So I’m not blacking out my blog today. I understand why a lot of people blacking out their sites because of SOPA… I get it and understand why.

As much as I hate piracy, hurting the sites that don’t pirate isn’t the way to do it.

However, I’m not blacking my site out because I’m scared I’ll break it.

So instead of blacking my site out, I’m going to do another thing to speak out against any form of censorship.

I’m going to speak my mind. I’m going to post an opinion. Imagine that… O.o

Remember that pink unicorn post?

How posting negative reviews killed pink unicorns? Yes! It’s true…read more about it here.

Anyway, I was on twitter and Redrobinreader said something that made me think there was another reviewer/YA drama thing.  (There have been a lot lately…).

No.  It wasn’t a drama.

It started with an article in the Guardian, and I’ll sum it up with the final line:

if you can’t stand the heat of the blogosphere – don’t Google yourself.

Very well said.  I agree.  I can handle negative reviews, I can handle snark and in all honestly, unless you get personal and ugly about my family, I’m not going to get too upset.  If I see a harsh review, I might decide to go guzzle a margarita, call a friend, but in the end, that review means one thing…it didn’t work for that reader.  But it will work for somebody else, and that’s what I need to focus on.  This is the stuff that keeps a writer sane.

The thing that caught my attention was a link to this blog by Maggie Stiefvater.

One line that jumped out at me…

A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper.

Disagree.  So very, very much.

Where is this in the book of publishing that reviews must be an unbiased careful look at a book?

I don’t recall being told this at any point in my career. My first book was published in 2003 and I realize that publishing has gone through (is still going through) a lot of changes, but I never got this memo about reviews.

Reviews were always just one person’s opinion of your book.  If it was something that could be used for promo?  Awesome.  If not…again, the margarita and the friend were very good to have on hand.

Then this bit, about negative ‘reviews’ that aren’t really reviews at all:

They’re often quite funny. But here’s the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book.

So basically, a blogger writing a piece about a book isn’t a review.  Again…where was this written?

Now, keep in mind, I’m not trying to knock or bash Ms. Stiefvater but this idea is just…well, to be blunt, it strikes me as silly.

Sure, M-W.com says:

¹re·view

a: a critical evaluation (as of a book or play) (link)

A critical evaluation.  Doesn’t say anything about bias, or lack of.  Snark or lack of.

Just a critical evaluation.

Honestly, I’d rather have the snark.  I’d rather have something funny than a dry as toast survey of one of my books.

When you mock or belittle the hard work that bloggers put into their reviews…well, think about how you love it when people belittle the hard work you put into your writing.

No, writing a review or… ‘blog post’ or whatever we want to call it isn’t the same as writing a book.  But it’s still writing.

Writing negative reviews isn’t always much fun for bloggers.  Quite a few of them have said this. I’ve been around this block so many times, it’s not even funny, so I’ve heard this song, seen this dance…it’s nothing new.

And this drama?  Again… it’s nothing new.  I started out in epublishing, in erotic romance and so many of these blow-ups are repeats of what some of us saw in 2004, 2005, when epubs authors and erotic romance authors were trying to find their fit in the online world.

This is nothing new.  It’s tedious, yep. But not new.

Anyway, bloggers have this review, written for readers…not the author…and it gets knocked.

And now here’s the kicker…and where I go off on one of my many tangents.  I didn’t get this from Ms. Stiefvater’s blog…it’s from some of the drama that happened previously, and that led up to the post on the Guardian.

Yes, there are hundreds (or more) unpaid bloggers who post reviews.  Maybe this is where we need to differentiate.  Unpaid bloggers versus professional reviewers.

But both are capable of writing honest, insightful reviews…critical evaluations.

And anybody with a brain in their head can differentiate a well-thought out, insightful review, be it good or bad, from a ur a big stoopidhead and how did u evr git publshd anyway? post.

Now these, yes, we can call this silliness ‘non-reviews’ by a handful of people.

But their sort of ‘reviewing’ doesn’t compare to the reviews you see at sites like Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Wicked Lil Pixie, Book Vixen, The Good The Bad & The Unread, Smexy Books, Limecello, etc, etc, etc.

Are these sites paid review sites?  Nope.  Bloggers.  Some make money through ads and such, but they don’t get paid to review, to my knowledge.

That doesn’t make their reviews any less valid than the paid reviewers.

And now for the tie-in to censorship.

There are still so fricking many authors out there who have the sheer, unmitigated gall to say crap like…

• Negative reviews serve no purpose. 
• Negative reviews deter reading. 
• You shouldn’t post negative reviews…if you don’t like it, just don’t say anything.

In short, this crap tells a reviewer/reader what to think or say about a book.

And if a writer goes so far as to say, you shouldn’t post them…

That writer has attempted to censor the reviewer.

Period.

Now…let’s turn the tables.  If you’ve ever been one of the writers who said that tripe?  Next time you sit down to write, I want you to think about how much fun it would be if you had somebody tell you just what you can’t write…and what tone you should use when you write what you can.