Thursday, June 26, 2008

TIP: Kill or Keep: what to do with a negative review on your Amazon page

Beyond the staving the staying sting of a one-star nasty-word, heartless review deposited on your Amazon page, what strategy should an author adopt about these reviews?

Some authors petition Amazon for removal for all sorts of reasons (none, of course related to the personal heartbreak). The author could point that the reviewer used inappropriate language (misspellings, defamatory, profane). Or, that the review gave away too much of the plot (to which Mr. Obie Joe says, have you SEEN the way Amazon usually summarizes the plot?). There's even the Reboot method, where an author deletes his page entirely, and starts fresh.

Mr. Obie Joe cautions authors to not worry the reviews. Instead, enjoy the attention, and that it will spur you on to encourage colleagues and friends to post their own more interesting and positive reviews.

Unless, of course, the review mentions yo'mamma.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am enjoying this blog! Thanks for all the good tips. I own a teeny tiny press and much of this is very useful.
I agree about the negative reviews, and when that's happened to one of my books it has been a call to action to "bury" the review to anywhere besides that front page.
One little correction to this -Amazon doesn't post a plot summary, the publisher does. So if there's something listed on a book's Amazon page that an author doesn't like, then he/she should contact the publisher. It can also all be changed - and pretty quickly at that.