What Happened in April - a 1 star review!

I published my Start Homeschooling book in March and then had a difficult time getting back into the routine of writing for blogs and websites. One or two got a little behind, but I'm sure my readers didn't notice.

The book started selling at a rate of 1 a day. Not as high as I'd liked, but it's now my second best seller. But then came a 1 star review! You can read it yourself if you want, the comment was nasty. And the bad thing is, I don't think the person actually read the book!

I think, but I don't know for sure, that this person disagreed with me over something that happened on a  forum and this is her way of getting back at me. Nevertheless, it affected sales. I've handed out a number of free copies to people I hope will read the book, so I spent a while chasing those and politely asking if people have read the book and written a review. When people publish with traditional publishing houses they give away many free copies and there are a lot of reviews by the time the book is published. But with self publishing, the book is available to the author at the same time as it's available to everyone else. So it takes a while for the reviews to come in. Often you give away free books and never get a review. Anyway, I spent a while emailing people I'd given free copies to and got a couple more 5 star reviews. I'm hoping that will help sales.

It just shows that you can't control what happens over the World Wide Web and everyone is allowed to have their opinion. I'm sure this person had her reason for doing what she did and feels justified for leaving a bad comment. The important thing is how I react. Sometimes I leave a nice comment, "Sorry you didn't like my book," but in this case I felt not answering was the best path.

Someone left a 1 star comment on my Homeschooling Boys book on the UK website (it's the only comment) and I thought I did a good job of replying politely. The important thing is that people see you in a good light, even after a bad comment, a trick I learned from many years of selling on eBay.

Talking of eBay, I actually spent a lot of April selling there again. The site has changed a lot since I was there full time three years ago. I bought a consignment of leather jackets and listed them as well as some stuff laying around my house. I guess the eBay bug never really leaves.