Every author or publisher assumes that the response will be positive when they send an about-to-be-published book out to professional book reviewers in the media. This is partially correct since many media outlets won’t comment on or publish a negative review.
To illustrate, years ago I recall hearing from a book reviewer at a major Christian periodical that they would not publish a review because they only print those that are positive or at least helpful to readers. No specifics would be given, and no further comment would be made about what they didn’t like.
Since a negative review would only draw blowback and questioning from the author, the author’s friends, and the publisher, they wouldn’t say anything at all if they couldn’t say something nice. In other words, they didn’t need the headache from an argument.
This is generally present only in the Christian media world. Except with the explosion of podcasts and other independent media efforts, more and more negative book reviews are published since they make good clickbait as a list of the ‘Ten Worst Books of the Month” or something similar.
The wider media market or the not-Christian media have no problem going scorched-earth on a book they don’t like. It’s an entirely different world of interaction, where feelings are not considered and concern over the hurt caused has little or no place. Business is business.
So, the first reason your book might not be reviewed in the media is it didn’t meet their standards, and they chose to skip it. They didn’t like the book or the author, or both.
The second and increasingly common reason for the lack of professional reviews and endorsers is that there are too many books to review. This has always been the case. But now, between all forms of book publishing in the US, there are a million or more books published each year; and only a tiny percentage of them are ever noticed by someone of influence, much less receive a published positive media review.
Today, with so much reviewing of books happening directly online from customers, rather than professional book reviewers, forget the “if you can’t say something nice…” concept and welcome to the wild, wild west of opinions. No opinion is left unexpressed.
A corollary to this issue is the awful habit of many authors checking their Amazon reviews too often. I spoke with an author years ago who checked every hour. Honestly, it’s an emotionally unhealthy habit. I’d rather walk around all day with a rock in my shoe than do that. Masochism knows no limits.
Online consumer reviews either inflate you or deflate you unnecessarily. They are never helpful to the author. A case could be made never to read them. The only metric that matters is sales. Review trolls prowl about looking for something to devour.
Similarly, more and more high-profile people never read the comments on their social media.
But, of course, we read every one of the comments left below!
