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Getting Ready To Be Reviewed?
These tips will help you understand where the reviewer is coming from and what they are really doing.
(Items that are personally insulting or "flames" should never be responded to or argued with, that only encourages them. Delete or ignore them immediately.)
Quick Tips For Getting Reviews:
If you want a "professional" review, be a professional. It may not be what you want to hear, but listen to what’s being said. You never know what wonderful advice you can get from the worst constructive reviews. Your critics are important whether you realize it or not. They’ll be more honest with you than most people you know.
Someone is taking their time to meticulously go over your work, word-for-word. That kind of attention deserves some gratitude. Remember what they find just might have gotten you rejected from a publisher. Or worse, flamed and/or heckled from an angry reader.
Acknowledge the review. You don’t have to impliment every suggestion, but consider it. Look around online at other professional writing sites, if their information agrees with the advice of other professionals, try it. You don’t have to keep it, don’t even have to officially "change" your work. Just make a virtual copy and try it.
Don’t think your reviewers will always float around on a cloud of admiration for your work. Professional reviews never do. Expect errors, flaws, and everything else.
No, a reviewer is not flaunting their superiority or arrogance. They are doing what they’re supposed to do, as a friend or an online peer: finding errors. A reviewer is not supposed to inflate your ego or satisfy your insecurities. They are to help, to point out your weaknesses and make suggestions on how to improve or cover them. They help you with what you may overlook. It is a favor to you, whether you want to realize it or not. They will help you look at your work in a new perspective and possibly bring you closer to publication.
Please do not be sensitive. Sensitive writers get nowhere until they learn to separate the personal from the professional. Many seem to pout if you say a single "harsh" word about what they’ve written. They don’t take advice, act like they’re doing you a favor just by showing you their work, and become indignant when you make a suggestion.
You may be a misunderstood genius, but until you’ve gotten yourself established in sales and/or reader interest, forget about, "doing your own thing." It isn’t happening in the world of publication. The most you can hope for with that attitude is to land a small contract with a small or independent publisher. Even then, you have to work with their editors. Unless you have a few thousand dollars put back to put your work in print yourself, you have to follow the same rules everyone else does. If you want to, "do your own thing," and nothing more, don‘t attempt a career in the professional world. It’s frustrating and often disappointing. Even if you’re a great published author, you work for the publisher, not the other way around. You’ll always have plenty of competition who will bend over backwards for the publisher.
As long as the reviewer is giving you sound advice, try it. You never know. Don’t immediately shut them off simply because they found an error.
If the reviewer tells you something you believe is not your work at all, don’t get mad. Don’t get angry, irked, annoyed, vengeful, or malicious. Be appreciative, calm, cool, and collected. Don’t recant your wish to be a "professionally-minded writer," if you can’t take professional criticism.
Thank them and move on. Don’t ignore them or refuse to speak to a friend because of it.
