I think it's fine to write a negative review as long as it doesn't get personal, and all of the negative reviews I've read have been that way - they've been well written, thoughtful and careful not to attack the author. I also think it's the reviewer's responsibility to be honest with her audience. I've written several bad reviews and have never gotten any response from the author or publisher. I think I would just ignore it if I did. An author did post a comment thanking me for reviewing her book and my review was only lukewarm.

If a book has come to me through the author or publisher (self-published or otherwise) - I give them an out. I offer to send them a copy of the review with up to one week to contact me back and ask me to not post it. Only a few have asked to see it first and so far (knock on wood) I haven't 'hated' any book that has come to me through an author or publisher.

When I haven't liked a book I do try to balance it with constructive criticism and/or positive points about the book. Not every book is for every reader.

Thanks for your input Dave! I did a post on this myself today.

I think that it is important to point out some of the flaws or negatives, when writing a book review. It is also important to include many of the good points. Sometimes I find it difficult to read and review certain books because of certain content and/or it’s not a genre that I am very familiar with.

A little bit of constructive criticism never harmed anyone. It’s how you say it, not so much what you say.

I think it is important to keep in mind that it is only my opinion and others could write a completely different review and rate it very differently.

Up to this point, I’ve found the ‘bad’ points of a book to be: insufficient editing, story flow and pacing.
So far the books themselves are ok or at least have the potential to be a good book. I try to find good points, a few negatives if there are any and let my blog readers decide for themselves.

I try to be respectful of authors and their books because I know that a lot of time and heart has been poured into it and to each individual author, it means a great deal. Even if the general public does not feel the same way, it is still someone’s 'baby'.

As an independent book reviewer, I am still learning and improving my own technique. I hope that I am informing my readers correctly on the books that I review.

So far I haven't had any 'angry' comments from authors, only happy ones.
Let’s hope it stays that way!

First off, thanks for the shout-out. The author's unfortunate behavior sparked a very interesting discussion among book bloggers, and I'm happy to be part of it. Our integrity rides on the honesty of our reviews and the quality of our writing. There are so many book blogs out there that readers have plenty of choices and would actively avoid bloggers who attacked authors or who did not provide substantive reasons for disliking a book.

What I find really interesting (and more than a little ironic) about this particular case is that the author in question has spent a lot of time accusing everyone else of harming his reputation but hasn't yet realized that his behavior and public remarks are doing the job for him.

Anytime I've really hated a book, I usually don't review it at all- you can tell the ones I really disliked when there is, for example, an author interview or guest post NOT accompanied by a review. Sometimes I will post negative reviews but sometimes it's just not worth the trouble to me. I do try to be fair and find something nice to say about most books. It's really only when I can't that I decline to say anything. Authors who complain about negative reviews need to get a grip and realize that sending someone a galley doesn't- and shouldn't- guarantee positive press. If people promised to post only positive comments or reviews, there would be absolutely no validity to the whole process. The author might as well just pay for professional ad copy.

I guess reviewers should always have the humility to say that a book didn't suit them -- and here's why -- but others might like it. It's almost impossible to create a book that everyone will like. But as many bloggers have said, that doesn't mean it's unfair to point out holes in a plot, poorly drawn characters or other flaws.

Well the last couple of days certainly have been *ahem* interesting. Things like this pop up more often than we think. The blog owner in question, in this instance, spoke up about it. And I'm glad she did. Lit Blog people tend to circle the wagons and support our own. Now as to your questions....

1. Nope, never shied away from a bad review. But I will say this - a negative review for a self-published book is going to be different than a negative review of a book coming from a publishing house. Why? Quite honestly, I suppose it's because the self-published author has already been through a bit of agony not being able to find a publisher. In most cases, I suppose they thought long and hard before spending their own money to get what they have to say out there to the world at large. They've been through a lot of rejection, probably didn't have enough money to hire a big-time copy editor, nor did they have the guidance that a publishing house would have given them, had their book been picked up. So I lean towards constructive criticism in those cases and as bad as the book might be, I try to find something good to say about it as well, just to temper the not-so-good.

Now a book that came through a publishing house is a horse of a different color. When I read a sloppy book with grammatical errors, spelling errors, holes in the plot, bad dialogue, etc, I'll generally let them have it with both guns. With all the resources available to them, there is no excuse for that.

2. I've gotten a couple of angry responses from authors on Amazon, but what are they going to do? Vote down my ranking? (Now that's something I really care about, ha). Although......there has been a case (or maybe two) of Amazon reviewers getting sued. Isn't that amazing??

3. Self-published authors don't have the threats of their publicists hanging over their heads, so they tend to have less restrained reactions to criticism, in my opinion. With all the time, heartache, money, etc they've put in to self-publishing, they are so vested in the book that emotions override.

All of this is certainly a relevant issue in the blog world. I, for one, will not shy away from giving a negative review when warranted. If I only give good reviews, I feel like I'm serving up a big dish of bland oatmeal every single day. Boring. And no one who is an avid reader believes that all the books we read are so wonderful. An honest lit blogger will certainly, in the end, garner a heck of a lot more respect than the blogger who only reports "nice" reviews.

I also just posted on this in my post: Are you honest or polite? both? Let's talk.

I really agree with what you say too though, that we are critics and we are reading and giving our two cents about books, we do need to be able to accept some criticism ourselves. It is hard though, when it comes down to it.

my blog: http://exlibrisbb.blogspot.com/

I've invited several author friends to add their voices to this conversation. Click here and here for interesting input from published authors who have been on both sides of the reviewing coin.

Great post. I agree, I would shudder to think that the kind of invective spewed in the political world might find its way to the gentler literary world. On the other hand, it's funny that an author would feel so insulted about a level of criticism that a pol would consider almost tender in its regard.

This seems to pop up occasionally and the behavior of these authors always amazes me. I have reviewed very few books where I found I had nothing positive to say, so I usually find it pretty easy to give some sugar along with the lumps of coal. I am lucky that most of my responses from authors have been very pleasant experiences.

I decided from the outset (nearly 3 years ago now) that I wouldn't do excoriating criticism on my blog, I only write about books I've loved because to be honest time's ticking on and I don't have any to waste on books for which I often think I'm just the wrong reader. Plenty of people out there who will be the right reader for them and I'm not going to diminish their reading experience because no way do I feel qualified to do that.
So from all of that you may also deduce that I don't call myself a book reviewer because that involves being objective about my reading and I don't do that either. I'm a flouncy, pouncy book tigger because this is all about a love of reading good books and sharing that passion about how a book has affected me emotionally, why I'd press it on you if we met in the street etc.
I've been criticised for taking that stance too but hey, it's my blog and nobody pays me a penny to write it, the day someone offers me a fortune who knows, perhaps I could do 'tough reviews' but until then it's Mrs Nice Guy here in Devon UK :-)

I was actually thinking about this the other day, because even bad reviews on a blog can lead to sales for an author. Really, if you want to promote books you love, the best way to do it is only to review books you love. I think it's great you do that, as its your blog and your choice!

I think even a bad review is better then no review at all, I just wrote a book and I had some people say some pretty bad things about my book. But you know I wrote the book for me, and I enjoyed doing it. I think if you can't take a bad review your in the wrong business and should keep your writings in your journals.
That's what I did for almost ten years, I never allowed anyone to even take a peek. I guest for me one reason was because I know I don't have the best grammar in the world.
Here is what I think if you can find someone to say the worst thing they can think of about your work, your in business.
It means they took time out to look at your work.

The only thing that I can think of is, once I read and reviewed a book by an author, who was really sweet in the beginning until it seems that she read my review and then never spoke to me again, but I didn't apologize because I was just expressing my opinion. I don't know what else to say, but that everyone is not going to love all of the books that they read. That's just the way it is - but when I don't like a book I just say on my blog - 'Don't take my word for it, check it out yourselves!'

I try very hard to post my reviews in such a way as to make it clear that while I didn't like the book there were elements that I did enjoy. On the occasions when I just can't stand a book--for whatever reason--I save my ranting for my personal blog and write a short paragraph about the book on my book blog stating that this book was not to my liking and I could not fairly review it. A lot of times when I take an extreme dislike to a story or book I tend to not be as eloquent or gracious (leaning more towards the extreme emotionalism that isn't constructive feedback at all and more of a 'omg did I hate this' variety) which isn't fair to an author to have to read in a public forum.

As for grading self-pub differently..I agree that the standards should be the same as a house-published book. I've read some very good self-pub'ed books and from those the author gets picked up by a major house, then again I've read some barely comprehensible self-pub'ed books and can see why the author was rejected by every major publishing house in the world. I sometimes wonder if the self-pub'ed authors who do get rejected, but then succeed with their book and get picked up by a House if it was just the editor or agent who didn't like the story and another one would have.

I've had a couple angry emails from both sides of the fence (self published and traditionally published). In my experience how the book was published doesn't seem to predict an author's response to a negative review.

As an author who has occasionally experienced negative reviews from bloggers, I have to admit that it hurts my feelings, but I understand that if you are going to "play" you sometimes have to "pay." By the time most authors have been published, we've experienced a healthy dose of rejection from agents and publishers. We generally develop fairly thick skins. It's possible I suppose that self-published authors may not have been pummeled by so many rejection letters and may bruise a bit easier.

On my site, I review strictly nonfiction books, and I've found some real doozies out there. I review them all - positive, negative, or just so-so, I tell it like it is. My reviews are written for potential readers, not the authors, so if the authors don't like what I have to say, well...sorry, it turns out I wasn't too fond of what they had to say, either! LOL!

But honestly, I don't do many bad reviews, simply because I try to only review a book if I finish it (I've only made one or two exceptions to that rule that I know of) and if the book is truly horrible, then I have a hard time forcing myself to finish reading it. ;-) I did have one author who lambasted me for my review, but I posted a rather nice (and very long) response to his comment, and never did hear back from him. Other than that, I don't believe I've ever been chewed out by the author. I have been chewed out by readers who found my site through Google, didn't like what I rated a book, and told me all about it though. ::shrug::

I figure it comes with the territory. All of this is completely subjective - it isn't like math, where 1 + 1 always equals 2. Sometimes people disagree on how well written a book is (violently disagree in extreme cases) and I just chalk it up to human nature.

PS I don't review self-published books at all - I forgot that portion of the question. ;-) It's just that I have a hard enough time keeping up with all of the books I bring home from the library - I couldn't possibly keep with others.

I think some people think that bloggers are easier to intimidate since they aren't part of a larger organization, like a newspaper, which likely has a legal department. For what it's worth, posting an excerpt is almost certainly fair use (i.e. legal under copyright law) but using an image of the cover is stickier, although a small image is probably also fair use. So authors are free to bemoan negative reviews, but they almost never have any valid legal recourse.

I just started blogging book reviews, but this is my philosophy on writing reviews for books that were less than worthy:

1. Use "I" statements as much as possible. For example, instead of saying something like "The author was long-winded and redundant", you might say, "I felt that this particular thought could have been more succinct." Kind of like they say to do in an argument with someone, say "I feel I could use some help with washing the dishes" instead of "You never help me wash the dishes".

2. Start with a positive, end with a positive, and sandwich the negatives in between. This is a technique I learned as a teacher when talking to parents about difficulties I was having with their child. You soften them up first by noting the positives, then you let them know your concerns, then you end it on a good note. Even if the positive is the cover design or they managed to spell most of the words correctly, state something that was good about it. Give the author something positive to work with.

3. Remind yourself how you would feel reading a negative review of your own book. After you finish writing the review, re-read it as if you were the author reading someone else's review of your book. Were you a bit more harsh than you intended to be? Is there a better way to word something that gets your point across without sounding abrasive or aggressive? Is the criticism constructive or just demeaning? If necessary, rewrite some parts to make it more constructive so the author can use the information he/she is receiving to make positive changes to his/her next book.

Of course, reviewers are just as human as authors, so you can't be perfect all of the time. These are just guidelines that might help us to write reviews that are the most helpful to both readers and writers.

I have had angry responses from authors and I have had grateful thanks from authors, but my review is my review. It is only my opinion so it stands or falls as that. I would never hold, or edit a review, based on what the author or publisher wants.

Reviewers who write a dissertation or novella can be a bit much for any author. They will give up the storyline,plot,sub plot and if its a mystery the killer.Hey-tell us if you enjoyed the read. Did the story take you to a place you wanted to be. Make you laugh or cry.Turn page after page and the like. Needless to say I have not read the perfect review yet but I will say when that day arrives I will probably find it on a blog and not in the Times.

Sometimes it can be constructive criticism one reviewer said my photos were great but the commentary and captions were abysmal and that I should stick to photography and forget writing. . So... I removed most of the commentary and captions and the book looked better even to me!

I give bad (i.e., "negative") reviews where they are deserved but I would never review a self-published author. I also choose -- and buy -- the books I review, and don't accept review copies. Reviewers have the right to review. That's what we do. As long as there is no libel involved, if you publish, you are inviting reviews--good, bad, indifferent, fair and unfair.

I don't write very many negative reviews but it's not something I consciously do. I just get so caught up in the magic of the reading experience (I do the same thing with movies that I see at the movie theater) that a book has to be really, really, really boring before I will consider it bad. So far, I've written entries about over sixty books and only about 3 or 4 of them have bored me to the point where I didn't like them. And when that happened I just said that I didn't care for the book and kind of left it at that - but my blog isn't so much a blog where I review books, but where I chronicle my project of trying to read a book a day for a year - so I don't necessarily write the entries in the style of a book review. It's more like "Here are 2 or 3 highlights of the book." And usually, even the worst books have a few sentences, or paragraphs, that are interesting enough to write about.

the only negative response i received was on Library Thing....i received an ARC from the LT Early Reviewers program...and i posted a semi-negative note about the book on LT...i received a note from the author of the book (did not know he was also on LT) asking me to NOT post a negative review.....i replied that "i receive ARC copies of books..with my Review as a given...positive or negative is an issue??"

was i wrong? does an Author have the right to control his/her reviews? Can any Author be so insecure