand! What drives you nuts in reviews of your book(s)? What do you find most helpful? How do you feel reviewers can best help you, while remaining honest about their feelings toward your work? I look forward to reading your answers!

Thanks for asking the question, Stan!

Well, I think the review of my book that really drove me nuts was the one without a rating that said, "I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. It is a Kindle book"!!!

That, actually, for me is the worst: to write a review but not rate the book—though it's only happened to me that one time. Second-worst, and much more common, is to give the book a low rating but not write a review! So I have no idea why that reader didn't like it. To me, that's grossly unfair to the author. If you can only give a book 2 or 3 stars, at least have the decency to tell the author why!

Third-worst, for me, are reviews that give reasons, but they're all negative. If the rating is low, OK, you can maybe understand that (though I have a further comment about that below). But what blows my mind is when a reviewer points out all sorts of faults, but then gives the book 4 stars! If it was worth 4 stars, surely to goodness there was something you liked about it?

It's not only the author's ego that's at stake here: it's also a matter of fairness in marketing. If potential readers glance at a review and see only negatives (even if the review goes on to add some positives), they can very easily just dismiss that book without getting a proper picture of how the reviewer really felt about it. It's all too easy to focus on negatives when actually there were quite a few things you liked as well!

That's why I really like the review model that we've adopted in session 2 of our review group: the positive–negative–positive sandwich. Start by affirming the good things about the book; then go on quite openly and honestly to talk about the things you didn't like; but end again on a positive note, to ease any unpleasant after-taste for a potential buyer.

As an author, I can respect a review like that, because it's fair to me and doesn't immediately bombard potential buyers with negatives. And it's fair to customers because it gives a well-rounded view of both the book's strengths and weaknesses.

I love reviews, even ones with criticism, that show that the reader "gets it" for my book. I want them to understand the point of the book. So for me, when they say that they liked a specific character because he/she was an attribute I really labored over, that's great! I also like when they describe my book as fun/enjoyable/entertaining. Why else write a fiction book? If they didn't have fun at all, then I feel like the book failed. Without showing they understood the story, the criticisms sound like they are just missing the point. It doesn't have to be a lengthy review, but a few specifics that showed they understood the gist and feel of the story helps a lot.