There have been a few news stories about authors behaving badly; that is not to say that some bloggers are probably doing the same. What I am referring to is the article about catfishing and dog poo in the mailbox. This has lead to some bloggers being involved in a review blackout and others too scared to blog at all. It is a sad day when a small group of people ruin it for the rest of us. I am not standing on the side of the bloggers or the author; these articles are one sided and until I have both sides I cannot justify picking a side.
I am a book blogger and therefore I am more likely to side with the bloggers. We do not owe an author anything; we are first and foremost readers and we are allowed to love or hate a book. As bloggers we are just passionate readers that love books so much that we wish to share it. For the most part we review books, some of will offer literary criticism but for the mostly it is just a personal opinion.
My biggest concern is that people are scared to blog and share their passion because of fear. Writing is a passion and I get that authors can get overly protective of their work but by doing this they are trying to squash someone else’s passion. If I was to ever to write a book, I don’t think I would ever want to read the reviews; book tastes vary and not everyone is going to like it.
I have even wondered if my reviews are going to set an author off. I have had some negative reviews (see The Steadfast Reader’s great post on The Necessary Evil of Negative Reviews) and I am not afraid to express my opinion but I am not going to censor myself. For one thing, my opinion is not the typical norm, I’m a small fish in the blogging world and finally my average rating on Goodreads is 3.5. So that means I love most of the books I read and it isn’t too often that I have to write a negative review.
What it all comes down to acceptance of others people’s opinions. I am a big believer of negative reviews, it allows our readers to know what we like and don’t like. As a blogger we don’t owe anything to authors; our readers expect honesty. However I want to remind book bloggers to be respectful and constructive. I would love to know what others think about the current articles going around.
I didn’t know about any of that until I followed the links in your post. It’s scary that the writer went to such lengths to expose her critic. I don’t think that bloggers and reviewers should be silent out of fear of what a writer might do or say, but I can understand that some bloggers feel unsafe now. For me, the bottom line is that I don’t think writers should allow themselves to react to negative bloggers and reviewers. By putting their writing in the public sphere, writers are asking people to form an opinion of it, so I don’t see how they can cry foul when the opinion is negative. I don’t agree with personal attacks on authors, but negative critiques of books is an integral part of reviewing and blogging. It’s sad that book blogging and reviewing has come to this. It used to be a friendly hobby, but that was probably in Web 1.0 days. :/
I think we both have been victim to bad behaviour (referring to a novel about the Shelley’s that will remain nameless) but nothing as bad as this. I would like to think this is a great place to explore this hope and develop better skills but it seems like these action will put people off. I don’t know how this could be fixed, we can’t go back to web 1.0 days.
I find it so sad when I read stories about authors being abusive. My good friend and fellow blogger The Cabin Goddess has had to deal with the issue multiple times. Once sadly because of a book I sent her the link to because I saw it was free and knew she liked zombies. Did’t think anything of it and when she gave it a fair review she was attacked, I still feel guilty but that is just one of the times she’s had that happened to her. I myself had an author comment on a review, one of the first I wrote on a book that I admit I wasn’t a big fan of and was told I was the only one who didn’t like it and that I was wrong. Wrong? For what having an opinion? I really wish all involved authors and bloggers would behave more like mature adults and not ridiculous and petty.
It is a weird thing to comment on a review and tell them they are wrong. They should just leave it along, they only make themselves look bad.
Indeed.
I find it so sad when I read stories about authors being abusive. My good friend and fellow blogger The Cabin Goddess has had to deal with the issue multiple times. Once sadly because of a book I sent her the link to because I saw it was free and knew she liked zombies. Did’t think anything of it and when she gave it a fair review she was attacked, I still feel guilty but that is just one of the times she’s had that happened to her. I myself had an author comment on a review, one of the first I wrote on a book that I admit I wasn’t a big fan of and was told I was the only one who didn’t like it and that I was wrong. Wrong? For what having an opinion? I really wish all involved authors and bloggers would behave more like mature adults and not ridiculous and petty.
It is a weird thing to comment on a review and tell them they are wrong. They should just leave it along, they only make themselves look bad.
Indeed.
I have had authors argue with me in the comments of posts, I have had an author attack me through private messages on Goodreads, and I’ve had a publisher get rather defensive over another book. I will never shy away from writing a negative review. If I don’t like I book, I don’t like it. I will always try my utmost best to explain why I didn’t like it, why it didn’t work for me, but in the end I’m going to say what I think.
It is the bloggers that says what they think that I trust. If you are always open with your readers then you earn their respect. Not everyone is going to like a book and it is better to be honest than only post positive reviews.
I have had authors argue with me in the comments of posts, I have had an author attack me through private messages on Goodreads, and I’ve had a publisher get rather defensive over another book. I will never shy away from writing a negative review. If I don’t like I book, I don’t like it. I will always try my utmost best to explain why I didn’t like it, why it didn’t work for me, but in the end I’m going to say what I think.
It is the bloggers that says what they think that I trust. If you are always open with your readers then you earn their respect. Not everyone is going to like a book and it is better to be honest than only post positive reviews.
I’ve been following these articles too & have been mulling over my opinion piece about it all…but you just seem to have written it for me 🙂
I read and blog for enjoyment, becasue it’s soemthing I love doing and it’s something I feel passionate about. Most of the time if Istart and book and I’m not enjoying it, I stop reading it – life’s too short for a bad book.
And as all readers know a book can be ‘bad’ for so many reasons and only some of them are to do with the book.
The reader (me) could be a in a bad mood, in need of a comfort read, in need of a challenge or it could simply be a case of the right book at the wrong time.
The majority of the time I don’t bother to blog about these missed reads – life’s to short to write negative reviews.
But occasionally I do.
Mostly it’s to give MY readers a chance to see the kind of book that turns me off – to round out their understanding of my personal tastes and preferences. What my readers do with that knowledge (ie read or not read a book I’ve reviewed) is entirely up to them.
Very rarely, but once or twice I have written a more scathing review. But again, it’s purely my personal opinion. I don’t attack the author, I simply state what I didn’t like and why.
The whole online profile thing is another matter entirely.
When I first statred getting online with my blog and social media, was at the time when the boys were of an age to start exploring such things too. Which is why Mr Books & I got active. We wanted to ensure they would be safe online – we researched the pitfalls and things to do keep safe.
Which is why I chose the profile that I did.
It’s me; but not directly. Brona is one of my nicknames.
I do not include my phone number or other personal contact details. I have a gmail account that is just for online activity.
I am often astounded by how public some people are online. It often goes against everything we have taught our boys about being safe online. Therfore what I found really disturbing is that even though (in the catfishing story) she used an online identity, the irate author was still able to track her down to her home.
Which reminds me again, that online safety is very difficult to achieve or maintain.
Another recent example of how connected everything is, despite best precautions, was a comment I made on a fellow bloggers post resulted in an add popping up on my personal fb page for a fairly obscure book – the very same one mentioned in my blog comment.
I also had a personalised fb ad for a real estate agent that I had dealings with via a google search ‘secure’ site!
Maybe some of this recent drama is a timely reminder about online security. And the fact that there is only a very small safety net out there. Everything online is connected and trackable.
It’s about that fine line between authentic openness online and personal safety.
At least, that’s where my thoughts are tonight.
Interesting points, I use my real name but that is just a personal preference. I am marketing myself as a bookish person.
I’ve been following these articles too & have been mulling over my opinion piece about it all…but you just seem to have written it for me 🙂
I read and blog for enjoyment, becasue it’s soemthing I love doing and it’s something I feel passionate about. Most of the time if Istart and book and I’m not enjoying it, I stop reading it – life’s too short for a bad book.
And as all readers know a book can be ‘bad’ for so many reasons and only some of them are to do with the book.
The reader (me) could be a in a bad mood, in need of a comfort read, in need of a challenge or it could simply be a case of the right book at the wrong time.
The majority of the time I don’t bother to blog about these missed reads – life’s to short to write negative reviews.
But occasionally I do.
Mostly it’s to give MY readers a chance to see the kind of book that turns me off – to round out their understanding of my personal tastes and preferences. What my readers do with that knowledge (ie read or not read a book I’ve reviewed) is entirely up to them.
Very rarely, but once or twice I have written a more scathing review. But again, it’s purely my personal opinion. I don’t attack the author, I simply state what I didn’t like and why.
The whole online profile thing is another matter entirely.
When I first statred getting online with my blog and social media, was at the time when the boys were of an age to start exploring such things too. Which is why Mr Books & I got active. We wanted to ensure they would be safe online – we researched the pitfalls and things to do keep safe.
Which is why I chose the profile that I did.
It’s me; but not directly. Brona is one of my nicknames.
I do not include my phone number or other personal contact details. I have a gmail account that is just for online activity.
I am often astounded by how public some people are online. It often goes against everything we have taught our boys about being safe online. Therfore what I found really disturbing is that even though (in the catfishing story) she used an online identity, the irate author was still able to track her down to her home.
Which reminds me again, that online safety is very difficult to achieve or maintain.
Another recent example of how connected everything is, despite best precautions, was a comment I made on a fellow bloggers post resulted in an add popping up on my personal fb page for a fairly obscure book – the very same one mentioned in my blog comment.
I also had a personalised fb ad for a real estate agent that I had dealings with via a google search ‘secure’ site!
Maybe some of this recent drama is a timely reminder about online security. And the fact that there is only a very small safety net out there. Everything online is connected and trackable.
It’s about that fine line between authentic openness online and personal safety.
At least, that’s where my thoughts are tonight.
Interesting points, I use my real name but that is just a personal preference. I am marketing myself as a bookish person.
It is one thing to write a bad review and another to write a mean review. When I don’t like a book I like to explain why that is the case. Authors put a lot of time and energy into what they produce and I think we need to respect the craft if not the content. And I must admit, writing a bad review is very hard for me, but I do it because I think i owe it to my readers. Like you said, I am just one voice in a sea of thousands of bloggers.
There is a big difference between a mean and negative review, I don’t want to be too mean in my reviews, I prefer constructive criticism. You maybe one voice in a thousand but you are a great blogger so you’re opinion would be trusted more often that some others, hopefully you don’t have too many negative experiences.
It is one thing to write a bad review and another to write a mean review. When I don’t like a book I like to explain why that is the case. Authors put a lot of time and energy into what they produce and I think we need to respect the craft if not the content. And I must admit, writing a bad review is very hard for me, but I do it because I think i owe it to my readers. Like you said, I am just one voice in a sea of thousands of bloggers.
There is a big difference between a mean and negative review, I don’t want to be too mean in my reviews, I prefer constructive criticism. You maybe one voice in a thousand but you are a great blogger so you’re opinion would be trusted more often that some others, hopefully you don’t have too many negative experiences.
I’ll be frank. I understand that authors are protective of works that they have put their heart and soul into, I get it, but just like any piece of art, once it is out there for public consumption – to a degree it no longer belongs to the author or the publisher. I agree with @tanyaboughtflower:disqus that mean reviews have no place and only serve to make the rest of of look bad – however the recent reports on bad behaviors by authors is completely inappropriate in my opinion and has no place in civilized society. I’ve never had an overtly negative interaction with an author (though one that skewed slightly negative) and all I can think of when it comes to interaction on the web is ‘Don’t feed the trolls’ – even if they’re authors.
Thanks for the shoutout by the way. 🙂
If you’re Frank, can I still be Michael?
Don’t feed the trolls is always good advice. I wish some people would let their art into the world, let it speak for themselves. I was always going to give you a shout out, that post is so great.
I knew there’d be some response about me using the phrase “I’ll be frank…” 😉
I couldn’t resist
I’ll be frank. I understand that authors are protective of works that they have put their heart and soul into, I get it, but just like any piece of art, once it is out there for public consumption – to a degree it no longer belongs to the author or the publisher. I agree with @tanyaboughtflower:disqus that mean reviews have no place and only serve to make the rest of of look bad – however the recent reports on bad behaviors by authors is completely inappropriate in my opinion and has no place in civilized society. I’ve never had an overtly negative interaction with an author (though one that skewed slightly negative) and all I can think of when it comes to interaction on the web is ‘Don’t feed the trolls’ – even if they’re authors.
Thanks for the shoutout by the way. 🙂
If you’re Frank, can I still be Michael?
Don’t feed the trolls is always good advice. I wish some people would let their art into the world, let it speak for themselves. I was always going to give you a shout out, that post is so great.
I knew there’d be some response about me using the phrase “I’ll be frank…” 😉
I couldn’t resist