The Reader's Reviews Changed My Perspective on Writing

3 min read

Every writer reads their reviews and hopes they are positively glowing

When I released my first book, I was humbled when people actually took the time to leave reviews on the book.

But, it wasn’t until I began to release more books that I started really valuing what readers had to say, the reviews came from people that didn’t know me.

Was every review glowing and positive? Absolutely not. But that is why we need to have a thick skin as writers.

Because every reader is not going to fall in love with your work.

We all know that reviews are one of the big sellers for readers to grab your book.

I make it a point to check my reviews weekly because I wanted to know what readers think of my work.

This got me thinking about some of the reviews that really resonated with me and why.

Here are some:

This review was for my book Anywhere Else, a book near and dear to my heart.

It was very meaningful to be able to see how someone connected with something I wrote. To see how my words made this reader take a moment to think. That was more rewarding than I imagined.

This is a positive review from my book The Backup Superhero.

What was amazing were the reviews for this book that called out how my idea was different than many other books in the superhero genre. It was a very rewarding thing to hear that my first step into this genre was a success.

Here is another review for The Backup Superhero.

We all get reviews like this, where we weren’t able to meet the reader's expectations. And in this instance, I wasn’t able to. But then again, we aren’t able to have a home run with everyone.

But what this did teach me was that readers in the superhero genre expect bigger moves and that was what I was going to need to deliver later on.

Reviews can always be used as a learning experience.

Be sure to look at your reviews and see what readers have to say.

With that being said, however, take everything with a grain of salt. What doesn’t work for one reader will work for someone else. And you will often be surprised by what people have to say.

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