Bad Reviews
Jon & Mac look at their online reviews even though you should never do that
We got a great reader question asking what role criticism played in our lives, but when we tried to answer it we ended up just sending each other screenshots of bad reviews we’ve gotten on Amazon.
We have mostly learned to avoid Amazon and Goodreads etc. on the theory that those places aren’t for the authors/illustrators so much as they are for readers to log their own reflections, or to discuss what they think amongst themselves, and that it can only mess one up to go looking for the aggregate opinions of one’s own work.
Today we threw that good advice temporarily in the trash because we thought it would be fun to grab some of our own bad reviews to discuss the different flavors they seem to come in.
Most of the negative ones, at least for my (Jon’s) books, and I expect for Mac’s, start from the position that everything anyone does in a book is morally endorsed by the author and will be acted out immediately by any child who is unlucky enough to be exposed to it. If that really was how things worked, I’d be stressed out too. I didn’t grab any of the reviews that yell about that cause they all kind of sound the same after a while, but I wish them well. You will note that that the ones I (Jon) grabbed are all from Amazon, not from Goodreads, as I can’t bear to go in there at all, even for jokes.
—JON
I just have to add, in light of Jon’s last sentence, that I have blocked Goodreads on every device that I own, but I unblocked it to grab one review, because I am dedicated to my craft (screenshotting terrible reviews).
—MAC