Not every book is meant for every reader, but try telling that to an author. We cringe at bad customer reviews of our titles. After years of hard work, it’s difficult to hear that someone dislikes your story. It’s even harder to swallow when your book gets a one-star review for glacier-speed delivery and schmutz on the cover. Yep, these days the old adage is truer than ever: “Everyone’s a critic.”
No one’s immune to the anonymous online rant. Not even Pappi’s Pizza Parlor.
(They had no problem swallowing that review.)
If you’ve spied Jimmy Kimmel’s “Mean Tweets”, where celebrities read devastating Twitter exchanges about them, you know that these criticisms can be hilarious and even, I dare say, cathartic to read aloud.
.
So in the same spirit of poking fun at ourselves and our detractors, author Marc Tyler Nobleman collected videos of children’s authors reading bad reviews of their books. The first installment included three deliciously derogatory episodes. And now the next three episodes have been released, with a mightily attractive screen shot of yours truly gracing the “cover” of Episode 5.
.
Enjoy, and feel free to share your worst review below!
It’s as healthy for ya as a meatball sandwich.
26 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 7, 2014 at 11:36 am
Renee LaTulippe
HAHAHAHA! Thoroughly enjoyed everything in this post. Hysterical. Poor doughnut. Off to see the other episodes.
February 7, 2014 at 11:44 am
Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
Thanks for the therapy, Tara. I think we all feel much better now.
February 7, 2014 at 11:46 am
Marc Tyler Nobleman
Love that meatball sign. And I loved the screen shot of you that YouTube offered me as the thumbnail. It blew away all other options.
February 7, 2014 at 11:47 am
Elizabeth Rose Stanton
Hahahahaha. . . *sob*
February 7, 2014 at 11:50 am
Janny J Johnson
Tara, if you’d written about scary monsters at the store, you’d be accused of keeping kids up at night with nightmares. You can’t win!
February 7, 2014 at 11:57 am
Jessie
Haha, awesome. Thanks for sharing. I hope someday I have a book that people can leave bad reviews for! :^)
February 7, 2014 at 12:11 pm
creationsbymit
Great post Tara! I went & watched all the videos. (took up a good chunk of my morning when I should have been working! LOL!!) Thanks for sharing!
February 7, 2014 at 1:25 pm
Rosi Hollinbeck
I LOVE the meatball sign. This is all great stuff. Yeah, you just can’t please all the people all the time. Thanks for sharing this.
February 7, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Melanie Ellsworth
Hilarious (and just slightly heartbreaking).
February 7, 2014 at 5:23 pm
orthodoxmom3
aww…. so glad these authors can laugh about the absurdities.
February 7, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Genevieve Petrillo
So hilarious! Rotten reviews, but great delivery…
February 7, 2014 at 6:39 pm
LovableLobo
So funny! It’s intriguing how bad press can actually be good press.
February 7, 2014 at 6:57 pm
Sue Rankin
I think reviews like these are most often the proof needed behind statements like, “Don’t worry too much about what you think the public wants.” You can’t please everyone.
February 7, 2014 at 10:08 pm
writersideup
Some of these really crack me up! Maybe you’re right, Tara….SCAAAAAAAAARY monsters might actually work best! π
February 7, 2014 at 11:13 pm
Carrie Brown
Thanks for sharing this, Tara! I hope to earn a bad review one day, too!
February 8, 2014 at 6:17 am
Margaret Flint Suter
I went through and watched all of these yesterday. They are wubbulous! As some wise one once said…”if I could poop gold coins, some folk would be pissed off ’cause they weren’t the proper denomination…” a grain of salt should be taken with these “critiques” and perhaps a shot or two;)
February 8, 2014 at 2:02 pm
Natasha
Well done, Tara, Video Queen. You roll with those punches!
February 8, 2014 at 5:56 pm
Jennifer at WriteKidsBooks
Utterly hilarious! Thanks for a smile. Okay, more than a smile, a genuine laugh-out-loud moment. π
February 9, 2014 at 1:50 pm
thiskidreviewsbooks
I like how Mr. Lubar holds up signs. π I just read HOLES and SMALL STEPS and loved them. π Great video!
February 10, 2014 at 2:22 pm
Wendy Wahman
I LOVE these! I would love to read one, Tara. How do I go about doing that? So true too, Sue Rankin.
February 11, 2014 at 1:12 pm
Tara Lazar
Wendy, just contact Marc and ask to be in the next installment!
February 15, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Wendy Wahman
Thanks Tara, I will.
February 11, 2014 at 2:20 am
Mrs Ricefield
These are amazing! I’m still working on my book, but I think I might try to do this with my own bad reviews (you know, the ones haunting me in my own head). I’ll write them down, then read them out loud in front of a camera to see how ridiculous I sound. π
February 11, 2014 at 12:19 pm
the blue desk
Thank You, fantastic way to face your bad reviews. Oddly enough all the bad reviews made me want to go out and buy the books to see if it is just that bad :-). Loved this post, funny!!
February 11, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Carol Gordon Ekster
This is healing for the soul. My worst review was removed from Amazon as the reviewer started ranting on how she’d never want me for her child’s teacher. Wait! What does that have to do with my book? Exactly! And she said I must have had a bad divorce (my book is a kids’ book on shared custody). I have never been divorced and have been married 40 years. I think it was the reviewer who had the bad divorce. And then there’s the one star review – “not suitable for children under 6 it makes them worry before knowing things will get better.” I had to answer that one with, “The publisher recommends age 6-10. Save and read it to your child next year. I hope it will give your son a sense of hope when he’s ready to hear it.”
February 17, 2014 at 7:17 pm
Henry Ranger
Good insights ya’ll. I aint much of a kid writer, but I am puttin my own book forth and every little bit helps and such.