As a person who is putting creative work out there for the enjoyment of all – and I do mean all. Buy my books, love me, and bask in my awesomeness! Anyway,  I understand that reviews are important. Believe it or not, reviews actually help sell books. Good reviews. Bad reviews. They all help. And the more reviews you have, the more of a proven commodity you are.

Everyone says, “don’t read your reviews. You’ll just hate yourself.” To a point, they’re right. Every good review, you’re flying high. With every bad review (and there will be some – not everyone is going to like your work), you wonder why you got involved in a creative process in the first place. The high’s and low’s can be a little manic, honestly.

However, I read every single review that comes my way. After all, I’m still learning and getting better. I’ll forever be shaping my work to make it the best it can be and some of those reviews had good points; one’s I’d never even considered before. They have absolutely shaped my writing. Some of them were crazy and I’m woman enough to be able to logically reason out constructive criticism from asshats with too much time on their hands. Because there are those people too.

You have to develop a thick skin in order to function this way. People will say some really horrible things about the work you spent months or even years on. They don’t have to look you in the face in order to say them so it doesn’t really matter to them. This is where you have a choice to make. Do you read the reviews? Or, do you just put your work out there and be done with it?

I have chosen the hard way. It’s helped and hurt me. In the beginning, I cried every time someone hated my work. I second guessed myself. But, after a while, I saw the value in what some of them were saying. I thrived and rejoiced as I proved some of them wrong when they’d said I’d never publish anything else. I have 8 published novels now and I’m kinda spiteful like that.

What is the point of all this? Well, the point is really that you should leave reviews. Like it. Don’t like it. Leave a review. The book/movie/album/show may not be your cup of tea but it might be right up someone else’s alley. Every little bit helps.