As happens from time to time, particularly when I’m wasting time, I like to Google my author persona (personae would be more apt with India Harper in the mix). I’m horrible at tracking any reviews that crop up, and this is pretty much the only way I learn about them unless someone else brings them to my attention.
I have yet to receive a particularly horrible review. I’ve received a few so-so ones, but nothing that’s going to make me throw down my pen after tracking down the reviewer and stabbing her or him with it. Modus Vivendi got Giggled with a 65, which I wasn’t upset with considering how bad those can get. First book, first review…not too shabby. Also, some of the criticism wasn’t far off. Since then I’ve learned to take being Giggled with a grain of salt as it doesn’t seem to be what it was and I’m less likely to get fussed about reviews when the reviewer gets some of the details wrong. In Echo of Distant Thunder, Graeme and Diana have been together for three years but are not (nor likely ever to be) married.
I’m not saying I want bad reviews or that they don’t sting any less than they do for other authors. However, like most things, once you get distance and you stop ranting and raving, you can either laugh at the morons or reluctantly agree that maybe they had a point.
What any of this has to do with anything—I’m great at babbling—is that I found a comment/review on Sins of Arrogance while searching this weekend. This was the first wholly negative response to a book I’ve written in whole or in part. Yet, I’m okay with that. Not every book is everyone’s cup of tea. I have also come to realize by this point that the stories I like to write and read aren’t always what’s going to twig the popularity radar. Such is life. The commenter/reviewer swears never to buy another India Harper book, finding her boring, long-winded, among other things. Why this doesn’t have me upset is:
1) I love the book, our characters, and the story—and you can’t take that away from me.
2) When writing an otherwise coherent review complaining about an author’s style one should not replace “and” with “&”. It makes it all seem a bit silly. Particularly when you spell out every other word. And really are three letters—commons ones at that—more difficult to type than using SHIFT + 7 to get the silly ampersand sign? If I were catty I would say that if one is lazy enough to not write out “and”, then of course many books would seem quite long-winded. But I’m not so…well, I already did.
I’m generally not that petty about things, but if you’re going to tell me my book (ours, technically here) sucks, then at least have the decency to use complete words and sentences. Or that’s just my English major showing again.
