Recently, I have gotten a lot of reviews both good and bad
(mostly good.) As I never ignore a
review, I also never comment on them.
The reviewer is talking to the other readers and not to me
so I stay silent and let them interact, but I do listen in. I know it isn’t polite
to eaves drop. If you can avoid that temptation you are a better person than I
am.
If a reader mentions something in their review that I can
fix, I do it. I wrote an entire book because of a review. Lost Cities of
Elvenshore was written when a reviewer commented that I had left to many
questions unanswered in Dwarves of Elvenshore. When writing the book I went
back and wrapped up all of the loose ends and then went on to write Elf’s Bane.
Another reader commented that they did not like the way that
War of the Druid King ended. I looked back and saw that if they had not read
Curse of the Druid King, then the ending would seem very abrupt. I changed the
ending, so that it would make more sense to those who were reading War of the
Druid King as a stand alone book.
I use the good reviews to keep my motivation up. It helps
encourage me to keep going and I do a little dance around the room for every
five star review.
Even though I find it hard to keep motivated when I get a bad
review, if they were kind enough to give some constructive criticism that I can
learn from, I will appreciate it, although it takes me a few days. Those that
are just hurtful and insulting are of no use to me or their fellow readers.
So I will give a ‘Thank You,’ to all of those readers who
took the time to leave a review. Reviews are the life blood of authors.
