Recently I had to write a negative review, it wasn’t my first one, but it got me thinking about the etiquette for writing a negative review. How do you write an effective negative review? What’s considered ‘rude’? What about those ARCs and free books exchanged for a review? Over on my bookstagram, I asked what people thought about negative reviews, but I wanted to have a more thorough discussion about these questions because I feel there are varying opinions. So, let’s talk!
The book I had to write a negative review for recently was, in fact, free from the author. I really tried to enjoy it, but I just had such a hard time getting through it. I felt horrible for not liking it. I mean, it was free and I really didn’t want to burn bridges. I sat there trying to decide if there were any redeeming qualities or aspects of the book that could have been simply improved to create a better story. In the end, I still did not enjoy the book and could think of very few positive things to say about it.
So, should I have written a review or not? Yes, I should have. If I had just not written a review, fluffed up my review or tried to praise it, it would have felt forced and it wouldn’t be fair to my readers.
Not everyone is going to enjoy the same books and negative reviews are actually very important to me. When I look into a book, the negative reviews are the ones I read most because they are usually more blunt with what they thought of the book. This should especially apply to free books. After all, authors are exchanging their books for honest reviews. Which brings me to my next question, how do you:
Be Tactful, Be Respectful, Talk About What Was Good and It’s About Constructive Criticism; those are all great words of advice. You obviously should never bash the author, use foul language or just, in general, be a jerk. You should always state what you did not like and give examples to support your statement and offer suggestions.
But when does your criticism become ‘rude’?
Personally, I like my reviews to sound like me. I’m not a professional, I do this for fun, I read for fun, I blog for fun. I write reviews & other posts for my readers, not for authors or publishers. So, I want my blog to sound like me and sometimes I’m not always the most tactful person. I will never insult the author or use unnecessary language, I will, however, be blunt with my opinion. I use how I felt while reading and thoughts that went through my head, good or bad.
For example, in one of my reviews, for a book I really enjoyed, I actually complained a bit about the main character stating that all she did was lay in bed and I wanted to slap her and yell “your life is not that bad, get up and do something!”. Does that sound like me? Oh yes, definitely. Is that rude? I don’t think so because it’s my opinion of a character and maybe someone else feels different.
I did a bit of research before writing this and I came across another blogger’s post that said to follow the rule “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” because if you want to be taken seriously with authors and publishers, negative reviews ruin your reputation.
What?
First off, I don’t know anyone who blogs because they want to be the big man on campus with all the publishers; everyone I know blogs because they genuinely enjoy it and want to have a platform to engage with fellow bookworms. Second, I don’t think that saying applies to book reviews. ‘Review’ literally means a formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary. So, yes, if you have something negative to say, or criticism, please say it. It’s the damn point.
So my answer to the question is: Absolutely write negative reviews. If you don’t, it ruins the integrity of your blog. As a reader and blogger, I know you don’t like every book you read so why not share about the ones you don’t like? Those are just as important and can spark discussions. For example, An Ember in the Ashes did not live up to my expectations. I gave it 3 stars and people actually wanted to know why I gave it such a low rating that they went to read my review and we discussed my points. If I had just not written a review, I would have missed the opportunity to do what I love: discuss books!
If it was an author exchange, do you tell them? If not, do you tag them in other social media posts about the review?
I say no. My reviews are for my readers so I make them easily accessible to them through Twitter, Instagram and email subscriptions. I want my readers to know how I felt so they can use it and make a decision. I don’t want to slap my thoughts in an author’s face and hurt their feelings. So, no, I don’t tag them. However, they are accessible to authors through the social media posts.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments! It is, after all, why I wrote this post 🙂
Thank you for reading my first ever discussion post! Hooray!
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[I did a bit of research before writing this and I came across another blogger’s post that said to follow the rule “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” because if you want to be taken seriously with authors and publishers, negative reviews ruin your reputation.]
Oh. My. Wow. If anything that statement would ruin the blogger’s reputation and not posting a negative review. Here’s the thing: I know a bunch of writers, lots who give away ARCs to bloggers/readers(I’ve received ones myself), and their policy is always “in exchange for an HONEST review” which means they want you to be honest. If you don’t like it, say why. Posting a negative review is fine. Having only good reviews can actually hurt an author more than having negative reviews, because then people will legitimately believe they bought those reviews(and yes, there are writers who pay for positive reviews and it’s highly frowned upon) so good and bad have a balancing effect. When I look at a product, I’m not going to solely look at positive reviews and that goes the same for books. Now, obviously this does not imply to reviews where people did not read the book or are purposefully trying to destroy the writer’s ratings, and you should never do things like make personal attacks in negative reviews ever. That goes without saying. But a negative review of the book itself is not a bad thing to post. Also if you don’t want to write about like spelling mistakes/formatting errors or in cases of e-book formatting errors galore (sometimes) you can just leave those out and toss the author a message so they can work toward getting them fixed. I’ve done that on more than one occasion, and it’s really helpful.
Also, if you tag authors in reviews on social media like Instagram for reviews then go ahead and do the same for negative reviews. Consistency is important. If they are the sort that don’t read their reviews, and I know ones who don’t for their own sanity, they’ll let you know to not tag them or might not read them so it’s more to let their readers find the review easily.
Anyways, sorry for the long comment. I just wanted to add my input, as someone who is a writer and talks to many writers, after I saw that outrageous bit you quoted. It made me shake my head. Your post on the matter is beautiful.
Exactly! It literally says in the request: in exchange for an honest review. An honest review, even if it’s negative, is helpful to both author, publisher and reader. I actually have never contacted an author about spelling/formatting issues. I guess I’ve been too shy to do that, but you are absolutely right, that would be helpful for them. I’ll be doing that in the future.
I’m still hesitant about tagging authors in negative reviews. I don’t know which ones read them, which ones don’t, and if they do how they’ll react. I don’t want to suffer from backlash from the author. I’m sure many don’t do that, but it still makes me nervous.
You’re comment is always appreciated! That’s why I wanted to post this, to hear other people’s thoughts. So thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read it 😀
I do write negative reviews, both for books I bought and books I receive for review purposes. If an author contacts me directly, I will remind them that I will post my review whether I enjoy their book or not, and I do that before they actually send me the review copy. I want to be very clear on my honesty from the get-go, because I think it’s impossible to enjoy all the books I pick up! Sometimes, even favorite authors will have a book out that doesn’t really do it for me, and that’s OK. But I should also be able to share my thoughts and feelings about those books.
I only tag authors on social media with five-star reviews, I don’t think it’s fair of me to rub their face in a lower star-rating. However, if I receive a book directly from the author, I may send them an e-mail to ‘warn’ them in advance if I didn’t enjoy their book. That way, if they check out my blog to see if I posted my review, they won’t get a ‘bad’ surprise when they click through.
I do try to always be respectful, though, and I only say things about the writing, the way the story-line is done and the characters. I think I only mention the author in my review if I’m a very big fan, and am very, very happy with a book 🙂
Great topic, Molly.
Absolutely agree about even favorite authors have books you may not like, or maybe you only liked one. John Green is like that for me, I’ve only enjoyed TFIOS so far.
I should start telling authors that I will be honest in my review as well. I always assume they’re checking my review policy on my blog, but that is probably not that case most of the time. So, I will definitely start including that!
How do you usually go about warning the author of a negative review? That makes me a bit nervous! I would want to word the message as politely as possible.
This is a great post and I totally agree with you! I’ve actually had people comment on a couple of my negative reviews on Goodreads to tell me that I shouldn’t write a negative review if I received the book for free. Um… doesn’t that completely undermine the entire ARC system? If you only write positive ARC reviews then the entire review system is skewed! I will always write honest reviews whether they’re positive or negative!
Seriously?! No one’s ever done that to me! That’s ridiculous, though. It’s the whole point of reviewing ANYTHING. Actually, something I forgot to mention in this post was another article I came across that said something along the lines of readers tend to lean more positive in their review because they appreciate authors’ works and don’t want to be mean. I actually feel like I encountered this the other day when looking at book reviews for a specific book. It seemed like the reviews were too positive, like exaggeratingly so, to the point that they literally had nothing bad to say about the book and were using every synonym for “AMAZING”. I mean, pages and pages of reviews and not one complaint? It seemed a little unrealistic to me, like the reviewers were trying to be kind since they almost all received it as an ARC. That seems unfair to people that are trying to decide if they want to read it or not. Maybe that’s mean for me to say, maybe they all enjoyed it, but usually there’s at least one thing someone didn’t like about a book.
Here is my post on negative reviews http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com/2013/08/book-blogger-hop_9.html
Oh, man. I remember accepting a review request from an author and I definitely did not like the book. I was freaking out at what I should do – should I write a review, or should I not? In the end, I just braced myself and wrote my review in the nicest way possible while still telling the good and bad points of the book. I think everything worked out just fine, since I didn’t get any reply from the author about it. (Of course, I didn’t send them the link. I didn’t want to hurt his/her feelings!)
Hopefully I won’t ever go through that situation again. >.< (I doubt it, though.)
Ah, yes, I’ve actually read a few that I didn’t LOVE. Actually, 2 of the review copies I’ve received from the author I gave 1-2 stars to. It sucks because it’s like receiving a gift and not liking it, but really, they are putting themselves out there and exchanging the book for an HONEST review. So, that’s what I do. I don’t share it with the author because I don’t want them to be upset. I mean, they may come across it someday but it wont be because I showed them xD
Yes! I’d rather they find it out on their own instead of me being all, “Hi, I just rated your book 2 stars. I hope it’s all right with you. By the way, here’s the link: ___” That would be SO awkward (and sort of mean).
Exactly! They’re humans too! I don’t want to be mean xD