The HEA Cafe

Authors have a real love/hate relationship with reviewers that crosses genre and category boundaries. Good reviews make us want to jump around the room and can keep us giddy for days. Bad reviews can elicit anger, embarrassment or even depression in some authors who are on the sensitive side (I’m not one of them, FWIW.) The bigger the status of the reviewer, the bigger the elation or let-down. For a paperback paranormal romance author such as myself, a good review in RT, PNR, Locus or Science Fiction Book Club is the equivalent of the New York Times for a hardback literary author. Authors know how valuable good advance reviews can be toward print runs, and how quickly a bad review can mean the end of a book (and possibly a career.) So, we send out our books with hopeful trepidation, wishing for the five stars, five blue ribbons, five champagne glasses or whatever the magazine/newspaper/website or blog uses, but fearing a three star “average” rating or worse—the dreaded one star. Yikes!

A lot of 5-star ratings well in advance of publication can mean book buyers for chain stores or secondary markets (WalMart, airport stores, groceries) will look more favorably on the title and potentially offer special deals for advertising which will make it stand out better in stores.

But what can a one-star review in a major publication mean to an author? Same thing in reverse. Those same buyers might lower the number they order to stock, fearing a dud. That can mean tens of thousands of copies that WON’T be printed. That makes it difficult for both fans and casual new potential readers to find the book, so often they won’t realize a new book is out there.

And yet, we keep sending them out, crossing our fingers each time. Cie and I post EVERY review on our website . . . good or bad. A number of author friends have asked why we subject ourselves to the torture. Why do we spend the time to create PDF versions of our books to send out to dozens of reviewers? Why do we spend the postage to mail out more dozens of Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) to others? The simple truth is that I know the kind of reader who likes our kind of books reads reviews, and we’re new enough in the game that plenty of people have never heard of our books. So, the more reviews that are out there, the more readers are exposed to our books, and the better chance for the reader to get an unbiased view of the book.

Ah, yes—now we’re into the meat of the subject. Are reviews biased? Are reviews nothing more than author promotion, instead of valuable reader education? Are magazines and websites afraid to diss a book for fear of making an enemy of an author? Rumors are whispered on reading loops and groups, wondering whether a book that received praise from a prominent reviewer, but flames from readers, was based on the amount of dollars spent on the flashing banner ad on the front page, or the four-color full page ad in the magazine. Are reviewers influenced by money or editor pressure? After all, some magazines will review a book ONLY if money is spent on an ad, and even respected review veterans like Kirkus are taking heat for allowing “paid-for” reviews to appear on its pages. Can journalistic integrity be maintained when gold is crossing palms?

The problem is that authors look at reviews for different reasons than readers, so the question of bias is valid. Authors are looking for sound bites . . . a “recommended read” JPG, or 5-star image to place on their site, or favorable bits of the review that can be posted on future cover jackets, touted on websites and grace advertisements to woo new readers. Authors work hard to stay in the good graces of reviewers, keeping them “in the loop” about new offerings, having drinks, meeting for lunch at conferences. Reviewers and their employers know this.

But readers are looking for the “down and dirty.” They want to know ALL the negatives, from plot holes a mile wide to “too stupid to live” heroines. With up to 250 new romances on the shelf each month (not to mention the other genres!) readers want to be convinced that a book is worth their hard-earned money. The more the pocketbook is tight, the tougher the readers want the reviews to be.

Of course, review sites and magazines depend on QUANTITY of reviews, because it makes them relevant and keeps readers returning day after day. But the deluge of new print and e-titles each month makes it nearly impossible to keep up the quantity without affecting the quality. Reviewers and site owners (some of them, anyway) like to be paid for their work and have to maintain their web presence. Payment can only come with income. Income often comes from advertising by authors and publishers. It’s a vicious cycle. But the fewer reviewers a site/magazine has, the more likely they are to become irrelevant because they aren’t meeting the readers’ needs. So, what sometimes happens are “lick and a promise” reviews, where reviewers only read ten pages at the beginning, ten in the middle and ten at the end—which may not give the whole story. Still, “dust jacket” reviewers can easily put out fifty to a hundred reviews a month over the twenty to thirty that a slower, more thorough reader can manage.

Unfortunately, when plot elements are taken from the back of jacket covers on ARCs, or the book is flipped through casually, it shows. One early review of our first book had the wrong person becoming a werewolf, and for the wrong reason. Another on our new October release misinformed readers (because they apparently only read an early, and incorrect, cover jacket) and gave the wrong job to the wrong person.

In my opinion, review sites and magazines do a disservice to readers when the plot recitation in the review makes it obvious the book wasn’t read in full (if at all.) If plot logic and characterization are left at the door, the reader suffers. A review has no value if it only has fluff inside—when terms like “brilliant” and “mesmerizing” are used in conjunction with a 3-star ranking. Romantic Times long ago eliminated the 5 star rating. When I asked a senior reviewer why the highest review that could be obtained is a 4-1/2 Gold, the answer was simple. “No book is perfect.” And as much as we authors hate to admit it, no book is.

But does an author actually want a fair review? Wouldn’t we rather have every single book have five star, five roses, five ribbons, Top Pick, Recommended Read reviews? Well, of course we would, but not at the price of our integrity! Even the most sensitive among us don’t want false praise. It’s like having confetti thrown on you every day you show up for work. Sure, it’s nice and flattering for a while, but quickly gets old. It also diminishes your true achievements. When you really do go above and beyond the call, what’s left to say? How will a reader know a true masterpiece from a “fun beach read” when the same words are used to describe both? How will a true masterpiece that will someday be compared to Jane Austin or Margaret Mitchell be found if the reviews give the wrong plot details? So, reviews do have value. The words have the power to sway.

The problem is with bad reviews that so many authors keep silent about them. Very seldom do I hear of authors who actually contact the review site or magazine management to complain about a wrong review—not just unflattering, but flat WRONG. I’m one of the few that actually does. Because if a character name is spelled wrong or a detail is way out of whack, it doesn’t just affect the book, it affects the good name of the review site. The more errors that occur that are allowed to slide, the more readers will find the reviews on that site to be valueless—all the reviews.

Overall, I think reviews matter enough that we authors bite our tongue and cross our fingers. They’re a valuable service to all involved. So long as reviewers remember that they’re really in the service of READERS, then their relationship with authors will always be an uneasy truce . . . of the very best kind.

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