Anne Rice from her conversation with her son Christopher Rice in the new issue of FourTwoNine magazine: I also learn a lot from Amazon reviews of my work. I am one of the few authors that actually reads the reviews ... Well, actually, I don’t recommend it to young writers. The Amazon forums are dominated by the worst anti-author gangster bullies that you can imagine. You know, just, trolling for authors to persecute and denigrate and lecture. So don’t go near Amazon if you’re a young writer. The review system is so random that you can read things that will hurt you and block you for months. I mean, just, don’t go near it. But, I do go there and I do read my reviews. I read many wonderful, generous reviews everyday that teach me things. But again, I’m older now. You know, I can look at the hateful, contemptible review and see if for what it is. I can appreciate the well-written negative review and value it and distinguish between the two. But it takes years to reach that point so again my advice to any young author out there would be don’t go near it. I’ve written reviews for newspapers. I’ve written reviews for The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and the Bay Guardian. And I have read the remarks of great reviewers and they say, Don’t review a book for what it never intended to be. Don’t review a book for what you wish it had been. You review a book for what it’s attempting and what it’s accomplishing in light of that attempt. That’s very important. But we were talking about relationship with readers and I would much rather read an Amazon review or a Facebook post to the old fashion review world where you only had the opinion often of very alienated newspaper reviewers. I think we’re living in a great age for writers being aware of who their audience is and how the audience feels and what the audience values about their work. Frankly, I love it. I’m very grateful for it.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:16:57 +0000
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