How to Handle a Bad Review

I recently came across this blog post about an author who received a middling review on Amazon from another author, then announced his intention on his own blog to go and give her a bad review as revenge, then did so.

What a moron.

In the incriminating blog post, the author, Phil Torcivia, declares that by forgiving 'bad behavior', we are encouraging it, and so he has a God-given duty to punish those whom he believes to be misbehaving. Because writing your honest opinion of a book is somehow misbehaving.

Let's look at some other people who feel it is their right to punish people who, by their standards, behave badly:

1. Hannibal Lector.

In the film Red Dragon, Lector says that he kills people who are rude. I also dislike rude people, but I have neither the inclination nor the energy to kill them.

2. The Punisher.

Frank Castle has a good reason to be pissed. But he's spent the last 30 years or so killing naughty guys. Look where it got him: alone, covered in scar tissue, and full of bitterness. I love me some Punisher comics (movies, not so much) but no one really wants to end up where he is.

Poor Phil. Instead of manning up and swallowing this 'bad' review- because the proper way to respond to any bad review is TO DO NOTHING (if the review was somehow maliciously motivated- LIKE HIS WAS-, it always is obvious in the review itself). Instead, he is wasting valuable time when he could be writing to play silly Internet games.

To summarize:

Everyone has a right to their opinion.

When you put your work out there, you will receive their opinions.

Not everyone will love you and give you five stars, except maybe your mommy.

When someone criticizes your work, shut the fuck up and smile and nod. Whether you think it is warranted or not.

Otherwise you will end up in a Plexiglass cell in the basement of a prison, or miserable and alone in a series of shitty apartments in New York.

And no one wants that.