Why Authors Should Stay Out of Fan Spaces

Owen has spent the last several years hammering away at his novel, some grueling months pitching to agents, a year more out on submission, and—finally!—his novel has hit shelves.

For the first few days, he refreshes his Amazon and Goodreads pages. Slowly but surely, the reviews start ticking in. Four stars…five stars! Owen feels buoyant on the clouds of success all his hard work has paid off.

Then: “This book could be a far superior piece of fiction, if only more attention was given to it. The premise is promising, but it just didn’t quite deliver. Needed a lot more work on the plot—cliché and a little bland—and there were several typos.”

Owen is, understandably, horrified and heartbroken. On the tail end of those emotions: fury. He types several paragraphs worth of a response to the reviewer, letting them know exactly what he thinks of them and their work. He drafts a scattered, scathing email to his agent. Typos? Really!? He opens up X and makes a post about how stupid people are. He calls his best friend and bursts into tears.

As someone who has worked with over 100 debut authors, I know how painful it is when people say, either to your face or online, that they hate your work. After months or years of putting your heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into something, it can feel deeper than any betrayal to have someone tear you down and belittle that effort.

Unfortunately, negative reviews are unavoidable. You can write the next Great American Novel, win all kinds of awards, hold bestseller spots…and people will still hate it. Art is, and always will be, subjective. Reviews are also a healthy part of our literary ecosystem. They can help you sell more books; they can help you become a better author. But they can also be deeply hurtful and unhelpful for you personally.

The line is really blurry when it comes to social media; fans love seeing their favorite authors interacting with them, but it’s a double-edged sword. For example, Nora Sakavic took a 10-year gap between books 3 and 4 of her self-published All for the Game series. In those 10 years, fans have written hundreds of fan fiction pieces, created thousands of pieces of fan art, and run wild with headcanons (meaning something a fan imagines about the characters that doesn’t actually appear in the main text).

As a member of Nora’s fandom myself, I didn’t expect that something as simple as her mentioning one character isn’t a natural blond and he actually bleaches his hair would lead fans to attack her on social media. But that’s exactly what happened.

So how does a writer go about developing a healthy relationship with their community while protecting themselves? Here are a few tips to consider.

Stay Out of Known Fan Spaces

This is probably harder than it seems, especially if you’re in fan spaces yourself. But keep in mind that places like Goodreads—which is known for its GIF-ridden, overly exaggerated reviews of books—is not meant for authors to use. It’s meant for readers! It’s where they keep track of what they’ve been reading, enter to win free copies of books, and see lists of books recommended for them.

Any fan review site should be visited with extreme caution or not at all.

Tumblr is another one of those spaces that isn’t set up to protect authors. While you might get a lot of pleasure seeing things like fanart and discussions about your work, you’ll inevitably see something you don’t like, agree with, or is downright offensive.

Fans might not appreciate your presence in these spaces anyway. It can be a little like Mom looking over your shoulder.

Instead, stick to corners of the internet made for and curated by you. Your professional social media accounts, your website, etc. These are spaces where you can interact with fans if you so choose, but you also have more control over what you see and respond to.

Draw Boundaries—and Stick to Them

Boundaries are healthy! It can be really important for you to draw boundaries for yourself and your fans, and it makes interacting with people less stressful online.

If you’re someone who is easily overwhelmed by social media but still wants to have an online presence, you can create Update Only accounts—authors like Maggie Stiefvater and Tashie Bhuiyan utilize this feature. It’s a way for authors to still keep things like cover reveals and other important announcements in front of readers without the expectation that there will be back-and-forth between the author and readers.

When it comes to boundaries for yourself, it’s important that you hold yourself accountable for your actions and reactions. If you’re trolling through the tags of your latest release and see negative reviews, it’s not fair for you to become angry and start an argument.

Rely on Community

Even professional reviews can and will be triggering in some aspects. If you feel like you need to know what’s being said, you can always loop in someone else—your agent or publicist, a trusted friend or fellow writer, or even a parent or sibling—to comb through the reviews and send you a curated list of must-read reviews or a paraphrase of what people like about the book.

Remember, all writers have been where you are. Don’t be afraid to utilize your writing community to discuss the complexities of this aspect of authorship.

Have a Self-Care Routine

It would be nice if we could just avoid any negativity about our work, but unfortunately, that’s almost impossible. Instead, you should prepare yourself for what will happen once you’ve seen a negative review.

It’s important not to minimize your emotions. What exactly are you feeling? Where in your body are you experiencing them? What insecurities are these words tapping into for you? Journaling your responses to these questions can be helpful to work through your emotional reaction as well.

Then cast a critical eye on the review. If you can’t manage this alone, feel free to loop in a friend to do this with you. Is the review a fact or an opinion? For example, someone calling out racism or sexism is vastly different than someone saying they just didn’t like your narrator. And if the review is tapping into fact, what can you do differently moving forward that will make your work better? If it’s an opinion, do your best to breathe and let it go—everyone is entitled to their opinion!

When you take this online writing course, you’ll discover your voice, learn the basics of grammar and examine the different types of writing. No matter what type of writing you’re planning on crafting—nonfiction or fiction—you’ll need guidance along the way.