What to Do if You Get a Negative Book Review
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“Criticism.” It’s a word reminiscent of nails slowly dragging across a chalkboard to most authors, or worse… it could reawaken a sleeping monster of anxious feelings that's been dormant since childhood and threaten our ability to keep writing altogether.
We create in a Catch-22 situation. On one hand, authors must seek out reviews from readers for their books to help gain visibility — thus creating positive word of mouth, energy, and income to move us forward to write the next book. On the other hand, in submitting our work for review, we open ourselves (and our egos) up to the possibility of being bruised by a negative review.
If you find yourself dreading the potentially devastating emotional impact of a bad review, congratulations; you’re a living human being with functional emotions! Feeling hurt from the words of others is natural. We’re wired to crave the approval of our pack. But, in the career path of an author, that natural instinct can work against us and our mental health if we’re not careful. Remember that your books aren’t for everyone and might not be enjoyed by everyone — and that’s okay! As an example, books with the most negative reviews tend to be those that are most renowned — from Brontë to Hemingway to Vonnegut. While most readers are adept at filtering out wrathful one-star reviews or those about shipping issues that have no bearing on the quality of the writing, we may receive some stinging criticism from professional reviewers or well-known others that can affect us.
The experience of receiving a bad review can be a newly opened doorway toward creating something better for ourselves — whether that be identifying something we can use to improve our writing craft or heal an aspect of our inner workings once and for all.
Here is our guide to return to if you need help processing a bad review about your creation:
1. Stop and Listen In
It can be an automatic reflex to let anger or fear overtake us. We might even start punching back with a response to a bad review, but it’s crucial that you pump the brakes and put the device down as soon as you start feeling negative emotions well up.
Responding to reviewers who have dished out some criticism will only show the public online that you may have some unhealed past wounds causing you to be reactionary. A comment war can ultimately hurt your author brand. “An eye for an eye” only leads to more pain, but by stopping and tuning into yourself, you’ll be able to identify what emotions you’re feeling. Once you pick up on what they are alerting you to, you can give the source some attention and care. Be it anger, fear, shame, all of the above, or something additional, these are runway lights signalling you to land and explore.
For example, many creators feel shame and anger due to past events in their childhood that shaped a drive for perfectionism. This can set us up to feel these emotions every time we’re critiqued, since no human — or book — is perfect. And since our written work lives in a world with millions of readers who have different perspectives of what makes a “perfect” book, no book can appeal to all of them. We can only control what we can control: ourselves, how we react, and how we can help ourselves when we feel hurt or attacked.
Grab your journal or notebook and ask yourself, “What emotions am I feeling? If these are signals about some old hurt, what might it have been?” If you no longer are in the same place as you were at that time, you can remind yourself that you are safe where you are now.
2. Soothe Yourself
Reading a review that is critical of our creative work can feel like a kick in the gut… which makes sense, since our stomach is the home of our emotional brain. These emotions might even be so overpowering that we may be fearing, “My writing career is over” or “No one’s going to read my books.”
When we step back and look at the situation with a clear, logical mind, we see that these thoughts aren’t true — but they sure feel like it at the time! To be able to get to that clearer mind, we sometimes first just need to soothe ourselves to calm those emotions down. Since we’re all different, what that looks like to you might not work for others, so think about times in the past where you did something for yourself that made you feel safe and calm and try that. If you can’t think of a time like this, give some of these strategies a try until you find something that works for you:
Go for a walk around the neighbourhood;
Watch your favourite show or movie;
Enjoy a warm soak in the tub or shower;
Unplug and take a cat nap or meditate;
Pull out some pencil crayons or art supplies and doodle;
Play a solo game on your phone, crossword book, or console;
Light a scented candle or incense and enjoy a smell that makes you feel good;
Try some calming breathing exercises;
Give yourself a hug or place your hand on your chest over your heart for 3 minutes;
Put on some music you enjoy and move to it.
Many of these activities can increase your oxytocin levels, which help to decrease stress and anxiety and lead to feeling better. Some of us find that certain activities work along the lines of the same sense (i.e., touch, smell, or hearing). When we feel a reaction to negative feedback, this is a good reminder to do something to ground ourselves and bring us back to our centered selves.
3. Return like a Scientist
Feeling a bit more calm, pretend that you are a scientist and read the review again with an open mind. Assess what areas may be arising from the reader’s own emotional reactions or expectations that were unmet, and areas where there may be some helpful suggestions to improve your craft.
We humans are amazing for how resilient and able we are to navigate emotional challenges like this. Having used our skills for calming ourselves, we can first remind ourselves of why we write — that internal “why” that drives you — and truly congratulate ourselves for actually doing it! You wrote that book and published it — that is a huge feat!
We can next put on the “lab coat” and see with fresh eyes, like those of a scientist or researcher simply looking at the result of an experiment. One reader out of many said these words. This was their interpretation. Was there anything in what they said that might be useful for me next time? What of my own experience in reacting to this review might be useful for me to be aware of in the future?
You may want to make a list of topics for future research or aspects of your writing you might want to strengthen with writing exercises or an editor’s help on future books. Especially if you want to make a career as an author, you can learn and grow with every book you write.
4. Mine the Gold, Throw Out the Rest
Here, we can simply be like a miner, sifting through the mud for some flakes of gold, and throwing the rest back into the stream. In amongst the dirt may be the reviewer’s own projected expectations, personal experience, or downright rude wording. We realistically don’t know the basis for any response, but we can remind ourselves that “that’s them.” That’s their mud, and was no fault of our own.
And then, what of the gold flakes in amongst it? Are there some suggestions for improvement? Keep an eye out for a pattern in feedback we’ve had from others. Or, you might get a solid gold nugget: a good idea we hadn’t thought of that we could try in the next book. There may not always be gold, but if we can look at reviews as providing possible teaching moments, what might we learn here and how might we use it for our own growth?
Some examples of that gold might be a reminder to not use so many dialogue tags or adjectives next time, or maybe there were inaccuracies in the setting you could research further, or maybe the pacing dragged in the middle. If you can’t find any usable feedback, it might just be that this is one person that your book wasn’t meant for. It’s a reminder to let go of that heavy belief that everyone is going to enjoy what we write; not everyone will and that’s just fine.
5. Return to Your Path
Sometimes, reading a bad review can pick us up like a twister and set us down in Oz where any possible yellow brick road is replaced with self-doubt and rethinking our story, characters, or the next volume of our series.
Hopefully, the first few steps in this list have helped to ground you in a sheltered place within yourself until the twister passes you by. Whether that’s the case or not, if you are feeling the bruise and/or confusion of doubt, it’s time to come home to this fact: your book (like you) is an incredible and unique creation that isn’t for everyone. You can help your book find its intended readers by returning to the path of your book promotion plan.
Come back to your definition of your book’s specific target audience: the specific core demographic(s) of readers most likely to purchase and read your book first. Then, continue on your plan’s pathway to engage with your readers and others in the community to continue sharing your book for possible reviews — and hopefully positive ones!
Trust in what you’ve created and that it will find those in the world that it was created to affect. Most importantly, trust in yourself and that what you’ve created is perfect in its own way.
6. Heal What Remains
Celebrating yourself for writing and publishing your book (as well as for how you’ve grown through this experience of a negative review) and releasing others’ opinions can free you to open energy within yourself for creating more. We all deal with negative reactions to our writing differently, and if you find that you continue to struggle with these feelings or know that there’s some deep, painful memories or catalysts that could do with more attention to resolve them, this can be a wonderful opportunity to speak with a professional to help you gain some mental wellness and wisdom to free your wings from the words of others.
At the end of the day, you have achieved something rare and incredible: you wrote and published a book that others can pick up in their hands and experience. You will find your own unique ways of freeing yourself from the potential twisters of negative criticism, and better yet, your book will make its difference in this world that was meant to be.
And if you’re still needing some validation, check out all the negative reviews for the great books that inspired you on sites like Goodreads. Not only will it give you a good laugh, but it’s also a reminder that criticism happens to the best of us.
