I never once wrote a book or a short story with the thought in my mind: "The world is gonna LOVE this!" It would be more like: "My mom would never read this!"
It would be such a boring world if we all enjoyed the same things, had the same thoughts...could read several different genres and just wanna crawl in each book and hug the characters......Helllz NO You read most of my work and you without a doubt would not want to crawl into the pages. I know my own mother would give some of my work a bad review due to my graphic form of writing...but she would never be hurtful or use two or more paragraphs to get her point across about whatever reason she disliked the book. Well, she may tell me to my face. "That was just gross and I thought you said it was a love story!!!"
"A paranormal love story, Mom. You know...the not real kind of world."
Now the only books my mom will read are my children or contemporary romance, one that I wrote just for her...to prove I could...No sex, little violence....lots of humor and a true to life love story. She LOVED it...do I care if every review that I get on that book after that is a 1 star or a 5???? Not one little bit.
And the few bad reviews that I do have on my books.....should they take away from the many wonderful 5 and 4 star reviews that my readers have been kind enough to leave??? "HELL NO!!!"
You have to take the Bad with the Good....If you know your own momma isn't gonna like maybe 80 percent of your work....why on earth would anyone think that the whole world would enjoy, like or even be nice enough to NOT tell ya how bad they think you suck, your editor sucks, and how truly bad your story was..LOL Like a good friend told me. You have to have tough skin to be a writer...Unless you are like me and have a built-in grapefruit size huge pair of Hairy Money Balls....and I do when it comes to my work. I never have put words to page and created the wild tales that I do for the opinions of others. 6 years ago I couldn't even type my name, so I haven't busted that backside in this long career of mine to give two glances at those silly BAD reviews....however, I always do read them when they pop up and yep, I do have a good giggle with my peeps.
So NO they do not tick me off. As a matter of fact I have had sales go up due to really stupid reviews....Thanks bad reviewers for giving peeps a reason to give my work a look-see. ; )
Have a great day all and if you are a newbie and you have or do get a BAD review, let that baby roll off and keep going with that same love and drive that got you going in the first place. And always know...not all will enjoy what you create, not matter what you create. ; )
