The worse feeling, as an editor, is a negative review.
No, not the ones where it is clear the reader never read the book. Yes, there are people that rude and vengeful. That mean-spirited.
For the reviews that show the reader did not mix or missed understanding the story, these are harder to weigh. Mixing with someone’s story is personal and shouldn’t end in a negative review. But, it happens.
Misunderstanding, not getting the story that is a two-edged sword. On one side the reader may just not get the story, has misread for whatever reason. The other could be the writer and editor weren’t as clear as they could have been. Or simply a mix of both reasons. Again, should this bring a negative review? I don’t believe so as in the end it’s a mix of writer + editor + reader.
Which brings us to the complete negative review – valid points and clear connection to the story within.
The negative points – the points which stop the reader from being able to give a solid review. Not a perfect score, but average or slightly below, or sadly, a bad review. As the editor, it pains me because I am invested in my authors and their works.
I feel I failed them.
It’s a balancing act of reading the review and acknowledging true errors and/or weak points to simple difference of how someone thought something should have been written and plain ole opinions.
Authors and editors work together and cover the manuscript from top to bottom, front to back, and every other which way they can to push each other. If a reader points something out that differs from what was discussed during edits, we need to take it for exactly what it is and move forward from there. Keep what works and file the rest.
Still, as the editor, it bugs me and makes me work even stronger not to have it happen again.