Attention! Sam Sykes does not disagree with the nature of bloggers! Nor does he consider bloggers a waste of time or their opinions invalid! Sam Sykes is a friend to all bloggers and has an excellent repartee with every one of them he’s met so far! If Sam Sykes could physically make love to all the bloggers he knew, he would! He has even threatened them with such before! Such is the depth of his love!
That particular horrifying message (it sure wasn’t the first and I doubt it’ll be the last, even in this post) is made just because I’m sure there may be some who would accuse me of being overly defensive, stepping on bloggers’ toes or just being a sensitive prick. I refute this both through the disclaimer above and the fact that I’m not even going to be talking about my books in this post.
We are, however, talking a book. A book, and the people who read it. The people who read it and the blogs they write. The blogs they write and the women who love them. The women who love them and the emus they raise.
That got a bit ridiculous, apologies.
We are, in fact, talking about The Left Hand of God. Wait, what? No, no, the other one. No, not the right hand. The left hand! Paul Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God. This is one of the “big” debuts of 2010, apparently, having received a lot of attention, apparently. I’ll take peoples’ collective word for this, as I haven’t heard anything. Nor have I heard anything about my own book besides what people tell me, but that’s really more of a personal fault. At any rate, the book seems to be very much either a “love it” or “hate it” kind of book.
The Speculative Scotsman does not love it.
I advise you take a moment to read that, as there’s some genuinely cool discussion that goes on there. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Maybe I’ll go to the bathroom while you finish.
…
Done? Good. Now read this follow-up. I’m not linking you these articles because I was mentioned in one them and contributed to both, but rather because I feel we could use a discussion about the whole dang thing. I’m going to clarify a few points here: one, I like Mr. Alexander, the Speculative Scot himself. Two, I have never read The Left Hand of God. And three: I think, if you have an inkling to, you should read it.
Now, I can see you other speculative Scots hoisting your haggis in preparation for hurling, but I must ask you to stay your intestinal projectiles for a moment while I clarify a few more things.
You will notice that I never said Mr. Alexander was wrong to say what he did. You will also notice that Mr. Alexander did not recant in the slightest. I would never ask him to do that and, if he had any integrity (and he has lots), he would never recant because I asked him to. He’s perfectly justified in telling us exactly what he feels about the book. What’s more, he’s doing his job: to give us his opinion and tell us why he thinks that way. This is what we expect from our blogs and they give us exactly that.
But that’s what we ask from them. And that’s all we give them. The only thing we can take from Mr. Alexander’s review is that he didn’t like the book.
I mention this because I see a lot of people occasionally looking at a blog and taking gray areas and putting them in black and white. They look at a review and say: “Oh, this book is bad, but this book is great.” This simply isn’t the case. As I said in the follow-up post, all we know is that the book didn’t work for Mr. Alexander. It might work for Mr. Peabody or Mr. Malone or Mrs. Hoffwoman, but not for this fellow. This is great. This is perfect. This is a guideline and, as I said, if our tastes are similar to Mr. Alexander’s, then chances are good that we’ll also share a similar point of view on the book.
Or will we?
The greatest thing about books is not only do they work for different people, they work on different levels, entirely. You can give the same book to ten different people and, while they may share similar views on certain aspects of the book, chances are they’ll also find something entirely different that no one else saw. This is what makes books special: they are interactive. You don’t just read them. They speak to you. You find things in them that some people miss. Your favorite books are probably just so because they do the same thing to you.
For example, look at Patrick Rothfuss’ book: The Name of the Wind. An excellent book, by all rights, but there’s a sharp divide between opinions of the main character, Kvothe. On the surface, he seems to be an arrogant blowhard, and the book is just a bunch of pages of a guy talking about how great he is. But that’s the surface. Beneath that, we’re left with a wonder of his true personality: what’s he covering up? What’s he lying about? What’s his story? Is he the snobby punk we see him as? Or is he something more? If you’re looking to me for answers, I really have no idea. Other people have a good idea, though, and theirs are all equally special and that’s what makes the book such a success and why people continue to love it.
This is my main point: if you feel a pull toward a book, read it. If someone else tells you it’s bad, still read it. If someone else who shares a lot of your opinions and tastes still says it’s bad, still read it. Because chances are that whatever caused you to be drawn to that book in the first place you will find again in its pages and discover something you didn’t think you would.
Now to clarify two other points: this does not mean you should buy every book you see and this does not mean that bloggers are at all pointless.
To discuss the first part: you definitely should research a book before you buy it. But perhaps you’d do well to listen to your instincts more than you might? Study the review and see what appeals to you. If you feel a pull just from the description of the book, it might be well worth it to check it out. In the reviews of Tome of the Undergates (I’m just bringing it up as an example! This does not count as a plug!), some people see the amount of gore, violence and intercharacter bickering and blanch (these people are wicked who you can see in every day life by the fact that they’re eating children and kicking puppies…maybe), while others jump up and down and get really giddy and curl up into a little ball of ecstasy at the mention of a long fight scene.
To discuss the latter: bloggers definitely do play a role in this proposed method of thought. And that role is the same they’ve been playing for ages: giving us their opinion. In this, they serve a few roles. For one, they actually tell us what the book is about and we can judge if it’s something we like. For two, they can expose us to the inverse of that “pull.” If you feel a sudden revulsion to a book, then it might be worth passing on it. Likewise, if you find a certain blogger has never steered you wrong in the past, they probably won’t steer you wrong this time.
But, let’s be totally honest: books aren’t too expensive. Between eBooks, paperbacks, used bookstores and sites that cater to them, you can probably find all the books you want. Hell, let’s be really honest: if you’re a serious reader (and I have no doubts that you are) and you’re starving, a shiny new book and a loaf of bread, to you, is a very difficult decision.
Just remember: there’s a wealth of books out there and you owe it to yourself to listen to you, first and foremost, when buying them. You never quite know what you’re going to find: something your favorite reviewer missed, something you never thought you might discover in any book and, nine times out of ten if you go to a public library, hobo poop.
I did read the Left Hand of God. Was one of the first books I read this year. But I have to say I couldn’t get into it.
Far be it from me to say the guy is a rotten writer and what no, cos he’s not. But the story is a paint-by-numbers that really didn’t hook me.
The minute I start skipping paragraphs looking for something interesting is the moment I am glad I only bought the e-book version.
Here’s the great thing about bloggers: There are lots of them and they all have different tastes, just like the rest of us. You find out their tastes by the reviews they give to books you’ve read yourself and weight their opinions by how well what their reviews say match up to what you thought. Hell, as an author, there are some review sites where I’d like to get a BAD review, because a good one would probably mean I’ve written something so elegantly dull that hardly any REAL people will actually like it. But you have to take your guidance from somewhere, and a survey of unbiased opinions is surely wiser than than looking at the cover, the blurb and the praise from authors from the same publishing house…
Except my books, obviously, where everyone should pay scrupulous attention to all of those things and none whatsoever to th lacklustre opinions of the ill-informed Internet… 🙂
It’s a good and thoughtful blog post this one – good on both you and Niall for bringing it into the discussion arena. I haven’t been blogging for very long, and hence have no real clue about whether people are reading my reviews and thinking ‘well, she says it’s awful/great [delete as appropriate]: therefore I will’.
What I do know is that bloggers have to keep their integrity, if they *do* want anyone to listen to what they say. So Niall is 100% right to say he didn’t like the book – and any other future books he doesn’t like as well. This means that when he does tell us he loves a book, we are more likely to think ‘well, hey, that is a book worth checking out!’ If a blogger decided to give pretty good reviews to everything they read, then no one can really know what their thoughts are.
In terms of picking up books that even have bad reviews, I agree wholeheartedly with Sam. I intend to read The Left Hand of God – not soon, y’know? But I will read it. Probably when I can pick it up read cheap at a later stage. I will then make up my own mind on the matter.
I’ve read some sincerely bad reviews from people for books I loved. I’ve read some excellent reviews for books I’ve hated. *shrug* We all have different opinions, which is GREAT. This is what gives us such a wealth of books to choose from in the first place – because we all have such different opinions, the publishers feel more able to take a plunge on all those debut authors because they know someone, somewhere is gonna love this book. So celebrate our differences in opinion!
Rambled on for far too long – essence of post is that I agree with both Niall and Sam on this one 🙂
The issue of how much influence bloggers have/should have comes up from time to time. I still think the most important thing is, if you are being talked about then when people are shopping they will remember the name and the cover better than they remember the comments, and that familiarity can translate to purchases.
I was among those who wrote a comment about removing the book from my reading list after reading the TSS review of The Left Hand of God. I recognized myself in what Niall wrote about the book. That is not always the case with all the bloggers. In the past, I purchased many books even if they had not great reviews. As I mentioned in my comment about the review, that book is off my reading list for 2010. That doesn’t mean I won’t read it in the future. There is so many potentially good books out there, so when I read a review about a book I’m looking ahead to buy and what I find out is that it probably won’t fit with my taste, I put them aside. I think that’s what bloggers reviews are for.
I agree with Sam about much of what he wrote but I think that most people are able to understand that a review is not a black and white thing. Most readers must know that a negative review is simply negative in the way the reviewer feels. Aside from some special cases, a negative review doesn’t always mean a bad book. You have to go in-depth when you analyze a review. Anyway, I hope that’s what people are doing.
You leave my emus out of this, Sam!
Hagelrat is right: be it good press or bad, if people are talking about your book, if there’s buzz of any sort surrounding its release, there’s got to be a greater chance that the average Joe or Jane will recognise it when he or she is window-shopping in Waterstones or browsing in Borders. People aren’t like lemmings – as Sam says, we can and should be making up our own minds about whether or not a particular thing appeals to us, be it a book, a film, new food or fashion. As far as books go, a review, whether positive or negative, serves firstly to give people who otherwise wouldn’t look twice that first incentive to pick up, say, The Left Hand of God, or indeed, Tome of the Undergates, and make their own decisions according to their own criteria.
And though a part of me rebels against it, there is that other point that no-one’s quite making. The Speculative Scotsman may only be a month and change old, but I’ve been lurking amongst the community for years, and as such I don’t think I would be far off-base to say that a negative review on a blog, any blog really, seems to be an uncommon thing. It’s not like there’s a chance Orbit or Gollancz would stop sending ARCs to The Guardian or The Times if either made a habit of ripping their publications to shreds – the exposure is just too valuable – but as far as blogs go, I imagine things are quite different.
Bloggers are in the unenviable position of either buying just the books they want to read, and therefore leaning necessarily towards covering only those novels that they’re likely to react positively to, or relying on publishers to send them a selection of the good, the bad and the ugly alike. In that latter case, the bloggers in question must then decide how important the relationships he or she has with those publishers are before publicly savaging a book they’ve particularly disliked. There’s certainly bad press to be had in the blogs, but largely I think it’s a case of good press to be lost.
Now I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that blogs which rely on ARCs and the like are dishonest – I’d only be shooting myself in the foot, let’s be honest – but I feel there’s an important point to be made in amongst all that thinking-out-loud. At the end of the day, I don’t necessarily trust a good review in the way that I do a negative perspective; a reviewer has nothing to lose by saying nice things about something, and much to gain. A bad review, on the other hand, will do him or her no favours – it’s akin to biting the hand that feeds. Suffice it to say I don’t imagine any attempts I make to establish a working relationship with Michael Joseph, the UK publishers of The Left Hand of God, will meet with much success. For a book to be met with indifference or outright negativity, therefore, there have got to be some real problems for a blogger to take that chance.
Of course, none of that changes the fact that ultimately, readers must make their decisions for themselves. Better that they’re informed decisions, though, and better still that they’re decisions made bearing in mind the advice of bloggers whose reactions in the past have been similar to your own.
But for me, for the reasons outlined above, when I’m looking to add to my collection of books, a single bad review carries substantially more weight than a single good review.
Gollancz sends ARCs to bloogers who write good reviews for our books. Scandal!? Corruption!? Well steady on just a minute. By ‘good’ I mean well written and reasoned. It’s perfectly possibly for someone not to like I book I love (a painful and dismaying truth but a truth nevertheless) and if they explain why and that explanation is coherant and faithfully represents a genuine belief I will keep on sending books to that blogger. Why? Because I want our books reviewed by reviewers who are trusted by their readers (maybe even if their reader doesn’t agree with them in turn about a particular book).
Someone doesn’t like one of our books but then likes the next one people will get a sense of the sort of reader they are and when they have that they’ll start trusting them.
A literary taste is broad and complicated and sometimes contradictory(well it at least it should be)if a bloogers reviews reflect that complexity that’s good enough for me. It’s as simple as that.
‘perfectly possible’, ‘coherent’, ‘blogger’s’ not ‘bloogers’ (like that one especially). Jeez! Aren’t there any editors round here?
I particularly enjoyed the bloogers bit!
Sadly, Simon, I don’t know that many publishers and publicity sorts are nearly so… what’s the word? Understanding isn’t quite it, I was going for more of a sort of Buddhist zen-state, but it’ll do for now. Anyway, I’m sure you know that there are men and women in high places who are apt turn on the likes of a little blogger over a few negative reviews, but happy to support bloggers who review good books badly, if positively.
But I should hide before I tread on any more toes. I just feel that it’s an important question to ask. Full disclosure and all that. And there does seem to be something of a dearth of negative reviews on blogs; more esteemed resources, meanwhile, seem to revel in being contrarian and even snotty.
Thinking out loud is perhaps not a great idea, however.
Bloogers! 🙂
First, great post Sam – well said.
Second – I love to read well-written negative reviews because they often say so much more than positive reviews do. And they often lead to me getting the book anyway – either because the reviewer disliked the book for the exact reasons I may like it or because my masochistic instincts kick in and I just need to experience it for myself – like when your buddy tries some really horrible beer (or food, or whatever) and your first instict is to say, let me have go. So, good review Niall and it was an interesting follow-up post (though since I didn’t really have anything to add I didn’t post over at your blog).
Now Niall, you go a little far in my opinion to imply that bloggers give positive reviews to stay in the good graces of any publisher kind enough to feed them books. I think this is bullshit. Some bloggers may fear this and may give positive reviews as a result, but these bloggers generally would reak of amaturism and probably aren’t all that likely to stick around or get many books from publishers in the first place.
Now I do agree that blogger reviews tend to be rather positive. I think the real reason for this is that the typical blogger reviewer is a fan first. And they generally have a pretty good idea of what sort of book they enjoy – and those are the books they choose to read. Very few people actually pick up a book they don’t think they’ll like. So, this automatically skews reviews towards the positive.
As Simon indicates and my own experience supports, publishers want well-written (or close-enough to well-written) reviews and really don’t care if they are ultimatley positive or negative. I’ve never had any publisher hint that I shouldn’t have written a negative review. Heck, I enjoy writing negative reviews even if I don’t do it all that often. They are fun and challenging – especially since I try to write it in a way that someone may still decide it’s the book for them even though I basically trash it – I got lots of this sort of thing when I reviewed a Salvatore book a few years ago – many people were very excited to read it for the exact reasons I disliked it so much. Oh and Simon – you still have my address right? hint, hint 🙂
There is of course a good reason I rarely post a negative review. Time is limited and I rarely finish a book if something hasn’t been good enough to keep me reading.
I know I am not the only blogger who feels this way. I also review many more books that I bought myself than came from any other source. I’ve found that when I have posted negative or mixed reviews both authors and publicists have been pretty laid back about the whole thing. In some cases the author is someone I was chatting too long before I read their book and I hate being negative but I go ahead and do it anyway. It’s part of being in this business right? I would not wish to continue my relationship with a publisher who could not handle a negative review so that is easily resolved.
What I am not, is cruel, or needlessly harsh. I am not trying to make a name for myself as a personality, I just want to provide honest opinions.
I’ve only written a few negative reviews so far (in large part because I buy all of my own books and I tend to buy books that I think I’ll enjoy), but I will admit that I enjoy the challenge of writing a negative review. Writing a positive review is easy: pull out a thesaurus and find as many words similar to fun, good, exciting, etc. When something is enjoyable, you know why. The characters are awesome! Perhaps the action sequences are intense, or the writing is beautiful, or whatever. I like giving praise where praise is due, but it doesn’t stress me to describe things I love.
But articulating why a novel doesn’t quite work can be an exercise in frustration. As a reader, I may know that it didn’t quite work, but not be able to put my finger on what’s wrong. Often, something is missing. Maybe the characters weren’t as sympathetic as I’d like, or the plot was a bit clumsy. So, as a reviewer, I need to figure out what went wrong. Even after I’ve identified the problem, how do I describe it? The issues I have with a book aren’t going to be universal. I may be frustrated by the very same things that someone else loves. I try to frame my criticism in such a way that I recognize the book fails to satisfy my personal preferences, rather than throwing out the blanket description of “BAD!”
This is the main reason I’m not certain about scoring in reviews. A 5/5 to me may be a 3/5 to someone else, for legitimate reasons. When I check Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews, seeing that a film got 60% isn’t particularly helpful; individual reviews provide a better understanding of whether the film will appeal to my individual tastes. After some debate, I decided to assign numeric scores in my book reviews, but I broadened my scoring. I score not just by the overall experience, but also categories such as “writing” and “characters.” I’ve not yet decided if this system satisfies me, but it allows me additional leeway. I may decide to scrap the numbering; some people find it too easy to fixate on the score and ignore the five paragraphs I spent explaining how I really felt about what I read.