On Control
And Relinquishing It
Good morning and welcome to August, a month with a light in it I guess.
Today I have no preamble, because I have too much to say as usual. This article is about a topic I hope will be valuable to new writers and especially new authors who have chosen to self-publish their work, although as I often try to do—and sometimes succeed—I contain herein advice that will be broadly applicable to many nonwriting situations as well.
I’ll begin with two anecdotes on the subject of control—both from publishing, one ancient and one new—then dive into the topic proper. I’m letting you know so if you’re here for the publishing anecdotes you can take your content and be on your merry way. I know you read for the gory real-life tales from the publishing trenches so I’m trying to make them as accessible as possible. The trenches are actually gray cubicles.
I came to be the supervisor of a very seasoned editor somewhat my elder, who had been with the company we both worked for much longer than I had. She was seen by her peers as a mentor and the keeper of a wealth of institutional knowledge. She had a dour personality and sarcastic sense of humor, she was into exploring her cultural heritage (Scandinavian) and sailing. I liked working with her a lot and liked her personally. Shortly after I became her manager, she asked me if I could help her work through a problem she was having getting some of her projects done on time.
She let me know that her colleagues in Editorial were causing problems for her: Not responding to her messages timely, or responding without pieces of information she felt she needed, or responding to the letter but not the spirit of her emails—answering the asked question without any elaboration to help get to the root of what she was asking for. The problematic communications were causing delays in her own work as she had to go back multiple times to get the information she needed, or having to do work more than once if she proceeded without all the information.
I did a little digging and got to the root of the issue. The next time I met with her I told her, “Okay I think I’ve got this figured out. The thing is: The Editorial staff are having a poor reaction to your communication because of the tone and it’s putting them off working with you.” This was the most diplomatic way I could think of to say: They don’t want to work with you because you are rude as heck in your emails.
They had produced the emails to show me. They had the receipts.
I continued:
The solution is, when you’re interacting with your colleagues in Editorial, you need to take the friendliness up about 10 percent. I’m not saying you have to become friends with these people who you dislike and have palpable contempt for, but you will be better served by extending friendliness toward them. Try saying “Hey Dan, happy Monday” at the beginning of your email, or signing it off with “Thanks” instead of just dashing off a terse demand and sending. Put a smiley emoji in there somewhere. The specifics aren’t important. The key is injecting just a little bit of personability into your emails so your colleagues don’t feel like you’re barking orders at them.
She was incensed, and incredibly disappointed in me. She wanted me to go over to the other building and tell the staff they had to be more friendly and helpful to her; she did not want to hear that to get this treatment she would have to be more friendly and cordial to them. “But that’s not my personality,” she said. “That’s not authentically me. I shouldn’t have to pretend to be someone else to get what I need to do my job.”
To be clear, I don’t disagree with her: No one should have to code-switch to a “work persona” to be perceived as professional. That said, I found it glaringly obvious that the reason her Editorial contacts were treating her with the barest minimum courtesy required by the workplace is because she was treating them with the barest minimum courtesy required by the workplace. She didn’t see it the same way.
All told, though, the takeaway was this: Neither I (as your manager) nor you (as a contributor in the organization) can control them (a parallel department that is not subordinate to us). The only thing we have control of here is your behavior.
Second anecdote: I recently came across an author on the web seeking advice prior to self-publishing their next book. They planned to place a disclaimer on their new book and asked fellow writers and editors to preview. The disclaimer began:
This book contains scenes of [a specific type of sensitive content].
A good message; I approve. Trigger warnings/content warnings (TW/CW) are popping up on all kinds of material, and there’s no reason why should books be an exception. This kind of disclaimer will help readers looking for that type of content know this is a good book for them, and readers who do not want to read that type of content to move on. A great way to let readers know that your book contains this specific thing that some individuals might find distasteful or objectionable.
The disclaimer then went on to say:
If that type of content disgusts you, do not read or review this book.
Now we’re off the rails. It’s one thing to alert potential readers about the content your title contains, but quite another to tell them they’re not allowed to read it. It’s even more out of line to tell a reader they’re not to review the book—in fact, it’s absurd.
Although they received overwhelming feedback that this was a poor strategy given the aggressive second half of the disclaimer, the author ultimately concluded it was necessary to keep on the book. They were operating based on a perception that including this disclaimer would prevent “unfair” bad reviews.
The nature of publishing something—in fact the definition of publishing—is you make your content public. Once you do that, you no longer have control over who reads your work and who reviews it and what they say about it. I humbly suggest that there could not be a worse look for an author than to argue with one’s reviewers or try to control their freedom to review or what they say in their review.
The takeaway: You (the author) cannot control what they (the reading public) do with your content once you make it public. You cannot prevent fanfiction, fanart, critical reviews, satires, or parodies. You can only control your reaction to their action.
When it comes to what we control and what we can’t—as creators of content that we hope others will consume, and in all aspects of life generally—the bottom line is this:
You cannot control another person’s actions or reactions. You can only control your own actions and reactions.
When we make our content available to the public, we hope it will be well received. No one puts out work hoping that it will be panned (jury’s out on Jack Chick, I still think he might have been super committed to an exceptionally long con). We hope the reviews we get are positive, or at the very least fair.
We also hope it will be received by the audience we intended it for. If I wrote a romance novel and published it, I would hope for it to be picked up by romance readers. I hope it would not be picked up by a reader who despises romance novels and therefore is predisposed to hating my book.
There is no review more infuriating than the terrible one from a reader who acknowledges up front that they just don’t like the kind of thing your content is. I’ve received that review. I get it. If you said right on the tin “this text explores social and political themes” and a reader who only likes hard-as-nails military science fiction read it and reviewed it “One star, too much talking, not enough science”—that’s incredibly irritating. Nobody likes getting that review.
Here’s what you can do about it: Nothing.
Just kidding, there’s things you can do about it. These include:
Reveling in your natural defensive reaction for a brief amount of time.
Kvetching to your friends or fellow writers.
Taking a nap, or a bath, or meditating, or doing yoga.
Moving on.
You can’t control the reviews you get on Amazon or Goodreads. You can’t control what Publishers Weekly or Kirkus Reviews writes about your book, or what Michiko Kakutani says about it in the New York Times. You don’t get to talk to the reviewer; explain to them what they misunderstood or misinterpreted or didn’t appreciate properly; and then make them correct their review. If your book is reviewed poorly, you have to live with that. That’s the reality of publishing any creative work.
Herewith, a small handful of strategies both for preventing bad reviews in the first place and for handling them mentally and emotionally—one prepublication strategy and three post-publication strategies.
Listen to Your Betas
Have you ever had a beta reader or an editor tell you, “This part here isn’t working” and your response was, “Well they just didn’t understand; it makes perfect sense to me”?
I have been on both sides of this—I’ve had beta reviewer feedback that they didn’t understand something that made perfect sense to me; and I’ve given beta and editorial feedback to writers that I didn’t understand something, for them to respond by helpfully explaining the thing I didn’t understand.
When you publish your book, you will not have an opportunity to explain to readers the parts they didn’t understand. You have to write extremely carefully around parts that could be confusing before you let your book out into the world.
If an early reader tells you something confused them, they are not giving you a heads up that they’re just not a smart enough reader for your work. If you chose your beta readers with any discretion at all, then they’re representative of your real readers.
If a beta tells you they didn’t understand something, they’re alerting you to a problem in your text. It’s a storytelling problem. You have an opportunity to fix it. Don’t gloss over it as a reader problem. If you do, you’re likely to see the same thing crop up in your reviews.
Take a Scalpel to Your Blurbs
This is pre- and post-publication advice. If you’re submitting to an agent or publisher, this advice applies to your query letter, too. The text you use to market and advertise your book (or query it) needs to be scrutinized to the highest level of your ability. Get friends to help. If you’re working with an editor, get them to look at it. This is your C4 (back cover) copy, your book description on Amazon, the blurb you’re submitting to Publishers Weekly, whatever.
You need it to be compelling and well-written, yes, but above all you need to make sure you’re faithfully telling prospective readers of this text what they will get. There is no room for confusion in this marketing text. You cannot lead readers to believe you’re offering something you’re not. You cannot omit important information that could turn off readers who genuinely won’t like your book.
If your text is a thriller that contains some erotica, for example, you should make sure you describe it as an erotic thriller and not just a thriller or you’re going to surprise a lot of thriller fans, not always in a good way. You don’t need to spell it out or use a disclaimer, but your blurb should use language indicating the kind of elements this book contains.
Here’s a disclaimer, like an actual-facts disclaimer: I am not advocating that anyone read Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I’m serious. I’m not saying you should read it. I wish I could unread it.
But check this title out on Amazon or Barnes & Noble and read the description text. Note the use of words and phrases like “horrifying,” “disturbing,” “outrageous,” and “stomach-churning.” The description doesn’t specify exactly what’s in there that readers might find objectionable, but it makes very clear that this is not a book for the faint of heart and you should steer clear if you’re not up for being disturbed.
I am the faint of heart, apparently. Do not read it, I’m serious. I have a friend who will read today’s Shelf Life and text me a photo of a carrot and I will feel sick all day. I have no one to blame for this but myself—the book’s description warned me what I was getting into and I read it anyway. I also blame the friend who sporadically reminds me about the carrot. But mostly myself.
Takeaway: Don’t surprise readers with something they’re not expecting if it’s something that the average fan of your genre doesn’t or may not want.
Put It in Perspective
Next, a post-pub strategy. So, you got your first crummy review. You saw the single star. Your heart sunk a bit. You read it. Your cheeks got hot. You’re mad now. Fair bad reviews sting, unfair bad reviews are infuriating. You were so clear on what type of book this was and someone who doesn’t like this type of book read it and now they’re giving you one star because they didn’t like it. It’s a terrible injustice. I completely agree.
You know how earlier I was saying that if a reader doesn’t understand something in a book, that’s a writer problem and not a reader problem? It’s true because readers aren’t stupid. They can put two and two together and get the right answer if the clues are spelled out with at least the level of clarity they’re used to seeing in the type of book this is—that’s why they read. If they were routinely frustrated by not being able to understand books they’d watch television instead.
The readers can also put two and two together when they see an unfair review. If someone doesn’t like sci fi and reads your sci fi and goes, “Ew, one star, I hate sci fi!” readers will see this and discard it because they know it’s not a useful review. Amazon lets other users designate reviews as helpful, with helpful reviews sorting closer to the top. B&N, same functionality. Goodreads sorts reviews to the top that have the most user likes. The readers know when a review is trash.
Don’t Take It Personally
Finally, do your best not to take the review personally. If someone doesn’t enjoy your work, that does not mean your work is bad. It just means they didn’t like it. Not everyone likes everything they read. I don’t like Jodi Picoult’s books but that doesn’t mean* they’re bad. And an opinion of your work, however personal that work, is not an opinion of you.
Putting creative work out into the world means growing a thick skin and learning to take constructive criticism where you can find it and shrugging off mean comments. Mean comments are coming, no matter who you are or how well you write. It just took me thirty seconds to find a one-star review of To Kill a Mockingbird from someone who genuinely thinks it’s a terrible book.
Show me a book, any book, and I’ll show you someone who thinks that book is trash. Got a one-star review? Pat yourself on the back, you’re in the company of Harper Lee.
*I accidentally a whole word here and had to add it post-pub.
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