dipity tips - How to Handle Negative Feedback & Reviews On Your Poetry Collections
addressing negative feedback and reviews on books and projects you put out into the world
So based on a poll, I thought I’d cover handling negative feedback, and my experiences thus far, and then next up will be design tools. Whether you're published or not, all of us as writers and artists and even in the workplace have probably faced unusual, fudging weird, or bizarre negative comments and feedback on your work. And I’m pretty sure we all have had some interesting rejection letters as well.
So what’s a good example? Well, the first odd Amazon review I ever got was on a short story fiction piece “Stained With Ink” from my high school days, and this piece is no longer up (the covers below were drafted ideas from back then). Still, basically, I remember them saying something along the lines of “this is the saddest story ever who would want to read this depressing horror story.” Obviously, that’s not helpful nor a valuable constructive comment because the description, genre, etc. outright emphasized it was rather very dark and short. It made them feel the weight of the events so I consider it a win despite that…
I still have a lot of my middle school and high school publications and half-baked previews up a lot of them are so lol riddled with grammatical errors (my younger mind back then was always attempting to create characters and worlds for fun ) — someone decided to read one last year and gave it lol two stars but it doesn’t bother me. When I started writing in middle school days a lot, I was really obsessed with starting up my own YA book series, I started out with creating titles such as Cryptic Hats: The Magical Escapades of Mark Dupree, then attempted dystopian fiction a bit more seriously with Veridian Veins, and then The 8 Chronicles.
But before that, it was The Adventures of Christian Missten (a school detective series), and then Oritri (or-eat-tree) Island started as a screenplay work (scientists trapped with a creature experiment that combined the body characteristics of various animals) and was hunting them hahaha. Anyways, you get the idea I had a very wild imagination, and a bunch of story ideas were all over the place.
I have unfinished and unpolished drafts of these further in storage somewhere, anyways yeah around 2014 I stopped self-publishing tidbits and then focused on my college degrees and my IT support roles in the years after (aiming for a career in technology). I drew cartoons more than writing poetry and stories after that time. The two writing community spaces I primarily leveraged InkPop and Figment sadly are no longer present. InkPop was acquired by Figment. These spaces were great to get feedback on work back then and the community support was awesome and provided genuinely honest reviews. I didn’t use a pen name as much back then starting out.
An example poem “Examined” of mine from back then nearly a decade ago (below is the title stock cover for when I had it up on Figment), The poem was a fave of others in the community it touched based on not recognizing yourself after some harsh events I’ll say and be vague, though I never attended a kid boot camp it was brought up when I was little which sort of inspired this. It was a poem geared towards a younger audience perhaps.
However, between 2012-2014, or around that timeframe I had a series of back-to-back one-star and two-star negative reviews over 98% of my publications except for one that had received two four-star reviews (on a short story When the Time Goes).
The first poetry collection I ever self-published on Smashwords was called originally Rattled Souls. I had tried my real name for a while, then the pen name Meeli Caston too instead of Vevna Forrow. It was a collection of my high school poems basically with a few newbies, but then I ended up converting that into a renamed shorter one called Exntict around November 2013. There were more reviews on it than presently seen, not sure how they vanished but I never forgot what was said because they were the first reviews on an experimental bite-sized poetry collection of mine.
The revised cover of Rattled Souls was two overlayed road trip photos of mine from Arizona or Nevada I believe turned sideways rather than stock pics:
You can find some of my first-ever poems in the reboot Chirp on Wood. Please note back then I wrote a lot of perspective and narrative poems more so meaning I thought about various situations I witnessed whether zoned in on dreams, or nightmares, or inspired by various theme elements of flicks such as classic horror creatures, knights, and sea captains. I watched a lot of romantic Bollywood movies growing up lol definitely a fan of some Bollywood music. I’m reading back some older poetry as I do this and it’s making me laugh.
Both my writing and art style have significantly changed since then and I do discuss other more serious dark heavier topics that impacted me personally during the pandemic such as medical gaslighting, trauma, and errors through my poems based on real-life events I faced since 2019. Some of my past work and other spoken releases are garbled or hard to follow because those were times when I was undergoing a lot of intracranial pressure and uncomfortable neurological stuff. I haven’t shared one more book I’m working on that’s less poetry and more on the chronological order of events more so in a direct story format because poems can be quite abstract so it’s hard to piece together things like that solely through breadcrumber poems and to understand what exactly happened.
I also have been told my work is rubbish , bulls**t, and a waste of time by a few related by blood even. My grandmother on my dad’s side isn’t a fan of my poetry, for instance nor has gotten any copies of anything. I have been outright called an embarrassment and disappointment. I wrote a poem somewhere that others don’t see value in it solely because they’re focused on X amount of dollars and others have said to me “that poetry is not popular” etc. I just ignore it.
Anyways, we’re time-traveling guys, here’s some of the first-ever one and two-star reviews I’ve had on poetry from like ten years ago. ZOINKS!
And I recall the other reviews said:
“I really don’t like giving one-star reviews but nothing really flowed or had a theme” and another had said, “I only liked one poem so I’ll base my review on that.”
So reviews you shouldn’t pay mind to — I know it’s easier said than done are ones that say “I hated this” or super short without highlighting what they liked and disliked and just saying it’s “childish”.
So a common thread is that others really loved that one relationship micro poem back then from this work, it had a few other lines…but they did help me despite the reviews being quite brief they outright told me at least one thing they resonated with and liked back then.
Because of these Extinct (2013) reviews a lot of my eBooks primarily became themed for fun in 2021 and of course, the titles are lol if you’ve ever seen The Jazzy Hummingbird Project on Amazon which is 75% or more rhymes in bizarre times. I did a lot of those poems to take my mind off of excruciating pain. I still think it’s important to leave up works that get super negative reviews and to share no matter what others think. Back when I started putting a few eBooks out between 2013-2014, I took a lot of it down honestly because the reviews I admit made me quite sad when I was younger, but nowadays I really just pay no mind to the star ratings and don’t take anything personally.
I’ve seen quite a few poets on social media receive quite inappropriate and harsh comments (thankfully we have the block feature and remove those) and again we shouldn’t base how successful our work is on numbers, a heart engagement amount, followers, or stars alone. I have gotten comments on past poems on other platforms stating: “what is this about…?” “Does anyone know…?”
As many fellow poets have stated, not everyone will get the purpose of your work or feel the same way about it. As long as you’re 100% proud of your work is all that matters. It’s I think nowadays more than ever it’s much tougher to receive reviews on your work. There are cases where authors sell hundreds of copies but get zero reviews or barely any. So it can be hard to gauge others’ thoughts on your work if no reviews are left. I’m aware some poets as I mentioned have leveraged Reedsy, held giveaways, and reached out to some “Bookstagram Review” accounts but you have to be careful because there is a lot of review scammers out there.
Organic reviews and feedback are best no matter how negative they may be, but as I mentioned on the Hummingbird Blink: Nectar Poetry podcast star ratings with no commentary are not beneficial to writers or artists because we are left wondering what exactly didn’t they like about it. Of course, if your collection ties into heartbreak, recovery, healing, misdiagnosis, or something more specific event-wise that the reader has experienced then they’ll relate to it on a much deeper level perhaps or connect with it further. There are some very niche topics. Relationship poetry is what a lot of us can relate to as human beings because relationships are a core part of our lives over time whether they be romantic or not.
Of course, as writers and creators, we strive to create a positive impact with our work or to express ourselves and it does suck to get negative reviews on things we’re tremendously passionate about, but if they’re not constructive or detailed then you don’t gain anything from that review, and it’s not helpful to your growth as a writer. We’ll be doing in-depth book reviews through this Substack.
You must keep in mind throughout history many inventors, artists, poets, and writers were told their work just sucked and were on the verge of throwing it out, however, didn’t and kept trying and kept trying, and finally, things changed. I’m not going to give names, but even the most popular books in the 21st Century don’t all have just glowing 5-star reviews of course.
Also, it is good to see mixed reviews on your work, it allows you to get different perspectives and opinions and over time as reviews collect if they’re constructive you’re able to identify patterns i.e. certain elements others loved, a poem that wasn’t their fave or what could be improved such as typo cleanup, etc. I know some poets in the community didn’t have back-to-back 4 or 5-star reviews and still continued book 2, 3, and 4 as a series because it’s what they love to do — sharing their writing as much as possible.
If every creative deleted their work just over one star or because of a negative review, we would be in a very sad dark world. As creators and authors, we can all grow. For some writers, it helps to attend writers’ workshops, present their work to more than one editor, and get different opinions besides just relying on online bookstores (it’s not that helpful if you only ever receive star ratings).
You can’t give up because of one-star ratings or facing a bunch of negative rejections. In life there are some things like art and book reviews that you have to let go of and move on otherwise it'll eat you up inside and your creative energy will face immense stress and you’ll be crushing your heart and mind.
There are a few songs I put on this Substack for a reason that sort of tie into not letting words get to you. “Dust My Shoulders Off (feat. Timbaland)’ with Jane Zhang and '“It’s A Risk” by Anthony Russo, plus Bones - JackLDN (Viceroy Remix). Another song, that I used to listen to when I would feel down bout critiques is Felix Cartal’s “Get What You Give” which repeats “Don’t give up, you’ve got the music in you.”
It can help to move on from negative reviews or to tackle bad days with music, or other activities you love and then go back to your writing. I think I’ve seen some writers leverage their negative comments or unusual reviews for their poem title inspiration even.
The first song plugged into the top of the Substack emphasizes that yes we just need to keep moving forward and “dust our shoulders off” when things happen that upset us for a bit because life goes on. It’s only natural to feel bummed out about tons of negative feedback but if you focus on it, dwell on it, or even respond to all of it can get out of hand and actually hurt you more. If you’re seeing your work, multiple pieces get nothing but negative reviews over several years consider again sharing your work with those outside your family further, you know some publishers offer additional feedback even editors in the community and it doesn’t hurt to try to get feedback beyond online bookstore reviews. I have again put some past work previews out on Wattpad for feedback etc.
I equated for a long time the feeling of negative book reviews and rejections to the feelings you get when getting a bad grade or more over losing a chess tournament. When I was younger my folks took me to quite a few timed chess tournaments around Minnesota and I used to play mostly against much older boys and gentlemen even in some bookstores like Borders. I usually was the only girl in most tournaments too. I one time lost a trophy by .5 meaning I had gotten a draw instead of a win. I was pretty hard on myself losing matches and would even tear up and rethink about the games over and over again but that just makes you sick. Some of my favorite chess movies btw are Searching For Bobby Fischer (1993) and The Luzhin Defence (2000).
Essentially, a lot of us strive to make our family proud of us or wish to do well, and in society negative reviews you know negative thoughts come in your head “like I’ll never be a successful author” or “my work is crap” and you mustn’t think that way. All writers and artists must deal with the heaviness of the review world even those in other industries, but don’t let negative feedback create an imaginary wall to stop you from writing ever again. Magazines, podcasts, and press operations for example are not immune to negative reviews either. I myself have gotten negative past podcast feedback and comments, but for the most part it has been positive. We’re always bound to run into someone who doesn’t like what you’re doing — not everyone on this planet will become a fan of your work and you must accept this and trek on.
I know quite a few poets have rebooted their earlier books, and covers, edited them again down the road, and seen different review results after coming back to it at a later point too. Everyone has a unique voice and not everyone on the face of the Earth will connect with it the same way and it’s totally ok. Consider this you're wasting your time by responding to negative or every firey non-constructive comment on some platforms.
It’s ultimately a risk when we put our work out there and it’s just part of life — others have their opinions. But I’ll reiterate just because you have a bunch of low ratings or zero ratings doesn’t automatically mean your work is horrible — no if you wrote from the heart and truly loved what you published as is then leave it be. Publishing your work whether it’s self-published or not isn’t easy and that itself is an accomplishment. If you are happy with your work, then that’s all that really matters and success is viewed differently by everyone. Don’t let negative reviews get under your skin over and over again. Never compare your work or story against others.
Additionally, I also know it is super hard to get constructive book feedback reviews nowadays which is why we’re going to do reviews at Dipity for poetry collections and invite others in the community to partake.
P.S. Because I’m a nerd, I was looking up the history of reviews earlier and this Wikipedia Star Rating one and it said: “In the 31 July 1928 issue of the New York Daily News, the newspaper's film critic Irene Thirer began grading movies on a scale of zero to three stars. Three stars meant 'excellent,' two 'good,' and one star meant 'mediocre.” I think five stars came around in the 1950s [could be wrong, in any case, the history behind rating systems in existence is quite interesting if you research it online a bit further and fact-check the above.
What’s the weirdest review you’ve gotten? or How have you handled negative feedback in the past? Comment below.
MOVIE I WATCHED RECENTLY
Escape from Pretoria (2020) on Amazon Prime: My VFORROW Rating 4.8 out of 5 and it’s based on a true story.
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— VFORROW