Anonymity: Pain or Pleasure?

How Putting Yourself Out There Can Be The Most Terrifying Thing Of All

It's no secret that everyone who puts themselves out there will eventually encounter a hater. Usually, it comes at the worst of times, too. I cannot tell you the number of times I've opened something up only to find a critical review of my work or the work of someone I care about, and I'm forced to endure the sharp pain of failure.

This is not a new thing, and even the most successful authors in the world lack a perfect 5-star 100% likable rating. It's impossible for people to be everyone's cup of tea.

And this knowledge is what inspired me to come chat about taking care of yourself when you have to suffer with a critic.

Our most recent author has received reviews with a variety of ratings, but one of the more recent ones seemed to come a little too close to home for her and she was sad that her book made someone feel the way they claimed in their review.

Because I care about her, I went to see if I could shed some light on possible reasons our dear author didn't actually need to be taking it to heart, and ways she could think about the review instead that might make her feel a bit more comfortable.

I went to exploring the profile of the person who left the review. I know on some sites there is often no way of going in and looking at some of the things reviewers have talked about in the past, but this one, thankfully, had information I could use.

This is important for anyone who is putting themselves out there on the internet, as well. If you can find out more about the person, I often find that I am better able to understand them and the way they exist online.

This person was someone who had left reviews for many books and never seemed to be quite happy with works that are even extremely popular and in the public eye. I also noticed a theme with the books they reviewed that had positive feedback from this reviewer. They tended to only favor the romance genre, which our book is not categorized in.

The beauty in learning this is that I can now feel secure in the fact that it's not the book that this person doesn't like but really anything that doesn't have love and romance in it.

But as you move forward in your own authorship and come across reviewers that don't look favorably upon your work, know that sometimes it really is not personal. And above all, you shouldn't take any of them personally.

Don't let anyone ever stop you from writing!

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Lexi Mohney is an award-winning, self published author and a book coach living in Ann Arbor, MI. Throughout her writing and coaching career, she's lived by the motto of "six seconds of insane courage," and worked with her own coaches, groups, and support system to see her Big Audacious Dreams come true. Her greatest goal is to help others achieve success of their own. Her first published piece, Carnal Knowledge, won an award at the 7th Annual Bisexual Book Awards in NYC on June 1, 2019. These days, you can find her working with clients or on her own writing (you can't have writer's block on multiple books at once). Contact her through her website or on social media.