any press is good press
What do you do about bad reviews? Of course, there's nothing to be done about them, but do you respond? Do you let them get to you?
( Up until this week, I'd never gotten a bad review. )
( Up until this week, I'd never gotten a bad review. )
I think your comments were completely in line.
On FF I take the time to respond to every review I get. In the beginning I did this because it was easy to reply to the five people that were reading EYL. Now there are a lot more than five people reading EYL, but I still feel it is important to acknowledge the people who read and comment on something that I write.
Between chapters 21 and 22 of EYL there was a three week updating pause. During that time I wrote an entry for the Twilight Original Fiction contest, I started a beta group called Project Team Beta, and I was just BUSY in real life. When I finally had the opportunity to send out the replies to the reviews I included a brief note explaining the unusually long wait between chapters and that readers could expect an update soon.
I received many, many PMs telling me to take my time and that quality is more important than quantity, that sort of thing. One comment was, not so encouraging. A reader told me that I was not a serious author because I did not update on a daily schedule and that I obviously did not care about my story at all. She also told me that I owed my readers more frequent updates and that she would "try" to stick with my story even though I disappoint her.
I was shocked. Absolutely shocked. At first I did not know how to react. But then, I got angry. How dare she tell me that I am not a serious author or that I don't care about my story? Why the hell would I spend seven months writing something that I was not serious about or something that I did not care about? Even though I was angry, I decided not to comment. I thought long and hard about why she would have written me a comment like that, and ultimately decided that she was attempting to provoke some sort of reaction from me. I was not going to give her the satisfaction.
I had talked the situation over with my betas, who coincidentally had also received several not so nice PMs from readers demanding an update from them. They had been dealing with RL craziness and had been unable to update their story for a few weeks. Hearing about my situation kind of pushed them over the edge and they wrote an author's note that basically told people to chill out and be understanding. FanFiction is a hobby and real life will always take precedence.
Then something happened that forced me to no longer remain silent. The individual who PM'd me, PM'd my betas and was extremely rude. She told them that she knew the author's note was about her and the note she wrote to me, and that she wasn't going to allow someone to talk bad about her without standing up for herself. She said several other things, all were equally as inappropriate. The funny thing is, the note was not directed at her. Sure, the PM she sent me was the thing that provoked the note to be written, but the note was directed at the individuals who had PM'd my betas not the individual who had PM'd me.
I ended up writing her a very long PM, and basically took the high road. I was firm, but was not mean. I told her that if I felt the need to respond to her comment I would do it myself, not through my betas. I told her that if she is wanting to read a story that is updated on a daily basis she should look elsewhere, because that is not something I will ever be able to or want to accomplish. And, I told her that the message she sent to my betas was entirely inappropriate and she should read "WTVOC's Guide to Fandom Etiquette" on TLYDF for hints on how to behave more properly while interacting within the fandom.
She never responded to my PM but left me a nice review on the next chapter. I showed her!
This comment was filled with word vomit. Seriously.
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