Most of my books receive 4- or 5-star ratings on Amazon. All but three ratings fall in that range. It always feels good to receive a strong rating, especially when the reviewer takes the time to write a thorough review alongside it. No matter how good your book is or how well it’s received overall, someone isn’t going to like it.
I recently received a 1-star review on a novel written under a pen name. The reviewer left a very long, detailed explanation of why she thought the book was “a piece of trash” and a “complete waste of time.”
She described the main character as “petulant” and “annoying,” the story as “horrible,” and the dialogue as “redundant” and “boring.” Printed out, it exceeded two pages. Someone had a lot to say.
I shrugged when I read it. Something in that book must have hit her hard, because nobody writes pages of review about a book that left them cold.
Reviews like that one sting, and I don’t think any author ever fully stops feeling it. What I’ve learned over a long list of published books is that the reaction is the part you control, and most of the damage authors take from bad reviews comes from how they respond to them.
Your Emotional Response Is Normal
A single negative review among dozens of positive ones can shake your confidence more than it should.Share on X
A single negative review among dozens of positive ones can shake your confidence more than it should. That reaction is normal. You put months of work into a book, and someone dismissed it in a paragraph. For more, see facts about review bombing. The sting is real.
The important thing is to not act on the emotion. Don’t respond while you’re upset, don’t post about it on social media, and don’t send the reviewer a message.
Walk away from the screen and come back when the first reaction has passed. An author who torches their reputation in one angry evening is making a mistake, because the book didn’t deserve that and neither did the readers who liked it.
Read It for What Is Useful
Once the emotional charge has faded, read the review again with a professional eye. Bad reviews sometimes contain legitimate feedback buried under harsh language. Not always, but sometimes.
If a reviewer says the pacing dragged in the middle, that might be worth examining. If they say the dialogue felt repetitive, it might be worth a second look at your dialogue patterns. You don’t have to agree with the review. But dismissing every negative comment without consideration means you miss the ones that could make your next book better.
The two-page review I received was mostly venting. But buried in it was a valid observation about the main character’s behavior in the first act. I didn’t change the published book, but I kept the note for future work.
Should authors respond to bad reviews publicly?
This is the most important rule. Never respond to a negative review in public. Not in the review comments. Not on social media. Not in a blog post. Not even to thank the reviewer for their “honesty.” Engaging publicly with a negative review attracts attention to the review, invites trolls into the conversation, and makes you look defensive. Readers who see an author arguing with reviewers form an impression that lasts longer than the review itself, and I think it ranks among the most self-destructive things a writer can do online.
On June 28, 2009, The Boston Globe ran Roberta Silman’s review of Alice Hoffman’s novel The Story Sisters. The review said the book “lacks the spark of the earlier work.”
Hoffman answered on Twitter. She wrote that Silman “is a moron,” added “Now any idiot can be a critic,” and posted the reviewer’s phone number and email address with the line “Tell her what u think of snarky critics.”
Gawker picked up the tweets, and Hoffman shut down her Twitter account. Her publicist then released an apology: “I was dismayed by Roberta Silman’s review which gave away the plot of the novel, and in the heat of the moment I responded strongly and I wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry if I offended anyone.” The Christian Science Monitor covered the whole mess.
I feel for Hoffman, because every writer knows that heat. But one critical review in a Sunday paper became a national story about the author’s behavior, and I’d bet far more people remember those tweets than ever read the review. I think handing a critic’s phone number to your followers is a lousy thing to do to anyone. Your silence is your professionalism. Let the review sit alongside your positive reviews and let readers make their own judgment.
Do Not Respond Privately Either
Some reviewers include email addresses in their profiles, and it can be tempting to reach out privately to address their concerns. In almost every case, this is a mistake. You’re unlikely to change their opinion, and the interaction has a high chance of escalating. The best outcome is neutral. The worst outcome is a reviewer who updates their review to mention that you contacted them. That looks worse than the original criticism.
Do Bad Reviews Help Your Book?
A book with nothing but 5-star reviews looks suspicious to experienced book buyers. A mix of ratings, including a few negative ones, makes the positive reviews more credible, because readers understand that not every book works for every person. I’d much prefer a few real one-star reviews over a wall of five-star praise from friends and family that fools nobody. The 1-star review on my novel sits alongside dozens of 4- and 5-star reviews. Any reader browsing the reviews can see the pattern and make their own decision. The negative review hasn’t hurt sales.
When I’m researching other books on Amazon, I always look at the one-star reviews and skim the rest. As long as a book isn’t getting all ones and twos, a normal spread of ratings can be ignored. A lot of people overrate books, too. Five stars should mean excellent, as in it made me levitate out of my bed. That’s not how most people use it.
How do authors deal with review trolls?
Some negative reviews come from trolls. These are people who deliberately target authors with inflammatory, personal, or malicious comments designed to provoke a response. They may attack you personally instead of commenting on the book, or leave suspiciously similar reviews on multiple books.
The same rule applies: don’t engage, because trolls feed on reactions and silence starves them. I have zero respect for people who attack authors for sport, and they don’t deserve a single word of your time. If a review contains obscene language, hate speech, or other violations of the platform’s terms, report it to Amazon, and they’ll investigate and remove reviews that break their guidelines. Otherwise the review stays, and you move on.
Not every one-star is a troll, and not every troll looks like one. In an authors’ group this week, writers compared notes. One knew exactly who keeps hitting each of his new releases with a one-star, always early, for maximum damage. Others traced bare one-star ratings to people they’d disagreed with in a group, or to someone whose paid service they’d turned down.
One got a one-star from a reader who quit after two pages of the sample. Another got a review calling his hand-drawn cover and his own blurb “lazy AI,” and Amazon refused to remove it. That book is now his best seller. Either way, ratings like those describe the person who left them. They say very little about the book.
What Is Amazon’s Review Policy for Authors?
Blaming an author for a stranger’s grudge explains nothing, and it’s a rotten thing to say to someone who came asking for help.
Amazon will remove a review if it violates their community guidelines, which cover hate speech, obscenity, harassment, and spam. They won’t remove a review simply because it’s negative or because you disagree with it. Familiarize yourself with their review guidelines so you know what’s reportable and what’s not.
A rating doesn’t require buying the book, and that surprises most authors. Amazon’s community guidelines let anyone who has spent $50 on Amazon.com with a credit or debit card in the past 12 months leave ratings and reviews, and nothing in them requires owning the item being rated. That’s how a stranger can drop a bare one-star on every release without buying a single copy.
When an author asked about exactly that pattern in a KDP group, one of the first replies guessed she used AI covers and told her the one-stars were deserved. Two of her five covers involved AI. All five books got hit. Blaming an author for a stranger’s grudge explains nothing, and it’s a rotten thing to say to someone who came asking for help.
It also helps to know that Amazon’s star rating isn’t a simple average. Amazon says it uses a model that gives more weight to things like recent reviews and verified purchases. So a book with four ratings of one, three, four and five stars can show percentages that don’t add up the way you’d expect. One early one-star can drag a new book down hard, and a few dozen honest ratings later it barely moves the number.
I make it a policy never to read reviews of my own books. A negative one can knock me off course for a long stretch, and nothing in it would change the next book I write. That won’t suit everyone, but if bad reviews hit you hard, you’re allowed not to look.
My take
Leave bad reviews alone, and don’t answer them in public or in private. A stranger’s grudge won’t change your next book. I don’t read reviews of my own books at all, because a harsh one can throw me off for a long stretch. One early one-star drags a new book down, and a few dozen honest ratings later it barely moves the number. You’re allowed not to look.
The Long View
Every successful author has received bad reviews. A negative review doesn’t define your book, your career, or your ability as a writer; it’s one person’s opinion on one day.
The only real damage it can do is talk you out of the next book, and a stranger’s bad afternoon shouldn’t cost readers something you were going to write. Keep writing, keep improving, and keep publishing.
For more on managing reviews as part of your book launch strategy, see the Book Promotion Course. For fiction writers working through the revision process, see the Revisions Handbook.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your book project.
Reviews are one part of selling a book. Sell Your Books is my marketing guide without the hype, built from over a decade of launching books that worked and books that failed.
