• eNcOuRaGeMeNtS

One of the worst feelings a reviewer can have when going through the comments of an odd book?

“O. M. G.”

“Are you people blind?”

“How dare you call such an obvious mistake a work of art?”

“Are you certain English is your first language? Either that or you need glasses.”

“What the **** am I reading?”

“I wonder what goes through these people’s minds when they give such comments.”

On the flip side, look at the embarrassment some face when they share some books without looking at it. I’m sorry, I have some savage friends.

“Remember the book you told me to read? What’s up with those comments?”

“Hmm . . . Wait, let me go check it. I saw it and just thought it might interest you –”
“I don’t like romance written by girls!”

The above comment actually offended me but I couldn’t help but agree. Some of you know the kind of romance I am talking about.  But of all the comments . . . Let’s go back to the main topic.

I either don’t comment on a novel or just give monotone ones or don’t even read the book at all when I see this;

“Don’t tell me how to write my book!”

D’uh! It’s obvious no writer likes that and I won’t lie that there are very funny readers who do this pesky thing!

Shoo! Be gone!

I will focus on the reviewing aspect later but statements like the above is a red flag. Yeah, you guessed right.

“Watch your step when you comment or I’m going to hound you”

No one is going to be comfortable giving proper or honest comments when they are afraid of your reaction. Yes, the message is directed at a specific pesky audience, but everyone who sees this won’t be comfortable (unless they know you personally).

But do you know that that comment is actually directed at judges and reviewers too?

Translation; I don’t accept criticism. Be careful of what you say when reading my book.

I am sorry if that isn’t how you meant it but majority of people who come across your book are going to get this message, and it is not a good one.

So, if you have such a message in your book, at least don’t complain that you aren’t getting enough comments. Or don’t even dare complain that no one is helping you with your work.

By nice comments, you know what I mean, so don’t panic cause a lot of books have genuine comments filling their comment section.

Next comes the batch that becomes intimidated by the number of nice comments they see. These readers are afraid of tarnishing the comment section but wonder at the same time why no one is mentioning the mistake they noticed. This prompts them to scroll, scroll and scroll, and the alarm bells start ringing when all they see are nice comments.

One thing amongst others crosses my mind when I see this;

“Does this person delete the critiqued comments?”

For one thing, I leave critique comments in my books so that it can help someone who comes across them, and I understand someone told me not to do this in someone’s comment section cause it was … embarrassing?

What do you expect? Everyone is capable of making mistakes.

Of course it is embarrassing, but there is no avenue for me to help you in every single paragraph. Inbox reviews are kind of vague because the reader will not cover every aspect they come across while reading. It’s a huge pain and if you are scared of embarrassment, just go look for some editor and send your whole document so they help you cover as much as possible.

I guess it is embarrassing for some people, but keep this in mind next time when u ask for honest opinion. Decide if you want it inbox cause most people automatically take the easy route; inline commenting . . . which is more beneficial I think.

The worst of the batches; people who comment on your book just so you can return the favour. These ones won’t even read your book properly and just drop one line sweets. I won’t include that now but for those of you who have read this book in the past, you should be able to recall a certain situation I recounted.

Anyway, to end this note. If you don’t like criticism, never say you are open to comments. Cause there are all sorts of comments and even if you disapprove of some, people are not going to be sure of what you mean by “rude” comments. Yeah, some people can be very rude and I also hate that, but wait for those rude comments to come and tell that person off specifically.

Or simply flush them.

Oh, to the reviewers. We are going to be pissed and will even be less likely to be positive when we see sugar comments in a book. You have all that praise, so what could adding more sugar possibly help you accomplish? There are a few things wrong with your book and we am definitely going to show them to you regardless of what comments you have.