The Bad Review

One of my favorite books received a bad review at Amazon. Not just a bad review. A scathing review. A review that included the words, "I'm sorry I wasted my time and money on it." Like I said, it was a bad review. I've had bad reviews before. A few people have dissed my book "Living with Less," one because it had too much God in it (which I took as a compliment) and another because the book did not give you Dave Ramsey type details for how to downsize but instead spent most of its time telling you why to downsize (which was exactly my point). I can brush aside those kinds of bad reviews because the reader actually got my point. They just didn't happen to like it. The writer of the bad review that prompted this blog entry didn't care what my point may or may not have been. He simply hated my book. He hated the way I wrote it. He hated the content. He just hated my book. And this particular book happens to be one of my personal favorites. And this bad review also happens to be the only one posted for the book at Amazon. The sales numbers are so bad that this may be the only person who has ever ordered the book online. 

I guess by now I should start trying to wrap this little entry up and move toward some semblance of a point. I don't know that there is one. I've had bad reviews before, and I know I will get them again. In fact, I recently read the first few pages of one of my most recent releases and I put the book down in disgust. I guess I just gave myself a very bad review. Bad reviews, scathing reviews, reviews that use the words "a waste of time and money" are a part of the writing life. And the worst part of all of this is not the fact that someone posted a bad review to one of my books, but the knowledge that I've posted a few of my own in the past.