thoughtfulI will respond to reviewers, if we have a relationship, however casual it may be. The majority of the reviews I link to are found by my helpful Google spiders, which skitter around the Internet bringing me things without concern for my feelings. I tell them they're good and feed them lots of flies. Some reviews, however, come to me because the reviewer emails me directly to say "I reviewed your book." In those cases, I feel entirely justified in replying, privately, with "Wow, I'm glad you liked it," or "I'm sorry this wasn't your cup of tea, hopefully the next book will suit you better." Because we're in a private setting, interacting like people, as long as I'm polite, I'm okay.
The lines start to get a little blurry when newer forms of social media come into play. Like Twitter. If someone @'s me, they know I'm going to see their Tweet the next time I check my @replies. That's the culture of the system, which is built on the expectation of/hope for interaction. I don't answer every @reply, but I make an effort to read them all, and answer the majority. So am I responding to a review, or am I sticking to the dominant culture of the platform? What about on Facebook, where people tag to your profile? They know that doing so will send you a notification. Is that an invitation to interact, or is it a sad reality of the system?
Miss Manners never had to deal with being a polite, professional working author in the Internet Age. I think that's why she doesn't have any pointers for certain kinds of behavior, and why she never considers "get a baseball bat" to be the appropriate beginning to a polite response.
So where are the lines for you? What do you think is the boundary for "polite" authorial behavior—and from the other side, what's the boundary for behaving politely toward authors? Inquiring minds want to know.
March 7 2011, 20:08:23 UTC 6 years ago
It's also to prepare us for the possibility of publication. There will be reviews that ask these questions, and, as much as we want to, we recognize it's a bad idea. Because you can quickly go from, "Those questions will be answered in book 2" to "Why do you all hate me? Whyyyyyyy?"
Most of us are one step removed from that Goodreads fiasco, where an "author" (she was published by a vanity press) went off on someone who'd reviewed her, and rated her one star.
I say most of us, because one member of the group is the object of the writer's ire. I'm being deliberately vague because I don't think you'd appreciate having your name linked to that . . . situation. But if you need details, I'll gladly e-mail you.
I will never be able to think of getting feedback from an author on my review without cringing. Granted, most authors are more mature than to personally attack someone over an unflattering review, but I'm still wary.
March 8 2011, 04:22:37 UTC 6 years ago
And I remember that fiasco. I sat back and shuddered. I promise never to give feedback on a review unless you ASK ME FOR IT, in a private forum.
March 8 2011, 04:33:44 UTC 6 years ago
I can only imagine how great the temptation must be, sometimes. I read some reviews, and I'm like, "Did you miss the whole point of the last 50 pages?" And they're not even my book.
March 8 2011, 04:35:25 UTC 6 years ago
March 8 2011, 04:45:00 UTC 6 years ago
Which is not to say I was perfect, back then. Apparently I did learn something, because I unearthed something I wrote and edited and polished back in my college days, and it read like I'd churned out a first draft last week. So clearly, I've internalized some of the good critique. But I really think the feedback failed to be constructive, generally.