It’s not an exaggeration to say that writers live and die based on reviews. I think this applies equally to trade-published and self-published authors. Although, the trade publisher has channels to solicit reviews from professional reviewers, whereas the self-publisher is unlikely to have such a network and must rely on the reviews posted by readers on Amazon and similar sites.

Most of us take time (some of us a little, some a lot) to encourage people to review our books after they read them. Alas, few do. I understand that. It takes time for a person to go to Amazon, find the book’s page, and enter a review. Sometimes people don’t want to leave a review if it’s negative, remembering that Mom said, “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything.” I get it.

Thus, I was excited to find a site that reviews Christian books. Not all my books are overtly Christian, but some are. Interviews and Reviews is the site, run by a woman author who is a member of an internet writing group with me. I checked over the site, saw it was legit, and submitted Doctor Luke’s Assistant as a means of getting my toe wet. It took some time before any of their reviewers set a request for the book. I submitted on April 10, 2018, and one reviewer finally asked for a copy on April 27.

After that, I didn’t hear anything. Books are supposed to stay in the reviewing rotation for a month (plus one extra month if no one requests it). Since DLA is a large book, I knew it would take the reviewer time. Then, on June 5, I received a request for it from a second reviewer. I contacted Amazon, arranged for a copy to be sent, and felt good.

Then I checked the home page of I&R, and saw that a review of DLA had been posted! I went there right away, only to find it was…two stars. That’s two out of five stars, the same review system as Amazon uses. Needless to say, I was sad to see this. Here’s a link to the review.

I don’t fault the reviewer if she didn’t like it. All books cannot appeal to all readers. The gist of her review is this:

…instead of a compelling historical fiction novel, I found the book was mainly a comparison of some of the Gospels and an exploration of what methods might have been used in Luke’s research. What little plot there was existed mainly in the latter half of the book, and even there it was thinly scattered and not used to its full advantage.

That’s rather stinging.

I took a little time to cry over it (not literally), then got past it. I’m sharing it to a wider audience, not to seek sympathy or offsetting reviews, but rather to continue in making my works public and not glossing over anything.

It’s not like I’m the only person to ever receive a negative review. While I was going through some saved links today to see which were still valid and which weren’t, I came across Thomas Babington Macaulay’s review of Robert Southey’s Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. The review was published in the Edinburgh Review in 1829, when Southey was poet laureate of England. Would Macaulay treat Southey with due respect because of his position? No! Here’s how the review began.

It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey’s talents and acquirements to write two volumes so large as those before us, which should be wholly destitute of information and amusement.

Now that is hard-hitting. Yet, Macaulay is far from done.

Yet we do not remember to have read with so little satisfaction any equal quantity of matter, written by any man of real abilities.

Let’s look at one more criticism.

It is, indeed, most extraordinary, that a mind like Mr. Southey’s, a mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by study, a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, should be utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet such is the fact.

I could go on, but this would only become repetitive.

I guess I don’t have it so bad. My reviewer ascribed kind motives to me and didn’t question my abilities, only my outcome. And, DLA was my first novel. Hopefully I’m getting better at it.