There’s a book I own called The Barefoot Executive by Carrie Wilkerson. I was thinking about purchasing either the Nook or Kindle version, because I read it years ago and I’ve been thinking about whether or not I want to read it again to refresh myself with it.
some people hate this clock
After checking the price on B&N, I decided to see if there was a better deal on Amazon’s page for the electronic version. If you’ve ever been there, you’ll have noticed that they have that intriguing ranking system where people can write reviews of the books or movies they’ve purchased. For whatever reason, even though I already own the book, I was drawn to the reviews of the book.
The book is ranked highly, 4.6 out of 5 stars. Around 91% of the reviews have given it 4 or 5 stars. And yet… that means 9% of the reviews gave it 3 stars or less. I decided to read the bad reviews because I wanted to see the types of things those folks had to say.
Some of the people didn’t think it offered enough specifics on how to be self employed. Some didn’t like the positive message without all the details. A few actually thought she was either bragging, self promoting or was a scam artist, a part of what some of us know as the “make money online” group, that may have only made money by telling people they were going to tell them how to make money when the only way they made money was to write a book on how to make money. 🙂
I thought “Wow, how could there be such a drastic disconnect”? How is it that the overwhelming majority of people like the book, but the few that didn’t either felt they didn’t get what they wanted or, gasp, didn’t like Carrie?
I decided to look at the rankings of a couple of books I’ve reviewed on this site to see how they were rated as opposed to how I rated them.
I started with Ask! by Ryan Levesque, which I really liked. Turns out 92% of the reviewers gave it between 4 & 5 stars, which means 8% didn’t like it. Once again, those who didn’t like it either hated what he had to say or hated him; ouch!
I then took a look at 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, a book I would have given a 3 1/2 if that was possible but, if pushed, I’d have given 3 stars. On Amazon, it’s received 84% of reviews with 4 or 5 stars, which means 16% of the people agree with me. However, the first review on the site says “there’s a sucker born every minute”. Another said it was a “get rich quick scheme for the shallow”; ouch! A few of the negative reviews disliked some of the same stuff I did… just a lot more than how I felt.
On my business blog I wrote a post titled Haters Gonna Hate… Do It Anyway. I talked about the need to be able to push aside your doubts about yourself and the potential derision of others and do what you think is right. I also mentioned J.K. Rowling, the first author to become a billionaire on only book sales and how, even with the major success she’s had, there are detractors (not including her latest verbal messes), people who’ve never written anything, saying they didn’t think she was that great a writer; pfft!
Of course, I’m not always different from the positive crowd. Earlier this year I tried to read a recommended book, The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle. 92% have given it 4-5 stars; I’d have given it a 1 star. What was surprising is that when I read the 1-2 star reviews, almost all of them had the same belief that I did. It’s the kind of thing where, if you’re paying attention, proves that each of us likes what we like, doesn’t like what we don’t like. Sometimes it’s for the exact same things; sometimes it’s not.
You know what? Blogging is harder than some people think it is. Being on social media is harder than some people think it is. You know what else? Life is harder than some people think it is. We can decide to act out of fear, or we can decide to act out of courage and go for our dreams and goals. It all depends on what you want out of life. Fear is easy; courage is hard.
Take it from me, a self employed guy for almost 21 years (in a few days). It’s not easy; I’m not going to lie and say it is. But it’s been quite the trip, and I’ve done things I never would have if I had stayed the course most people do; not trying to create anything, not writing my blogs or articles, or anything else I’ve done. Some things work; some don’t. What I don’t do is wait for everyone else’s approval; it’s never coming.
So… what are you going to do today?
I have never bothered about what anyone thinks of me nor will I ever do so in the future. I think that they have other things on their mind.
I’m with you 99.5% on this. I did change the title of an article I wrote after taking the opinion of a few people in mind, but it was more of a suggestion, and I felt it was worthy. Also, it wasn’t about me being a bad person, which I appreciated.
Mitch, you are so right! We must follow our personal paths and not let others’ negativity deter us or change how we do things. If people like you, that’s great. If not, it’s their loss. That’s always kind of been my motto. Cheers!
It’s a good motto; it’s what I’ve followed over all these years of blogging, which also helped me in the world of YouTube… even though there it’s true that they don’t like me lol
They don’t like you on Youtube? Shame on them! LOL
Well, maybe they just enjoy ignoring me. About 10 years worth of videos and I still haven’t reached 1,000 subscribers; sniff! lol
There are so many factors that go into evaluating reviews on Amazon (and elsewhere, probably): paid shills, misinformed readers, genuine fans and objective critiques.
I discount anyone who is not a verified buyer. I also ignore reviews from people who give something a low rating that is legitimate, but not relevant to the product itself (“Waaah, the cover was torn! 1 Star!”)
For the rest, I try to read each one with a grain of salt. Fanatics are almost as bad as the example I mentioned about the torn cover. The best reviews are written by someone who takes the time to share an opinion about the pros and cons of a book or product.
Now, the mindset thing, you nailed it with that title, “Haters gonna hate.” Opinions are a lot like old shoes. Or something like that. LOL
Cheers,
Mitch
I’m trying to remember if I’ve given reviews on Amazon. I usually save my book reviews for Goodreads, even though I haven’t bought most of the books I’ve consumed. I also rarely write full out reviews there because, if I wasn’t giving it a 5-star, then it’s hard to figure out what to say without giving away what’s going on. Of course, if I’m giving it a 1-star review it’s usually because I don’t know what was going on! lol
Still, we have to do what we do, even if we decide to modify it for a wider audience. That makes sense, depending on what we’re doing.
Well, Goodreads is owned by Amazon, so… you’ve left reviews on Amazon, whether you realized it or not!
I’ve never worried too much about anyone not liking my writing OR me (I’m not fond of everyone and everything, myself), but I’d love to know specifically WHY, if they feel inclined to tell the world they don’t. That often says more about them than it does about the objects of their disaffection, but sometimes it tells me whether I’m likely to enjoy a thing or a person – perhaps I feel the same way, or maybe I love what they don’t. For example, I enjoy spooky ghost stories and MILD “horror,” but I don’t like gore and slasher flicks. I want to feel a chill down in my bones and look over my shoulder to be sure the closet door is closed, not to feel terror and a need to install sixteen locks on my closet door!
You just blew my mind; I didn’t know Amazon owned Goodreads! :-O Oh well, since I’ve been there since “forever” (at least it feels that way), I suppose I’m staying, since I use it to make sure I don’t try to read the same book again.
Truthfully, I don’t care who doesn’t like what I write, thus I don’t need to know who they are. For those who like what I write, I love having the opportunity to thank them for reading. After all these years, I’ve recognized that you can’t get approval from everyone, and that some people want you to write like they write, even if they’ve only written 2-page training manuals, but they read a couple of Orson Scott Card books and think they know how to write science fiction novels. I will say that if someone complains about an article because out of 500 words there were 25 spelling errors and horrific grammar, then at least the author can learn something constructive if they decide to continue writing after that. In the long run, the best part of writing is that you’ve accomplished something that the overwhelming number of non-writers will never do; that’s a good step forward.
This was the pep talk I needed today. Social media and likes are exhausting. Trying to please others is exhausting. Then once your all exhausted you still don’t have the approval you thought you wanted. I am going to take some “me” time tomorrow.
That’s a smart move Shantell. I try taking off Fridays to relax, but the only time I truly relax is if I go to the casino. lol Still, doesn’t it feel good when you push through without worrying as much about those who’ll disagree with you?
By the way, I visited your blog and noticed you don’t have many comments. I was going to comment on one of your articles, but I saw that I had to log in. I know why you’re doing it, but unless you’re getting thousands of visitors and lots of views, I’d open up comments to all visitors and set up plugins like Stop Spammers to moderate the masses and individually deal with those few spam messages that get through. For instance, you probably noticed your comment doesn’t initially come through; that’s because I’ve set things up so that all gmail immediately goes to the trash so I can pull out legitimate comments like yours and send the rest to spam. Just a suggestion; you have pretty good stuff and it would be great to see what others have to say. 🙂
Thanks for the advice. Your exactly right though… I did. But I will change that today.
Thanks so much for the note….I made that change to my site.
Cool; I’ll go back to see if I remember which article I wanted to comment on. 🙂