Criticism Is Not All Bad @Solsticepublish

There is a school of thought when it comes to book reviews that only five star reviews are desirable.  In a perfect world everyone would love your work.  I, however, am not a member of a perfect world.  That’s okay with me.  Not everyone is going to love your work all the time.  It is the nature of entertainment.  Take a famous singer for example.  That person may have 5 number 1 hits on their album, but there are songs on it that did not go number 1.  In fact, many of the other songs probably didn’t even get played on the radio.  That artist worked hard on those songs.  Maybe they were some of their favorites on the album.  There might be a bit of a sting when you put your heart into something like that and people don’t appreciate it.  That doesn’t take away from the fact that the singer was quite proud of those songs.  Steven Tyler from Aerosmith was once interviewed for a documentary and footage was shown of the band’s record producer putting down some of the songs for the new album.  He was indignant.  In the interview he explained that each song is like your baby that you have created and someone is criticizing that offspring.  It hurts.  I can understand that.  Anything that attacks your baby is upsetting.  People may love a song he never thought much of and detest the one he was most passionate about.  None of that matters to the creator.  If it’s your baby and you love it…that’s all that matters.  I have been fortunate to have mostly positive reviews.  The negatives that were pointed out were either simply a difference in taste or perhaps something I might want to look into for the next book.  Criticism can be very helpful when taken in a constructive way.  It makes you better at your craft.  I would never have even been able to compose a book if my father was not so hard on me about my writing.  My writing would have been abysmal if my teachers in school had not demanded more from me.  When I have a review with parts which are unflattering, I take it with a grain of salt and look at it from a larger perspective.  Is this just not the person’s cup of tea or do they have valid points.  Whichever it may happen to be, I am grateful someone took the time to review my work in the first place and then take the time to write a piece on it.  The most amazing part of reviews to me is that people see parts of the book which I never gave much thought and find it the reason to love the work.  Then areas I painstakingly researched and plotted out were “skimmed”.  Everyone sees different things in art.  You could be looking at a book or a painting or listening to a song.  As long as it speaks to you in some way, then my efforts have touched your life.  I can think of no greater gift an artist can bestow.  As for the reviews with criticism, each of those reviewers has expressed a desire to read the next book, “Sapphire Crucible”, which is currently being edited.  They couldn’t have disliked the first book that much.