: Re: What is a productive response to a negative review? I see basically three possible responses: (a) Write a rebuttal ranting that this person is a jerk and his criticisms are totally unfair and

@Welton431

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I highly suggest you do nothing. A) is a very bad idea - it will tarnish your reputation as argumentative and rude. C) could easily be construed as doing A) -- even with the best intentions, someone could take it out of context -- so it's also best to avoid that. As for if my answer would change for a different type of novel, definitely no. This is good advice for anyone.

The best guidelines I've seen about this come from Goodreads on author reviews:

Please do not comment on negative reviews of your book, even if it's just to correct an inaccuracy in the review. Previous experience has shown repeatedly that the only positive reaction to a negative review is to ignore it.

Many studies have show that a few negative reviews are actually helpful, as they lend validity to the positive reviews on the book's page.

In a different place on their site:

Don’t engage with people who give you negative reviews. We cannot stress this enough. The number one mistake new authors make is to respond to negative reviews. Engaging with people who don’t like your book is not likely to win you any new readers and could lead to members deciding not to read your book. [...] other readers will see a reaction from the author and interpret it as hostile regardless of how carefully the response was crafted. A single negative interaction is often enough to turn a reader off an author permanently.

It's best to just move on and focus on the positive reviews. :)

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