coraa: (book wyrm)
coraa ([personal profile] coraa) wrote2009-12-17 01:27 am
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Has anyone ever seen a situation where an author defended themselves in the face of a less-than-positive review, where it came out with the author looking better than if they'd refrained from involving themselves?

I've seen authors involve themselves in positive discussions without problem. And I've seen authors say neutral things like 'Thank you for your review' in response to negative responses without problem. But I can't think of a single example of a time when an author has attempted to defend themselves from, or refute, a negative review, where the author has not come out looking measurably worse.

[identity profile] coraa.livejournal.com 2009-12-17 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, the tentative consensus seems to be that you can probably get away with it if you can approach it with grace and humor and a total lack of defensiveness, which, to me, sounds almost impossible! I'm fairly confident in saying that I do not have enough self-possession to do that about my own work. So it's certainly safer to keep one's mouth shut, because that way you are at least not going to make it worse.