Toxic Reviewers and Trolls

Toxic Reviewers

Ask any writer who enjoys regular sales for his or her latest book why they never regularly read their reviews, and you will get the same answer – they learned not to a long time ago.

While many first-time writers will initially read every review of their book, those of us who have been at it for a while no longer bother.

Reading them is the quickest way for any starting writer to become easily depressed and disillusioned; some may even quit writing altogether. Don’t let these attacks on your work deter you.

For every one hundred readers who enjoy your book, there will always be one who loves to find fault, and in all likelihood, positively hates it.

These toxic individuals delude themselves into thinking that what they say will dissuade others from taking up your book. You can usually find them inhabiting most online book outlets.

A few crop up from time to time on sites like Facebook, although they don’t usually last long because they can’t hide behind pseudonyms the way they can elsewhere.

What none of them seem to realise is that far from achieving their goal, in fact, all they are doing is making potential readers curious enough to want to read the book for themselves.

Every now and then, in a moment of weakness, I may take a fleeting glance at the latest attack on one of my books or those of my friends. When I read a particularly cutting review, I check to see if the reviewer has ever written anything themselves. Usually, 99.9 percent of the time, they have not. And yet they feel fully qualified to tear apart the product of the particular writer’s hard work.

All I can say is this; keep on writing those lousy reviews you complete morons. You are great free publicity for any book and therefore guarantee to boost its sales.

One last point – I wonder how many of these reviewers bought a copy of the book they hate so much? These days with the advent of eBooks, especially those sold between $0.99 or $2.00. I guess that the vast majority of the toxic reviewers obtained themselves a free copy during a giveaway. Besides being self-opinionated by nobody’s, they are also cheapskates into the bargain, not prepared to spend a dollar.

So the next time you are perusing a specific book’s reviews, take note of how many of them are toxic. Chances are you are looking at a bestseller.