I think authors are allowed to point out errors of fact in a negative review, if they really have to and it’s important to them (errors of the “I understand that the reviewer feels this is the worst account she’s ever read of the Thirty Years’ War of 1618–1648. I would like to point out that one reason for this is that my novel is actually set during the Hundred Years’ War, which occurred from 1337 to 1453…” variety.) And otherwise we should swear loudly to ourselves, probably startling our cats, then we should keep our mouths shut, and go and write other things.
Because I think it’s a good thing that people don’t like everything we do.
I mean that.
I do not write books that everyone will like. Human beings like different things. If human beings did not like different things — if there was unanimity of opinion on what was good and what was bad, what books were enjoyable and what weren’t, then the odds are that I would starve. My books and stories are not to everyone’s taste, which is why I am so pleased that all people do not share the same taste.
Some people like what I do. Some people don’t. The ones who like what I do are the ones who keep me fed, and to them I am grateful; and the ones who do not, well, fair enough. There is no letter that I could write to a website, nothing I can ever say that would make someone like a book that they do not like.
(Occasionally time can do that, and experience, and life, and people will come to me and tell me how much better American Gods got during the ten years between them reading it at sixteen and at twenty-six. But that’s a different thing entirely.)
Opinions are true. But they are only opinions. Once you’ve written a book, it belongs to everyone, and they are all allowed to have opinions, and the spectrum of opinions is the spectrum of humanity.
Sometimes I write things I am not satisfied with, and every now and then I run into people who think that thing I did that I didn’t like was the best thing in the world. I feel more uncomfortable around them than I ever do reading a scathing review.
