Ryan Cahill, author of the hugely successful fantasy series, The Bound and The Broken, recently put out a tweet about negative reviews.
It was in response to a spate of 3-star ratings he supposedly received on his latest monster of a tome, Of Empires and Dust, which currently sits at a staggering 1,500 reviews. Not too shabby considering it was published less than a month ago.
Anyway, the tweet went something like this:
Bad reviews are part of publishing. People will dislike your books, even hate them. And the more successful you get, the more haters will emerge.
Cold, hard facts served by a killer scribe if I say so myself.
I’m personally a big fan of his series, and I suspect there are several Legionnaires among us who also frequent the world of Epheria (traitors). However, that doesn’t mean everyone will like it.
As he quite rightly states, the bigger one gets, the more negativity one will attract.
Such is the way when your reputation swells and more eyeballs turn on you. However, over the years, I've learned to assign critical reviews into one of two categories:
1. TASTE
(which I’d wager most 3-star reviews are born from)
And…
2. TROLLS
(which I’d bet a giant wedge of my Victorian sponge cake fuels most 1- and 2-star reviews)
And guess what?
Neither can be helped.
You can't change people's palates, and no amount of omeprazole will ever temper your hater's heartburn, so why bother getting upset about it?
Hate is a byproduct of putting your work out for the market (and world) to judge. Some will love it. Others will despise it. But, ultimately, only the author decides how much they allow it to affect them.
I choose to ignore negativity and simply focus on what I can control:
My writing.
All else outside of that is just noise.
Even the good kind.
I’ve lost count of the people who have written in over the years to tell me how boring and “flat” my writing is. I have also had many gush in their emails saying the total opposite.
🤷🏼
Different strokes for different folks, as I tend to say a lot these days.
Anyway, if one of those “strokes” for you is short, fast-paced fantasy that doesn’t force you to wade through 1,500+ pages (sorry, Ryan 😘), then allow me to shamelessly point you to my very own series right here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/TDR-Bundle
DJJW