Why Readers Are Allowed to Hate My Books

I write books, so naturally I'd quite like people to enjoy them.

Ideally, I'd like them to enjoy them enough to finish the book, buy the next one and perhaps tell another human being that it was worth reading. I'm an indie author. I'm not going to pretend sales, ratings and reviews don't matter to me, because they obviously fucking do.

But I've seen the same argument appear more than once in author spaces recently: if you didn't enjoy a book enough to give it at least three stars, don't review it. Sometimes this extends to readers who DNF too. If you didn't finish the book, apparently you shouldn't have an opinion on it at all.

And I really don't agree.

There are exceptions, obviously. Review bombing is shitty. Personal attacks are shitty. Giving a book one star because the parcel arrived late is spectacularly unhelpful unless the author has recently diversified into courier services.

But a reader genuinely disliking a book?

That's a review.

They aren't doing anything wrong by writing it.

Reviews Are For Readers

I think this is where some of the confusion starts.

Authors obviously read reviews. I certainly do. I'm delighted when they're lovely, interested when they're thoughtful and probably never going to reach a level of spiritual enlightenment where I see a one-star rating and feel absolutely nothing about it.

But reviews aren't actually for me.

They're for other readers.

Someone saying they hated the pacing, couldn't stand the main character or thought the ending was terrible isn't necessarily trying to give me constructive criticism. They're describing their experience to somebody who might be considering buying the book.

And sometimes a negative review sells books anyway.

I've bought books because of things other people complained about. I've seen criticisms that would put one reader off and make another think, Oh, that sounds exactly like my kind of shit.

Too dark. Too violent. Too much sex. Not enough sex. Characters making terrible decisions. Morally questionable people behaving in morally questionable ways.

At a certain point you're not warning me anymore. You're doing marketing.

Readers don't all want the same thing, which is presumably why publishing hasn't yet achieved the terrifying efficiency of producing one universally approved novel every year and sending us all home.

The Washing Machine Problem

Take books out of the equation for a second.

Imagine you're buying a washing machine and it has fantastic reviews. Four-point-something stars, hundreds of happy customers, apparently the greatest advancement in laundry since somebody first became annoyed enough by a dirty shirt to put it in water.

So you buy it.

Then it turns out to be fucking awful.

A week later you discover plenty of other people thought it was awful too, but the manufacturer had asked anyone who would rate it below three stars not to leave a review because low ratings might hurt their sales.

Nobody would consider that reasonable.

You'd question the entire rating because you'd only been shown the opinions the manufacturer wanted potential customers to see.

Books are obviously more subjective than washing machines, unless washing-machine discourse has become considerably more passionate since I last checked, but the principle still applies.

If we're asking people to leave honest reviews, we have to actually mean honest.

We can't mean honest, provided you liked it enough.

And Yes, That Includes DNFs

I understand why DNF reviews irritate some authors, especially if somebody barely started the book before rating it. Reading three pages probably hasn't given anyone a particularly comprehensive understanding of a 400-page novel.

But not finishing a book can still be a legitimate reading experience.

Sometimes people stop because the writing style doesn't work for them. Sometimes they can't connect with the characters. Sometimes the pacing loses them. Sometimes a particular plot choice kills their interest completely. Sometimes they simply reach the conclusion that they have a finite number of years on this planet and would rather spend the remaining ones reading something else.

Provided they're honest about how far they got, I don't see the problem.

DNF at 40% because...

That's useful information.

Another reader can decide whether the reason matters to them.

The important bit is context. Someone who read half the book shouldn't pretend they know how it ends, just as somebody who finished it shouldn't pretend they enjoyed it because they feel guilty about potentially upsetting the person who wrote it.

Negative Isn't the Same as Nasty

This is the distinction that actually matters to me.

A negative review can be completely fair.

Personal abuse isn't.

There's a substantial difference between saying the dialogue felt unnatural and saying the author is a talentless idiot who should never write another book. One is an opinion about something that was deliberately published for public consumption. The other is attacking the human being who made it.

The same applies to review bombing, dragging an author's appearance or family into it, or leaving reviews based on some personal argument that has absolutely nothing to do with the book.

I don't defend any of that.

But those things aren't wrong because they're negative. They're wrong because they've stopped being genuine reviews of the work.

And I don't think lumping them together helps anyone.

Being an Indie Author Doesn't Make Readers Responsible for My Business

This is probably the part I'm most stubborn about because I understand the argument behind it.

Indie publishing is difficult. Ratings can affect discoverability. Reviews can influence whether somebody buys a book. Most indie authors don't have enormous marketing budgets or giant publishing houses absorbing the financial impact when something doesn't perform as well as hoped.

I know.

I'm one of them.

I know how much work goes into producing a book before anybody ever gets the opportunity to give the bastard two stars. Writing, editing, formatting, covers, metadata, marketing and uploading the thing repeatedly because some tiny formatting issue has appeared from whatever circle of hell houses widows and orphans.

But none of that becomes the reader's responsibility.

They bought the book. Or borrowed it. Or read it through Kindle Unlimited. However they got there, their part of the transaction was reading it.

They don't owe me protection from their opinion afterwards.

If a genuine review negatively affects somebody else's decision to buy my book, that's unfortunate for me, but it's also the review system doing what it's supposed to do.

The alternative is ratings that look fantastic but don't actually tell readers anything.

And personally, I'd rather know that my good reviews exist alongside people who were completely free to leave bad ones.

Otherwise, what do five stars even mean?

I Want People to Mean It

I love getting good reviews.

I'm not going to perform some artistic little dance where I pretend I've transcended mortal concerns and don't care what anybody thinks about my books. I care enormously. Someone telling me they stayed up too late reading something I invented is fucking brilliant.

But part of what makes that feel good is knowing they didn't have to say it.

They could have hated it.

Somebody else probably did.

That's the deal you make when you publish something. The book stops belonging entirely to you and starts having a separate relationship with every person who reads it. Some of those relationships will apparently be loving and emotionally devastating. Others will end after six chapters with someone quietly removing it from their Kindle.

Both are allowed.

So if you love one of my books, review it.

If you think it's decent but nothing particularly special, review it.

If you DNF because you wanted to launch one of my characters directly into the sun, feel free to mention that too.

And if you absolutely fucking hate it, you are still allowed to review it.

Just review the book.

I reserve the right to dislike your opinion. I may even stare at my phone and mutter something deeply mature like rude before getting on with my day.

I might privately hope your pillow is warm on both sides.

But I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't have reviewed it.

Because if I only want honest opinions when they're flattering, I don't actually want honest opinions.

I want advertising.