I'm sure some of you have seen this already, but if you haven't here is a case study of why it's not a good idea to argue with someone who puts an unfavourable review on Goodreads. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot...
My God, it just keeps going. I can't take any more. This was yesterday. Holy crap it's over only four hours. He just sat there, and pulled this off in one sitting!
"Let them be alienated. I don't care. I'm not doing this for your approval, Elizabeth. "
You are, though. You are.
Simple, effective, and universally accepted to be correct and proper. It's worth repeating, what was said in the responses — no one is going to be universally loved. Someone is bound not to like it, and they'll probably be just as right as those who do.I got to the bottom of the first page and thought 'Wow, that was bizarre' and i got fed up of reading it half way through! I would've walked away from the keyboard long before four hours had passed. One message from me, if i were him, 'Thank you for reading, it's a shame you didn't like it, maybe you'll enjoy my next book.' How hard is that?
Now that's not okay — and I hope reporting it will have the petty attacks removed. It is supposed to be about the material alone, not even the shipping or purchasing process, and certainly not the author.Wow, that's quite something. I feel sorry for him - he sounds like he has too much of his life in that book. A bit sad that many people started giving him 1 star just to upset him further. What a world.
The best advice I've ever read about author interaction came from Goodreads's site itself: don't ever engage a bad review. No matter what. Even if they're spewing false facts.
Very good advice, Nicole and Brian.It's a good point about false facts - many years ago I asked Amazon to take down a review which had downright untrue statements in - they did straight away, so then the person put the same review up, but also complaining about it being taken down. It didn't really achieve anything. I'd also agree about not reading them - I hardly ever read reviews on Amazon/Goodreads, and certainly wouldn't respond, though I do usually read newspaper/respected blog reviews, if only to look for good pull quotes for the publisher to use on future editions and for me to put on my website.