Tag: cyber-bullying

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Don’t respond to reviews

Reviews are a necessary part of the business. Without good reviews, a book never sees the positive side of the algorithms that promote your books for you. Without reviews, many readers will turn away from your book, particularly if it is an old book. And reviews help to build SEO traction on a book.

However, as important as reviews are, reviews can also be a dangerous area for writers.

Writers have lost their publishing contracts because they badmouthed a review on social media. Writers have been review bombed because of such deplorable behavior. But writers have also been attacked because they left a negative review on a competitor's book. In some cases, those attacks were warranted. In other cases, they weren't.

The most important aspect with reviews is to remember that reviews are NOT for the benefit of the writer. They are for the benefit of the reader. It's readers telling prospective readers what they thought of the book.

And when it comes to reviews, it is a very bad idea to respond to any reviews (or comments on those reviews) regardless of what you think of the review.

If you want to share those reviews with others, then cross-post it on your feeds. Acknowledge the good reviews that way, but DON'T RESPOND.

It's time to take a closer look at how responding to reviews, good or bad, could land you in hot water.

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We Let the Strangers In: The Hunting Trolls

Anyone who has ever worked on social media will know what the troll behavior is like. The trolls are the people who seem to take pleasure out of creating animosity and hatred. They will say things to provoke a reaction. And when they catch someone in their sights, they decide it's time to play.

The best advice that anyone can be given when it comes to dealing with trolls is to just ignore them. Most of the time, if you don't entertain them, they will give up and move on.

But there is a rare breed of troll who develops a vendetta—and no amount of ignoring them will make them go away. The trolls see something in you that makes them think that you're vulnerable and they attack. And they keep attacking until you finally break down.

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We Let Strangers In: Internet Bullies

Have you ever been in a situation where you have given your opinion on something based on your knowledge and expertise only to be shot down by one ignorant fool? Have you ever had that experience on social media? And have you ever found that when you chose to ignore the ignorant fool on social media that they kept coming after you—attacking your character? And, to top off the whole experience, did you need a friend to step in and handle it, for fear that you would just explode on public channels?

I would be surprised if I encountered anyone savvy with the social media world who hasn't experience the troll attack at least once. It seems like a rite of passage to the internet world. For the most part, we're able to ignore the trolls, because they're after some strange definition of self-gratification, enjoying taking everyone else down into the dark hole of hell. But what if the troll is actually a stranger that we have openly let into our lives, influencing us?

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