You asked if what we write would be affected by what other say. I am not published and I don’t believe my writing is ready for publication. The vast majority of what I have written has never even been shared with anyone. I am trying to change that, because I think the answer should be yes. What other people say should change the way I write because it will help me become a better writer. I figure it doesn’t matter if you are a novice or a venerable master; there is always room to grow.

On the plus side for my ego/self esteem, even as I put more of myself out there, I don’t have the patience to Google myself. Sharing a name with a former child actor does keep me well into the bottom ranking on Google.

I feel like it’s kind of a credibility issue, though. I mean you aren’t going to like every book you read, and if you selectively review only the ones you like you aren’t going to be believable. Also by explaining why you don’t like books, readers can understand how you think when you review books and better decide if the book is right for them. I try to review books in a descriptive way so the reader doesn’t have to have my exact taste to know if they’ll like the book or not.

When I become a hugely famous best-selling author, I may stop doing reviews. Karma thing.

i don’t have reservations about giving constructive criticism to someone who has asked for it, and in fact, i actually enjoy doing that, b/c it’s a much less formal and more personal way to discuss what i liked and disliked about a book. otherwise, i know how much even the tiniest bit of negativity can hurt and i’m afraid of doing that to someone else (whether it’s a legitimate complaint or not). i do wish it weren’t so. i’d like to talk freely about the books i read. but given that i will hopefully have people writing reviews about my stories someday, i’d just as soon avoid any possible confrontation. i feel kinda lame and cowardly saying it like that, but yeah.

And I have sworn off self-googling! It is the work of the devil!

That sounds great in theory. And I’ll admit right now that I’ve pretty much stopped reading reviews of my books for just that reason.

However, authors often get asked for pull quotes (the good bits from reviews) and more and more prominent blogs and online journals are starting to carry weight. For example, my agent was ecstatic when I got a great review on boingboing and bookslut (to name a couple of examples).

I’ve found myself in the position of having to trawl around the intramanets for reviews because most often your publisher does not keep track. So sometimes googling yourself really is part of your job.

Diana: More proof that some writers be completely barking mad! Not to mention totally unprofessional! Let it go already! Sheesh. And if that’s the way they react to a mixed review how are they going to cope with out and out bad?

Cherie: Which proves my point about even bestsellers being loopy about this stuff.

And, yes, private sulking is the best response. Or moaning with your best friends. I have one friend who prints out and burns her bad reviews. (Hmmm, that’s kind of environmental vandalism, ain’t it?) Do whatever you have to just don’t air your hurt feelings in public!

(Read: I sulk for as long as it takes me to get through a half pint of Ben & Jerry’s, then I go out and find a good review to console myself.)

Once, though, I posted a tepid review — not bad, but not great, and with a legitimate complaint — for a nonfiction book, and the author tracked me down to whine at me and beg me to change the review. This was a guy who was on the nonfiction bestseller list at the time, and was nominated for a Stoker, for chrissake! It’s not like I was doing him any harm by pointing out the problems with his citations (read: there weren’t any. And it was a reference volume.).

Anyway. Yeah.

Like Justine, I have decided not to talk specifically about books I don’t like anymore. Several years ago, I posted about a book I’d read. It was a mixed review, and the author apparently read it. well, ever since, she has made a point of disagreeing with me on every single point I’ve ever made on any list that we are on, and making many, many snide comments besides. I don’t have time for that crap.

I kind of want to go read another of her books again (not in that series though), but am afraid of what would go down if I mentioned doing so. Gah.

If I ever get published I am NOT going to look for or read my reviews. I think I’d just go nutters.

The odds of an author stumbling across the review hasn’t really been significant, but only because it’s about the same chance as anybody you write about finding themselves via Google searches. It’s going to happen from time to time.

Well, in that particular case, me and a few other people I know have decided to not spend a single penny on that writer’s work ever again. If he’s going to act that way, we’re not wasting money on him, no matter how good his next book might be.

I do sometimes seek out an author and let them know of a positive review I’ve done of their work. I figure it can’t hurt, unless they’re friends with someone whose book I wasn’t fond of. So far, so good.

Well, yay for us who read and love your lj. I love your posts on race and find them incredibly useful. I’m grateful they’re there to read and would hate it if you pulled your punches.

Plus you have on occasion let rip at books I would love to tear apart. Thank you! And when I disagree with you that’s kind of fun too. (I think you’re way wrong on the fourth vol of Emma fer instance. Way wrong! I love Emma and William! Those last few pages were so hot!)

I’ve written several posts in which I’ve just torn into books. I’d like to think that I’m fair and ground my critique in the text and don’t insult the author (ha!), but I seriously doubt that I live up to that standard all the time. And I have critiqued authors in that I’ve looked across the body of their work and noted that similar (troublesome) themes keep appearing.

So far I haven’t gotten into giant arguments with any author yet, though I am sure it’s only a matter of time. (Right now I am paranoid about Bill Willingham and Stephanie Meyer showing up and yelling at me.)

The thing is, having an author argue back with me in my comments generally makes me respect them less. I do respect their comments about authorial intent, as I am not a mind-reader and things like that are good to know, but I feel that if I am reading something in the text, authorial intent isn’t enough to say that my reading is wrong. Which is not to say that I’m not wrong — I’ll just listen more if the argument is taking place largely from the text .

And while I still am startled any time an author drops by in my comments, I have to say, pretty much all of them in my LJ have been incredibly polite and just leave a small “Thank you” or post a link to it in their blog without much commentary.

In conclusion, I feel conflicted about negative reviews because I dislike getting into arguments in comments, but I continue to do them because I blog about books for potential readers, not for the authors. Also, I still post rants about books with sketchy politics because I feel it’s important to call people out on that. (As a side effect, thanks to all the race posts from last year, I am less bothered by flames now and more willing to hold to my point! Yay?)

What I learned from the whole thing was this: authors will find my reviews. Big deal. The most I can do is be as professional as possible while being as honest as possible

That’s what I hate most about authors showing up to argue. It puts people who read and write about books (like us) on the defensive.

I wish more authors would understand that reviews aren’t about them. They aren’t for them. In a strange way they have nothing to do with writers. It’s about that particular reviewers relationship to that particular book at that particular moment in time. And it’s mostly for other readers.

So it makes me sad to think that author’s obsessive self-googling is affecting the way people on their blogs talk about books.

Sheryl: Sorry! Fortunately my readership ain’t that big either.

I guess I just imagined them being so successful and busy writing that it wouldn’t even cross their minds.

Hah! One of the most famous writers I know is the most obsessive self-googler.

Holly: That John Green! What a trouble maker!

I figure Meg Cabot has so many people boosting her confidence that she won’t be too devastated that some lowly librarian didn’t love her last book.

You’d be surprised! I’m not speaking for Meg Cabot—never met her—but I’ve known best-selling super-popular writers who are devastated by what’s been said about their books. I also know writers who aren’t selling very well who honestly don’t care what reviewers say. You never can tell.

Well, except that the vast majority of writers I know are bothered by bad reviews. Especially when they’re already feeling low. But, you know what? that’s our problem not the reviewers!

Also, there have been a few negative book reviews on our blog about very alive YA authors’ books. We don’t really self-censor just because that author might read what we wrote. I figure Meg Cabot has so many people boosting her confidence that she won’t be too devastated that some lowly librarian didn’t love her last book.

It took a while before I realized that authors search for themselves online. I guess I just imagined them being so successful and busy writing that it wouldn’t even cross their minds. But I love it when an author comments! (although I’ve never had one say anything negative yet)

I started up a reading journal on LJ (I give as my website) back in 2006 for my own sake. I’d started a grad school program where I had to write reading journals of my assigned reading, and my logic was if I wrote reading journals of EVERYTHING I read, then the assignments wouldn’t be so bad. I was right, but it had other benefits: I retain what I read, and I have a great record of what authors I read then.

Silly me thought me and my friends and colleagues would read the blog, so I didn’t think that an author would google him/herself and stumble upon a review.

Then I ripped into a particular book. And the author in question, i found out later, is a CHRONIC self-googler. He commented to defend a SINGLE moot point in my review, and then implied that I just wasn’t smart enough to “get” his book.

Of course, the blood drained out of me. And then I replied as professionally as possible, saying that even the most perfect work of art will be criticized by someone, and that I was not this author’s target audience. I also ripped apart his defense of the moot point, because it was one of the two things that set me off about the book.

He never replied.

Said author has done this to other people I know, but only for bad reviews. I have yet to see him reply to a GOOD review to thank said reviewer, and I’ve actually written one since the previously mentioned incident.

What I learned from the whole thing was this: authors will find my reviews. Big deal. The most I can do is be as professional as possible while being as honest as possible (my policy isn’t to slam the author, but to instead review it like I’m critiquing the work, which isn’t entirely fair to a published book, but I’m evil), and if something REALLY gets my goat, to wait a few days before posting that particular review.

And I’ve gotten other author comments. It always makes me feel weird, because I’m always worried an author is going to pick a fight, but I find it says more about the author than it does about me. I’m doing this for my own benefit, and for anyone else who, for some reason, trusts my opinion about possible reads. And hell, I’ve had people WANT to read books I’ve given a negative review over, so it can’t be that bad.

So for the time being, I’m going to keep trucking on. I’ve established a delightful friendship with a favorite author who found one of my reviews of her books, so it’s been worth it.

Arguing with reviewers is spectacularly lame and, as you say, unprofessional. And what is the author really arguing? That the reviewer doesn’t hold the opinion they’ve just said they hold? How arrogant!

If someone don’t love your books nothing you can see will make them suddenly change their mind. Arguing about it will only make them dislike the books more and go from not liking a book to actively disliking an author. A crappy result for everyone.

I was really discomfited when the author showed up and *argued with me* about my interpretation. I was even more discomfited when she later put a link to my review on her own blog, claiming that the review was entirely negative.

I’ve been very cautious since then about any public criticism, and frankly a bit disgruntled about writers who get into arguments with readers and reviewers. I know that it can hurt to see a bad review, or worse an unfair one, but I think it’s, well, unprofessional. The writer has had the opportunity to make her case: now the power is in the hands of the readers, and the writer just has to deal.

So yes, I do want them to leave me alone, unless it’s a good review, in which case I’m happy to talk about the book (and have done).