Well, that successfully jacked up my day.
Every author wants 5-star reviews, right? I mean, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Well, not like this it’s not.
Let me back it up a bit. As an author, I try to get my books into a select group of readers’ hands ahead of release, so they can read and review it. The process is called ARC (Advanced Review Copy) reading, and when it works, it works well. When it doesn’t work, however, the whole thing comes crashing down.
From my mood, you’d think I got a one-star review, but that’s not the case. I got that coveted 5-star from an ARC reader. Yeah. But at what price?
This reviewer posted the entire plot, including spoilers and twists, in her review. That’s right. No “Spoiler Alert,” no warning, just straight-up posted the plot. Posted MAJOR spoilers. Right out in the open on Amazon. And I have no recourse, no action I can take at this time. The only option I’m given is “Report Abuse,” and though I feel violated by this “review,” there was no actual abuse in it. Maybe literary abuse??
I’m beyond livid. I’m so pissed I could scream. I won’t, but I could.
My trust in the ARC process, in the review process as a whole, is broken. I wanted to believe I could trust the ARC readers to review with some modicum of intelligence, but this–this has shaken me.
What happens if another reviewer slips through who doesn’t understand how fundamentally harmful it is to the author to post spoilers like this? What if it’s someone I can’t conveniently message on Facebook to request an edit? What if a random reader, not an ARC reader but just a well-meaning reader, reviews something like this? I shudder at the thought.
I have to step back from this. Maybe today’s work day will distract me enough, or maybe I can occupy my mind in other ways until I’m less raw. Regardless, until this reviewer sees the message I sent, there’s nothing I can do. Even then, she could get angry at me for complaining about the spoilers and leave it up there. Or she could change it to one star out of spite.
I’ll take the one star if it means the spoilers go away.