- The angry about everything person
- The thoughtful negative review
- The crazy
All will hurt, of course, but you can spot the “angry about everything person” by looking at their other reviews. Do they have a list of other one star reviews in their portfolio? Yup, that’s an angry guy who just hates stuff. Rest assured their rant is just a rant.
“The thoughtful negative review” is from a person who normally gives positive reviews and truly didn’t like your book. Not such a bad thing. You can’t please everyone and other people who share the reviewer’s mindset will be thankful for the negative review and not buy the book, also leaving a negative review. For example:
“This book focused more on the romance then the war. Was expecting more fight scenes.”
That’s a great negative review. It helps the readers make a decision on buying or not. Or if you have a ton of grammatical errors, and people are complaining about it, for example:
“I liked the story but it was hard to read. Too many errors.”
That is another great negative review. It warns people who can’t stand misspellings to stay clear and people that don’t care as much will still buy it. It also helps you understand clearly that you need to get your books professionally edited before publishing. This advice is more for the self-publisher, since working with a publisher will get you a team of professional editors. You also have the opportunity to unpublish your book, get it properly edited, then publish it again.
Then you have “the crazy” negative review. For example:
“I didn't read the book but I hate chickens. And there’s a chicken on the cover. See it way in the back? I got bitten by a chicken once and this book clearly promotes chickens biting people.”
These negative reviews are funny and most people will realize the review isn't relevant.
Reviews can get removed by Amazon. The best way to get a review removed is to have people click “no” next to the statement that says “Was this review helpful?”
Once you click “no” you have the option to tell Amazon why. Look for the following:
- Attacks the author
- Mentions price
- Mentions a competitor
- Mentions something not true about the story or information (“...this book clearly promotes chickens biting people.”)
- Links something
- Accuses the book or author of something illegal
The Amazon review system isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but report reviews that violate any of the above. Cross your fingers and wait a few weeks and it may just get removed.
Other than that just realize that negative reviews will happen. The more successful the book, the more prone it is to negative reviews. Think of your favorite best selling book. Go take a look at it on Amazon. Lots of negative reviews, right? It’s part of the process.
If a book has a majority of reviews 4 stars or above, readers will consider it a good book. 100 negative reviews? In a mix of 2K positive, that’s a drop in the bucket and readers will still purchase your book.
What I do is read reviews for the first month to see what people think. Then I just don’t look anymore. I will check the “collective average” star rating and that’s it.
And never, ever respond to a negative comment. They frequently like to fight and click the option to get notices if someone responds. It results in an argument you can’t win and just end up looking foolish.
Still can't get it removed? Check out HugeOrange to take of it. It's not guaranteed, but they contact Amazon directly with a case to remove the review.