Well, it’s been eight whole days since my International BookBub ad went live and I just hit 6,000 free units downloaded! Wippee! That’s more than twice of what was predicted by BookBub themselves (2,500)!
The sell-through has not been great, with just 7 full-price copies of Indiot have been purchased and the equivalent of additional 4 copies read through KU. Still, I could not wait to apply for the US distribution, and then could not believe my eyes when I was promptly rejected. But…but…why won’t you let Americans have a free copy of Shizzle, Inc
Well, that’s not entirely true. Yes, I did get at least one new fan, who’d not only inhaled Shizzle, Inc in just a day or two, he or she immediately posted a glorious review:
And then, just a couple of days later, he/she posted a review of Indiot:
Aw, shucks…I was practically glowing, but then this one dropped:
I’m not sure who was the prince that supposedly saved Isa, and I’m also not sure what that person expected from a book with a tagline of What could possibly happen when a gloriously dippy millennial becomes the right hand of an equally clueless playboy billionaire? Of course, with any free giveaway, your book is bound to end up in the hands of people who didn’t read the description and I know I should be all cool about it by now, but my hand just ached to respond to the comment…
I slapped that hand away and undertook immediate damage control. Once again, it helps to keep this blog, because I’ve already been through the pain of a 1-star review and have written A Simple Guide to Overcoming 1-Star Review Grief. It reminded me that my hope was one day to have tens of thousands of 1-star reviews, just like the bestsellers in the above Simple Guide. So this particular one just brought me one review closer to the goal.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter so much. In fact, I wanted to share some of the other 1-star reviews of Shizzle, Inc that I hope you might find amusing. Keep in mind, these were written about a book from a “defining series of a generation!” if you believe one of the 5-star reviews:
- “The behavior of Mr. Hue was unrealistic and quite frankly, shockingly rude. A complete douche. If this were reality, his company would have gone down in flames before it ever got off the ground.”
- “There are just too many screwballs in this book. Everyone is a screwball or a screw-up.”
- “Good gods, this was stupid.”
- “The main character is an idiot, her employer is an idiot, and I think the story might be set in an alternate universe. Otherwise. . .wow. just wow.”
- ” I’m not sure if Shizzle, Inc. can be classified as satire because it bears so little relation to the real world of corporate greed and weirdness.”
- “Other reviewers either are being nice and writing fake reviews or they were of low intelligence to begin with and easily amused by letters and words.”
- “Had this been a paper book, I would have burned it to save another reader the 1.5 seconds they might spend reading the title and thinking it might be worth opening the cover.”
Yeah, so other than a slight eye twitch, I’m no longer affected by those and I hope you feel a bit better about any 1-star reviews you might have gotten of late. I have just over 30 bad reviews now, across the different platforms, so still not close to the tens of thousands.
That’s okay, though – I can apply for the US BookBub in 29 days.
Ana Spoke, author 
Congratulations 🎉🍾 sounds like a very successful promotion. Thanks for sharing info.
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Thank you Luccia 🙂 the best one yet.
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If you wrote a book that everybody liked, that would actually be a problem. The sense I get from just about every one of those one-star reviews is that they picked up your book thinking it was going to be something else. That’s on them, not on you.
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Thank you. I’m certainly stirring some strong emotions, and I’m okay with that. It does help that I’d attempted to be an actress for about 4 years, and to get about 40 roles, I went through thousands of rejections, including around 200 rejections after auditions. It becomes matter-of-fact.
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“The behavior of Mr. Hue was unrealistic and quite frankly, shockingly rude. A complete douche. If this were reality, his company would have gone down in flames before it ever got off the ground.”
Actually it seems these days it pays to be a shockingly rude douche bag businessman.
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Pays well! All the way to the top job in the world…In fact, Mr. Hue looks like a lamb compared to some.
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Well said as always, Ana. We would do well to remind ourselves the occasional one and two star review enhances the credibility of those four and five star reviews. Ditto also to the fact that readers represent a spectrum of tastes we cannot hope to satisfy. That said, criticism is bound to leave impressions on writers’ necessarily thick skin. I always try to remember to consider the source. Cheers, my friend. 🙂
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Thank you James. I almost find it interesting that my reviewes are so polarised – it’s either thumbs up all the way, or “burn!” At the very least I’m not leaving readers indifferent!
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Just to put things into perspective, one of my blogging friends, Louise Jensen, made it to the No.1 slot on paid Kindle charts with both of her novels. Her first novel received 1, 368 reviews, divided thus…1-star (47), 2-star (67). 3-star (100), 4-star (394), 5-star (790). Her second novel, released in December, has so far has received 293 reviews, divided thus… 1-star (38), 2-star (22), 3-star (40), 4-star (101), 5-star (293).
The point I’m making here is that people who get 1-star reviews can reach the No.1 slot on Kindle and that, by the sound of your latest BookBub promotion, and the fact that you were accepted to do a promotion in the first place, just goes to prove that 1-star reviews go with the territory and most people don’t take them seriously. They are usually written by people who don’t read things properly and just enjoy writing horrid reviews about everything. I’m obviously a moron (as according to one of your reviewers), because I gave you 5-stars for both your books! If you’re getting 1-star reviews, you are definitely on the way to fame.
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Thank you Sarah. Fingers crossed I will get there, if not with current books, then with the one I’m writing now.
That’s pretty much what my Simple Guide was all about – huge numbers of 1-stars for beloved classics and bestsellers. I really am cool with it, but wanted to share with others that are perhaps just beginning and feeling the pain. It’s all okay.
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Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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Thank you for sharing, Kim!
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You are officially my first girl crush. Okay, that’s not true, it’s Sandra Bullock, but you’re the second. Thank you for reposting the Review Grief guide. I’ve bookmarked it. 🙂
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Haha! I totally understand – I love Sandra too. Glad to see her get rid of that jerk ex husband. That was pissing me off.
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I remember fondly back in the ‘old days’ of actual rejection slips, papering a bulletin board with the fine yellow pieces of nonsense. At one point I had so many, I had to add another bulletin board. You have to keep a sense of humor about these things … or trust you get the empty barrel in the roulette game 😀
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Thank you Pete. The blog is my bulletin board, I guess 🙂
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Hey, look at it this way “they DID read it”. Whether they like it or not goes to that particular person’s taste in books. Like you said if they read the blurb they would have an idea of the contents. I guess that makes them an idiot. Like you said 1000’s of 1 star reviews makes it a hit. Because the million other reviews make it a certifiable hit. Love your attitude.Good luck on getting the US BookBub. How is the new novel going? Well, I hope. Get some sleep sometime. Ha,ha! 🙂
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Thank you Olivia. The new book is going slowly, partly because I’m so busy and partly because it’s hard to write in a different voice. Isa keeps coming through, and I’m all “No, you are a depressed man now, stop joking around!”
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Clearly, that one reviewer and I have different definitions of the words ‘saved’ and ‘prince.’
Congratulations though on your otherwise successful promotion.
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Thank you Allie. I’m very happy about it all, just felt compelled to share because I know everyone is grappling with the same issue.
And yes, I have no idea who was the prince. It sure wasn’t Mr. Hue…
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Reviewers can be total jerks. It seems so easy to forget there’s a real person behind each Amazon book; I doubt any of these people would have the guts to give such rude, snarky commentary face-to-face.
On the flipside, congratulations on your promo going so well! Hope you can get in for US Bookbub next time. 🙂
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Thank you, Amelia. That’s exactly the reason for road rage – people disassociate cars from real people behind the wheel.
I couldn’t be happier at the moment – the sell-through of Indiot not only continues, it picked up! 2 copies yesterday and 3 today!
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Hooray! Great to know the effort was worth it. 😀
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What I don’t understand about the really negative book reviews is why they downloaded the book in the first place. There’s enough material in the ‘read me’ facility for them to draw a conclusion about the writing style and nature of the story. Half these reviewers are not as intelligent as they think they are.
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Those who can’t do… criticize! Glad you have taken the stance you’ve taken – a sense of humor is always the best defense. Good job!
XO
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Thank you Donna 🙂 you have to, otherwise it can derail even the most exciting project. It helps to have gotten so many rejections before, just becomes ordinary, not a shock.
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