I’ve seen a lot of posts recently about people saying they dislike writing bad reviews. I personally, write negative reviews quite often. And I enjoy writing them, I always find I have more things to say when I have a negative opinion as I justify them much more than positive opinions. But also, negative reviews are actually really good, and people should be writing more of them. My main focus for this post is books, but a lot of beauty and fashion bloggers have been doing this as well.
People have mentioned they don’t like writing bad reviews because they don’t want to sound too negative. When writing a review, as long as you’re being objective, you won’t sound ‘too negative’. You’ll sound honest and like you’re really thinking about the product. As long as you have reasons, and you’re not bashing an author or company you’ll be fine.
For Books in particular, writing a bad review is constructive criticism for the author. I read a lot of debut and indie books, and so the authors will often keep their eyes on the reviews. This means if I’m reviewing their book I can let them know what they do well, and what they don’t. Therefore, their next should be better. So for books, it’s really important to write an objective and honest review.
Bad reviews are also good to let other people avoid disappointment. I’ve read multiple books and used multiple products where I’ve only seen good reviews for them. Not writing bad reviews means any ratings are going to be skewed upwards. And when I’m reading a book that’s got 4 stars on Goodreads, I’m expecting a 4 star read.
I’ve also seen a couple of people mention that they don’t write bad reviews because they think companies wont work with them. Yes, I know that if all your posts are negative then many companies may steer away from you. But, writing an honest bad review every so often will not affect your opportunities that much. In any case, if you are working with companies you should always be writing unbiased reviews. If you don’t write negative reviews, what will happen if you get sent a product you don’t like? Will you lie or not go through with the sponsored content?
Writing bad reviews also makes you seem more honest as a blogger. I find that I don’t trust the views of some people because every single post they write is all positive, all the time. Sometimes, people write half reviews where they note all the good things but just leave out the negatives. For me anyway, this makes it sound a lot more like an advert rather than a blog post.
What are your thoughts on negative reviews? Do you write them or not?
View Comments (6)
I struggled with sounding too mean, but I agree that if they're honest and you provide a balanced viewpoint it can really help people with choosing what their next book/ product/ etc will be!
Yeah I definitely found it difficult at first not to sound mean! But once you really think about it and understand how certain words and phrases might make people feel it helps
Negative reviews can be helpful to an author though. I can’t help but think of that movie Whiplash where the music teacher talks about how the famous jazz artist was booed off the stage. He went home and worked even harder. Even everyone had acted like he was totally fine, he would never have done that. I think it is flattering someone took the time to read your work even if it is critical.
Totally agree! Constructive criticism should always be welcome as an author 😊
Amen to this!! Firstly I enjoy reading and writing negative reviews too- it's not just that they're fun, but it's also useful to gauge how good or bad a book is- which is the whole point of a review. To be honest, I really have a problem when people refuse to rate things below three star and don't give reliable ratings or reviews- cos while they are being generous to the author, they're kinda being dishonest with their readers who expect honest opinions and may even be misleading them to buy something they may not like! People read reviews so that they can be selective over what they read- if all reviews are positive then the reader might as well pick at random. I agree with you that I just don't trust the reviewers who only give positive reviews.
bad reviews are exactly the reason I started my blog – I was fed up of trying products that just weren’t worth the money! Completely agree with you, there has to be balance, you can’t like everything!
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