When a reader takes the time to find your email address and compose a letter telling you they don’t like your books, how do you respond? How would you like to respond, if that’s different?
Two Stories:
1. The Case of the Nitpicker
I’ve never received an actual e-mail saying the reader didn’t like my books, but I have received critical feedback. One time a reader wrote to me and expressed his admiration for Styx & Stone, the first book in my Ellie Stone series. He noted the things he thought I’d done well and how the subject matter appealed to him. But he also offered a couple of quibbles he had with my research.
One, he wrote, was that the word “pheromone” was coined in 1959, and, therefore, it was unlikely that Ellie Stone would have used it in January of 1960. He was right, of course.
The second suggestion he made concerned a fictional LP I’d included in the story. It was a collection of excerpts from Rossini’s William Tell, conducted by Toscanini. My eagle-eyed reader pointed out that Toscanini had only recorded the overture (of course) and one other piece from the opera. That was not enough for an entire LP. Some folks might think it a forgivable error on my part, but I wished I had done better research. My correspondent was absolutely right.
His third point was that he could find no evidence that Van Cliburn had ever recorded Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto, another fictional album in my book. On the whole, however, he pronounced himself satisfied with Styx & Stone and went on to read—and critique—the next six books in the series.
I have continued to correspond with him all along, and we have become good friends, even if we’ve never met in person. We share similar interests and tastes. I even enlisted him as a beta reader for my last two books because—I told him—I’d rather he find the anachronisms and errors in my stories BEFORE they were published rather than AFTER. He’s an immensely thoughtful, educated, and intelligent guy. I’m so glad he wrote to me. I’ll identify him here only as Fred, though I gave him a full acknowledgement in my latest book, Turn to Stone.
2. The Case of the Brutally Frank Critic
My mother taught me if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
The second story involves a reader who spoke to me at an author event hosted by a large library in Southern California. Many writers participated in several panels that day, and we all enjoyed lunch at our tables with ten readers each. After the main event and our meal, we writers repaired to the book room, where we waited for readers to mosey past and perhaps buy a book and get it signed. One lady strolled by my table twice, eyeing my books as if debating whether to buy one. On her third pass, she stopped and informed me she’d read my first Ellie Stone mystery, the very same Styx & Stone Fred had written to me about.
“That’s very nice,” I said. “Thank you.”
She fixed her gaze on me for a moment then added, “I didn’t think much of it.”
I probably blanched. But, remembering the solid advice I’d received never to argue with reviewers, I told her I was sorry she hadn’t enjoyed it. What I really wanted to say would have qualified as ungentlemanly.
Having made my day, she moved on, surely to spread more sunshine to the other authors.
0 Yorumlar