hi everyone -

i just noticed yesterday that one of my books received two bad reviews on amazon. one review is so misleading and personally insulting to me that i was tempted to respond to it only to set the record straight.

i've sold hundreds of books on there, so i know that everybody can't like the book. i'm just worried that the two poor reviews - esp the last - will affect future sales.

what do you think? is it unprofessional to reply? should i be cool and aloof - lol - and ignore it? i only want to do what's right but i don't want prospective readers to be deterred from getting my book if they read this misleading info.

thanks and happy 2006
sigrid, in lowercase today

I'm so sorry about that, Sigrid. That happened to a children's author I know, and she wrote to Amazon. Couldn't hurt.

Donna

I don't know what the answer is but is it possible to have a few people you know who have read the book to go in and post more positive reviews?

Dotsie,

About 14 people have read the book and written positive reviews. The book is on total hip replacement, therefore, it is not a book that will appeal to everyone. It is for people who are preparing for joint surgery.

My friends and acquaintances have already read it. Whenever someone writes to me out of the blue after having read my book or my blog, and they say something nice about it, I ask if they would mind posting a small paragraph on Amazon. They've done that. I've pretty much run out of people to ask! That's why I was thinking of posting my own reply but it would have to be in the "review" section.

I'm just worried that posting my own reply would make matters worse -- can't help but thinking about John Grisham or Mary Higgins Clark. For sure, neither one of them would consider rebutting a review of one of their own books!

Donna,

The person wasn't rude or inappropriate, so I don't think it would be proper of me to write to Amazon. The person simply didn't get what I was trying to say in my book and ended up blaming me for having a difficult surgical recovery. I wanted to refute what she'd said but I'm not sure if I'll draw more attention to myself by doing so.

Thanks everybody :-)
Sigrid

Sorry about that, Sigrid. I don't have an answer. Have you contacted your publisher for suggestion on this? Not sure if it's appropriate or not.

I read somewhere that if your book has all good reviews that some people think only your friends and family are buying it. I have ordered many many books from Amazon, being an avid reader, and I have read many reviews, even the best of the best have a few bad reviews, so that leads me to believe that you can't please everyone. It's hard not to take it to heart, believe me I know. Dotsie has a great idea, the next positive review will go on top of the bad ones so if you surround it by positive ones, it will balance it out.

Sigrid I empathize! I guess as writers we always hope people "get" what we are trying to say and you'd like to think that if someone didn't - they would just write to you personally and say so. The person who wrote the negative review could easily have found you and done that in another way. I guess we have to try and cultivate "thick skin" in this writing business - not always easy to do....and in an open forum atmosphere like Amazon reviews (or the other sites as well), people are going to post what they feel like posting.

All those other POSITIVE reviews will more than make up for one negative one - I'm just sure of that!

Pam,

Exactly. If you google my name, you'll come up with about 15 --20 pages. I'm really easy to find and if that person had written to me directly, I would have offered her money back.

Norah,

I agree that it always looks better to have a diversity of opinion. I review all kinds of books on Amazon and I don't give everything a five-star review. In fact, I gave Tom Wolfe's last book a terrible review.

Shortly afterwards, I was reading a book by Nick Hornby -- one of my favorite writers -- who said how much he hated Amazon reviewers! Since then, I haven't posted any reviews.

Let's face it. Amazon is a populist forum. In some ways that's great because it gives everyone an opportunity to get on and write their opinion. On the other hand, not everyone's opinion is that valuable! That may sound snobby and I don't mean it that way. I just mean that it is a forum for amateur critics and I don't want to respond as an amateur writer. I would like to appear professional even if I'm feeling disillusioned :-)

Sigrid

Brenda,

Thanks so much for the reassurance. I used to check my stats every day and I was always looking for new reviews. Now, I'm not going to do that anymore. I will check occasionally and I won't read the reviews. LOL.

Totally agree that Amazon wouldn't do anything about those bad reviews. They were perfectly polite and appropriate. I just didn't agree with them.

All the best in 2006.
Sigrid

I think there are some people who go on amazon and write nasty reviews just to be jerks. What I did was get some friends to go on and write postive reviews.

I wouldn't waste time replying to the jerks.

I agree with Deda, when I start reading a review and it is negative I get disgusted with the "reviewer" not the author of the book. It doesn't change my choice to buy or not. Giving an honest opinion is great and needed, but getting downright mean and nasty is wrong.

[ January 04, 2006, 10:42 AM: Message edited by: Norah ]

Sigrid I agree that you should just let it go and when others post, those two mean spirited reviews will melt away.

I read reviews all the time of books I am checking into purchasing. They do not make or make my decision. I take the time to check out all the features Amazon offers such as the title of contents and an excerpt if possible. Those are the selling points for me--not the reviews.

Sounds like your book is doing well anyway, so I think you should just wait and see. Good luck sweetie.

Sandpiper

Norah & Sandpiper:

Thanks a lot. I'm the same way. I do that with movies as well. Just because Ebert gives a film two thumbs up doesn't mean that I'll like it at all. I have to believe that my true customers will feel that way too.

I delivered a great speech today at my mother's Newcomer club. There were over 60 people there and I talked all about hip replacement and sold five books on top of the honorarium that I received :-) That made me feel better!

Happy new year everyone and many, many thanks for the warm words and encouragement.

Sigrid

Sigrid, not to worry. I went to Amazon to read the reviews. The one by the health care provider is rather snippy and snotty and snobby. Anyone reading it will see that she almost deliberately set the review up to be snotty! She reserved the review until after her own surgery so she could "compare notes." And yes, it is as if she is "blaming the victim." The other review mentions the health care system in Canada which is different than USA and has its own set of problems to deal with. You have so many endorsements and wonderful reviews. You've done such a great service by writing about this surgery. Don't worry about that recent review!

Thanks so much for checking it out, Lynn. You're right. I had the same feeling about her but I'm biased. LOL.

The really frustrating thing is that I felt that she didn't get it at all and that she was blaming me. She said that I had a fear of needles -- not true! I have a B12 deficiency and I get an injection of vitamin B12 once a month. No fear there. The reason that I didn't donate my own blood was because I have fainted several times with a needle in my arm, not out of fear but out of weakness.

The blood thing is important because I needed another transfusion but I told my surgeon I was fine with him giving me blood from the blood bank but he didn't want to do that again.

And I did not deliberately delay my surgery in order to make myself miserable. The first surgeon, who very reluctantly offered to operate on me when I was 48, told me that he hated doing the surgery on someone under 50 and that there was a good chance that I could end up in a wheelchair. So, for obvious reasons, I didn't have faith in him and went looking for another man who put me on an 18 month wait list.

Anyway, I've been obsessing about this bad review for days. Have to get over it. Thanks for offering your impartial perspective :-)

Sigrid