• Brooke Warner
  • 5 Ways Writers Can Steel Themselves Against Online Haters
This blog was featured on 08/29/2016
5 Ways Writers Can Steel Themselves Against Online Haters
Contributor

If you write and publish, you know that thick skin is required. Writers, all of us, are an insecure lot. Even the most talented and prolific writers I coach and edit crave validation, need to hear those magic words: “Yes, it’s good.” But even when it’s good,  if you’re exposing any experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and ideas that may potentially rub people the wrong way, you may still be facing your vulnerability head-on when you publish. And because people are easily rubbed the wrong way, about 90 percent of the authors I work with encounter some form of criticism on their publishing journey. 

When I worked at Seal Press, I learned that courting controversy is a marketing strategy. Posting provocative stuff online to make a play for people’s extremely divided attention works. The bloggers I read most regularly are pretty provocative folks: The Bloggess, Chuck Wendig, and David Gaughran. Yes, even publishing people can court controversy. I’ve done it myself.

But sometimes you find controversy when you’re not courting it all. Sometimes it’s your truth, your honesty, and the very facts of your life story that provoke people. I’ve worked with authors who’ve been lambasted in online forums for writing about being gay, having an abortion, championing women’s issues, recovery, seeking out alternative ways to get pregnant, and mental illness. That writers are routinely attacked for being brave enough to put their truth out there is one of the most tragic ramifications of our fast-flying Internet culture, where there’s no accountability (and no shame) from people who troll sites looking for outlets for their self-righteousness.

So writers beware, and keep your armor on hand. She Writes Press author Kelly Kittel published a beautiful memoir, Breathe, in which she wrote about the loss of two of her children—one a baby who died as the result of medical malpractice, and the other a toddler who was run over by her then-sixteen-year-old niece. Critics—family members included—called her memoir a vendetta. Like many memoirists, however, Kittel could not not write this book, and she had to tap into her inner compass every day, knowing that there would likely be fallout from the writing of her book.

About this idea of having a thick skin, Kittel said:

“As the time for publication drew near and I gave voice to the worries waking me up in the middle of the night, my daughter reminded me, ‘Mom, you've had the strength to get this far, to live your story, I know you have the strength to see this through.’ Another night my son said, ‘Mom, be a warrior, not a worrier!’”

Kittel wrote her book to tell the story of her sons and to help others. Her story presents an extreme example of a challenge many writers face: Tell the truth, or protect others?

Another author I’ve had the honor to work with on three books during my time at Seal Press is Jessica Valenti, author of Why Have Kids? and Full Frontal Feminism, and one of the most beloved and routinely attacked authors I know. I asked her how she deals with the harassers—especially because I know how feisty she is, and how passionate she is about championing women and promoting a feminist message—the very issues she writes about that make her a lightning rod. Jessica told me:

Every person has a different way of handling haters, and I like to take a multipronged approach! On days when I'm feeling up to it, I take them on, usually making them look foolish in the process. Some might say don’t feed the trolls, but bringing attention to their behavior shows others what the consequences are for women who dare speak their mind. On other days, I just ignore them and hug my kid. At the end of the day I remember that for someone to spend so much time hating and harassing other people, it must mean that their own life isn’t very full or happy. Having some empathy for that—while it can be hard—goes a long way.”

Having been at the center of a few online shitstorms myself, here’s my advice for dealing with criticism:

1. If you’ve written a book and you’re dealing with a bad review online, don’t engage. Never respond to a blogger who initiates a negative post about your book, your writing, or you. Don’t give them the satisfaction of knowing you even found what they wrote. If someone posts a bad Amazon review, click the “No, this was not helpful to me” button and move on.

2. Prepare yourself for the criticism in advance of publishing by reminding yourself why you wrote your book in the first place—or, if it’s a post, why you’re putting the post out there. Kittel keeps a magnet on her fridge that says: “Be brave and do hard things.” If you’re writing your truth and getting slammed online for being who you are and living your experience, take the high road. Remember Jessica’s advice and try to have empathy.

3. Remember that while criticism feels horrible, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to be consumed by it, feeding the trolls can be dangerous. Your reaction may add fuel to the fire. You may well be shocked by people’s behavior online, attacking you personally, but commenting and getting embroiled will only bring more attention to it. Remember that just because it’s public doesn’t mean that everyone in the world is paying attention.

4. Beware that engaging a troll can land you with a stalker.  I once called someone out for the comments he was making on one of my posts and he promptly started sending me (threatening) private Facebook messages—and this was benign compared to some high-profile authors I know who’ve had scary stalking experiences. If you feel threatened, you can block people, obviously, but you might also want to take a little Internet hiatus to give things some space.

5. Gather support. Remember that the negative voices are always louder than the positive ones. I have seen writers post something and dwell on the one or two negative comments among fifty or sixty positive ones. You’re not wrong for dwelling on the negative; we all do it. But try to see if you can give as much weight to your supporters as you do to your detractors, gaining enough strength and confidence from those virtual high-fives and hugs to dampen the impact of the naysayers.

 

Have you had experiences with online critics? How did you deal with them? What advice do you have for other writers?

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Comments
  • Great advice Brooke. I am trying to prepare mentally for this, but I guess it's still tough when it happens. I might need to re-read your article a few times to toughen up… Thanks for always insightful advice, it's much appreciated!

  • Leza Lowitz

    Great article, great practical advice. And thanks for relating the stories of these strong, brave writers! Bravo!

  • I agree, Cami! Thanks for weighing in. It's tough out there, and super helpful to surround yourself with supporters. xoxo

  • Cami Ostman

    Great post, Brooke. My skin is thicker than when I published my first book, but it's still hard to be hated on when you aren't expecting it. We must never let another person steal our joy or our self-respect. To me, support is the key (and you've been among my supporters). Thanks for this reminder.

  • Michelle Cox

    Thanks for the advice, Brooke.  It's amazing how much energy people put into hating or being negative.  I can see now I need to get tougher skin!

  • Zetta Brown

    @Brooke - The author who wrote negative Amazon reviews on his competitors books did end up having to pay LIBEL damageshttp://www.bbc.com/news/uk-10670407

    Yep, there can be a serious backlash for trying to have a vendetta. Authors and fans would be wise to think twice. Some of those authors mentioned in the other link have had their books removed from Amazon--namely the indie authors.

    If you're an author and you are ever tempted to respond to a negative review, remember this: authors have received a slew of negative ratings from readers in response to the author's behavior. Some are from people who read the book, but others are from people who've decided they would never read one of their books let alone pay hard earned money to support that author.

  • Thanks for these contributions, Zetta. I wonder if these people regret it later? I think it's so easy to get caught up in things because you take something personally. It's easy to be reactive and so hard to sit on your hands. I don't know about this incident you're talking about, but it sounds nasty!

  • Zetta Brown

    Good advice, Brooke.

     

    Last weekend I learned about an ugly "war" between an author and one of her critics, a blogger who reviews books. The author went so far as to write a book using a variant of her critic's name. Some of you may know the incident I’m talking about. The ironic thing is that I, for one, would have been ignorant of the whole thing unless someone had mentioned it.

     

    It just demonstrates that a lot of these shitstorm tsunamis could remain storms in teacups if the Internet didn’t make it so easy to spread news—good or bad.

     

    Well, it didn't take long for word to get around. From what I see and what I've read, the author has earned no brownie points or new admirers. If anything, she's made herself look ridiculous.

     

    Here’s a good article that demonstrates the importance of a thick skin and how even the “big names” get caught up in it too:

    http://listverse.com/2015/02/15/10-writers-who-took-themselves-way-too-seriously/

     

    And authors who want to go around smearing the competition, you may want to read this before you try it. Do you want to sacrifice your name and reputation to satisfy your ego?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8641515.stm

  • What a great post. And I agree. I never respond to a negative comment, no matter how much it hurts. It's like giving up your power and wasting your energy on people who have nothing better to do then to deliberately lambast you as an author/writer.

  • Jackie,

    That 'heckler' was an officer in the southwest arm of a prestigious worldwide writing organization.

    After this event, the president wanted to speak to me to hear my 'demeanor.'

    I did speak to her. Then I saw her at a library convention. I was selling my children's books right next to her. After watching me 'sell' books, she wanted to have coffee with me. 

    "That would be nice,"I responded.

     I never did. 

  • Only one sort of it could go either way review. The writer gave me 3 stars and said my novel certainly wasn't literary fiction, but the eroticism was good, or something to that effect. I posted the review on twitter and Facebook with the question, "Is this good or bad for my book?" Got a lot of positive feedback, more sales and more reviews.

  • B. Lynn Goodwin

    <<But try to see if you can give as much weight to your supporters as you do to your detractors, gaining enough strength and confidence from those virtual high-fives and hugs to dampen the impact of the naysayers.>>

    Good post. I especially like #5. Or as I say in my editing for clients, "Keep what's useful and disregard the rest.

    Can't wait to see my YA, Talent, in print. It's coming soon from Eternal Press. I hope there will be no negative press about it.

    Meanwhile I'm working on Never Too Late, a memoir about getting married for the first time at age 62 to a man I met on ... gulp ... Craigslist. I might get some criticism there. 

    www.writeradvice.com

  • @Lisa and @Suzy, thanks for sharing these experiences with us. Sounds like in both cases you had people who wanted to put you in your place, and that's another common thing I've seen with the attackers and harassers—a desire to assert their knowledge or superiority. I think this comes from insecurity. Maybe they wish they'd written the article you wrote, or that they were publishing. Who knows? I do think it stems from a competitive and angry spirit, but there is more than enough to go around. I was just looking up one of my old posts online yesterday and I Googled my name, 7 ways to build platform (because that was the gist of the post), and what came up first was a post Michael Hyatt wrote about platform, with a nearly identical title to my post. Either one of us could say, Hey, that was my idea or my post! I read his post and liked it a lot. I recommend his book to authors all the time even though he and I teach on the same content. People who think they have a corner on a particular topic are always going to be operating from a scarcity mentality, and I feel that people who go around posting negative reviews and critiques with a harsh tone are just really lacking in their sense of self-worth. It takes a lot more guts to support your fellow writers and champion them and share their stuff than it does to knock them down.

  • @Jackie, thanks for your advice on this. Another perspective and good to hear different ways of handling this. I do think some reviewers get personal, and I don't like that. You can see reviewers attacking the writer, and not critiquing the book. In my opinion those reviews should not be allowed on Amazon at all.

    And @Betsy, thank you for your words of wisdom, and YES! :)

  • I was traveling yesterday, so I'm catching up with all your responses here now. Thanks for the insights and sharing.

    @Laurel, I think this observation/experience you have is true for a lot of people. Of course women criticize too, but I know that "I know better than you" put-down well too. And I also think it depends on the nature of what you're writing. My sense is that you get this in part due to your subject matter. I've been pretty badly attacked a few different times by women in the online space and anyone can be vicious. That's why I love that at least here at SWP it's safe and people can say what they want. I cross-post at Huffington Post and the experiences are like night and day. I'm regularly supported here and regularly attacked there. I think HuffPo, for as much as I like what they do, creates an environment that supports that kind of attacking.

  • Jill Jepson

    Excellent advice! Thanks for this.

  • A while ago I was heckled during a writing workshop I was facilitating. 

    I was not prepared and learned a great lesson.

    After the woman stood up and said, "No one uses storyboarding anymore. You are outdated and misrepresenting yourself."

    I growled at the heckler. 

    The room became quiet as if a death had occurred.

    Instead, I should have smiled and said, "Thanks for your comments. However, as authors we have different methods of plotting and writing."

    Needless to say I was not asked back. Thanks okay. The staff wasn't supportive at all. They blamed me.

    I have taught for over 25 years and never experienced such a verbal attack.

  • I still don't know if this was a good or bad thing to do, but ten years after one of my children's books went out of print with its commercial publisher, I had a new edition  of it with a very small but wonderful publisher.  Several years after that, my stars for the book on Amazon suddenly took a dive, and I found one single review had taken issue with everything about the book.  The reviewer didn't believe (apparently) that real kids live in rough neighborhoods.  Here's the part I'm not sure about, but on balance, not sorry:  I alerted family and friends, and several twenty-somethings from my husband's family who had read the book when they were nine wrote glowing memory-reviews--in particular, one person who had difficulties with reading had really loved it.  I got back to a respectable number of stars, and even though the original reviewer came back and accused me of sock puppetry,  Mostly, I felt very supported by those young people who had read the book as children.  

  • Laurel

    I'm going to step out here a bit and say that most of my criticism or at least unsolicited advice comes from men.  This phenomena has been true my entire life and is often thinly veiled as "I know better, listen to me".  It seems that these men feel it's their right to correct, undermine and shame my work often without taking the time to inquire or at least understand my point.  Their motivation often comes across in a way that attempts to keep me small.

    This is a tough one for me. Staying small and feeling shame are my go-to emotions. Practical and behavioral methods for handling haters (which is vastly different than critique) are always valuable. I appreciate and implement most of Brooke's tips from her shitstorms ;-)  I have to add that a very timely article came across Salon today regarding Highly Sensitive People.  I've followed Elaine Aron for years and feel that awareness and understanding of our sensitivities continues to lead me to an acceptance and thus, preparation for the world that isn't so sensitive.

  • Good job, Brooke. Thank you.

  • I've been fortunate to receive mostly glowing and appreciative reviews.  That's nice, of course.  But I have a general policy about negative criticism; first I look at it and see if there's a nugget of value, something to learn, or a valid point to be made.  While I may automatically dismiss the "tone" of harsh critique, I"m careful not to always dismiss the content.  If I find something valuable, I gather it and try to let the rest slide off. When criticism is mean-spirited, ignorant, or of negative motivation, I don't engage it and do my best to utterly dismiss it.  Fortunately, the unfounded criticism that springs from negativity, competition, or just plain stupidity is usually so outrageous that it's easy to recognize and categorize as "not useful".  

  • Lisa Bonnice

    My most well-known book, Fear of Our Father, gets great reviews, but there are a few hateful jabs that would be upsetting, if I took them to heart.

    Sadly, the meanest reviews come from other writers, who were condescending about my style. I read enough of them to recognize that they were just trying to make me feel bad because of disappointment with their own careers. My thought was usually something like, "Oh yeah? You publish a best-seller and then we'll talk. Getting this far isn't as easy as it looks! And you don't like the editing? Talk to the publisher, Berkley freakin' Books, whose professional, high-caliber editor was pretty awesome, thank you very much!"

    Then I remind myself that the book was written in first-person narrative. Therefore, perfect grammar and/or syntax weren't always appropriate. So, :-P to you, grammar Nazis!

    The other bad reviews were generally from people who didn't believe the story. It's Stacey M. Kananen's true story of being arrested and tried for murdering her parents--crimes committed by her brother, after a childhood of heinous abuse. She was found not guilty. Her trial aired on TV, with some notoriety. Some viewers/readers found her story hard to believe, and think she got away with murder. So they're not even talking about me as a writer. They're reacting to whether or not they believe Stacey.

    Once in a while I'll respond, if a review contains wildly inaccurate speculations about what "really" happened, or if they say something deliberately cruel about Stacey. I'll usually defend her and explain whatever misunderstanding the reviewer might have about her character.
    The majority of the reviews, thank goodness, are awesome and I'm grateful for those people who took the time to give the book four or five stars. They're the ones who understand why the book was written in the first place.

  • Suzy Soro

    I put the cover of my second book on Facebook and asked for feedback, positive or negative. YIKES! I'd say 97% of it was positive but some people ripped apart the FONTS. One in particular. And one guy went so far as to email me and ask if I'd like him to do it over (no) then did it anyway by copying the cover, redoing it, posting is as a comment and also sending it to me. And Fontgate was born! I did get a lot of positive info out of the experience and my cover designer took the helpful comments and redid it. This guy who made sure that he shamed me with Fontgate is also an author. And I looked at his cover and it is so bad that I had to laugh that he called my designer an amateur. Some people just can't get over that their opinion is not your opinion. And most of the font critics were not authors or wrote books that didn't sell. All in all I'm glad I posted it and may put the cover to my next book up but caveat emptor.