Category: Blogging

What To Do With a One-Star Review

June 3, 2019 / Kyle A. Massa

one star review

I recently received my first one-star review. This was my reaction:

Nah, just kidding. I was pretty bummed at first, but now that I’ve had time to think about it, I have some fresh thoughts. In this post, we’ll discuss ways to make something good out of a bad review.

Write About It

…But please don’t write a scathing hit piece against the reviewer. Remember, every review is valuable, even those with one star. Instead, it might help to write a piece that helps other writers going through the same thing.

Okay, I know this sounds a little like a support group for something that isn’t that bad. It’s just a review. However, bad reviews sting, and they can be jarring blows to your confidence. So do what you do best. Write about it.

Give others tips on how to overcome their disappointment. Discuss ways to do something positive with a negative. That can help turn things around.

You might even take this one step further and use it in your next story. Every experience can contribute to fictional work, so keep this one stored away. Write about a writer who’s struggling to move on after receiving bad reviews. Or, more generally, apply this feeling to a character who’s experiencing momentary failure.

Remember That Everyone Gets Them

Really. Everyone. Here’s a review for Margaret Atwood’s latest:

Here’s another for J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, one of the most successful novels of all time:

And even the master of horror himself, Stephen King:

It’s just like mom said: You can’t please everyone. Your carefully crafted plot twist is going to be labeled predictable by some readers. Your favorite character is going to be someone else’s punching bag. Your most intricate passage is going to feel unwieldy to a less patient reader.

It’s the nature of art to be controversial. If everyone feels exactly the same way about it, then maybe it’s not doing its job well. Some of the most enduring stories are those that people argue about.

For example, consider the latest Avengers film. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that Marvel Studios made significant changes to some of its most beloved characters. Some people liked it. Some didn’t. Yet even those that didn’t are joining a conversation about the film. And that’s a good thing.

Consider the Aggregate

If I may take an example from my cardboard addiction, Magic: The Gathering, consider the aggregate. In Magic, if your goal is to win every match, you’ve set an unrealistic expectation for yourself. Even Jon Finkel, the Michael Jordan of Magic, wins only about 65 percent of his games. So if you can’t win every match, what should be your goal?

In Magic, the goal is not to win, but to increase your percentage chance of winning. The best players in the world squeeze out that additional one percent of win likelihood, which doesn’t sound like much, but really is. Over the long term, that extra one percent could be the deciding match in a championship game, or a difficult-to-navigate situation most other players would lose. Percentage points are what separate good players from the greats.

The same goes for reviews. Even if that one-star review feels like a loss, your skill will be shown in the overall record of your book. The aggregate scores will drown out some of the worse ones, and overall, you’ll find success.

Summing It Up

One-star reviews are hard to stomach in the moment. Give yourself time to be sad about them, but then move on quickly. Find something positive to do with that negative review, and then do it. It will be a huge help in the future.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Originality is Overrated

March 26, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

There, I said it. This is a thought I’ve had for a while now, though it’s been difficult to find the right words to express it. I hope I’ve found them here.

As writers, the works of other writers are equal parts inspiration and limitation. Stephen King might inspire you to become a horror writer, yet you might avoid writing a novel set in a haunted hotel. That would be too much like The Shining, right? It wouldn’t be original.

You know what? Screw originality. Write what you want!

So many writers decide not to pursue ideas simply because they believe it’s already been done. But so what? If your idea’s been done before, do it differently. Do it better. Do it with that personal touch only you can provide.

I’ll give you an example. One of my best friends told me he always had this idea for a story. You know the theory that humans only use a small percentage of their brain power? In my friend’s story, he imagined a character who takes experimental drugs which grant him access to the rest of his brain. This character develops hyper intelligence and extrasensory perception.

However, my friend told me he’d never write this story. Why? Because of the film Limitless. If you haven’t seen it, it’s almost exactly the same idea my friend had.

Hearing this really bummed me out. My friend was so excited about this story, yet the film killed his dream of writing it. I’m sure you’ve observed (or even personally experienced) a similar phenomenon.

Want my opinion (even though it’s not entirely original)? A similar existing work should never, ever stop you from working on a great idea.

The film Limitless, by the way, is based on a novel called The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn. But did you know that Ted Chiang published a similar story a decade earlier entitled Understand? His was also about a normal guy who took a drug that granted supernatural intelligence. And if we go back even further to 1959, we’ll find Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, yet another story about a scientifically sharpened intellect.

Though the methods and general mechanics might vary from story to story, each bears a core similarity to the others. I don’t necessarily agree with those who claim there are no original ideas. I just think writers can always find ways to take existing ideas and make them their own.

We see this all the time in fiction. People say dragons are overdone in fantasy, yet George R.R. Martin writes A Song of Ice and Fire and suddenly they’re resurrected. People say you can’t do anything original with zombies anymore, and then The Girl with All the Gifts becomes a hit.

Don’t let an existing story preclude you from writing something amazing. If your idea is similar to another, make it your own. Put your personal spin on it. Most important of all, write it.

Originality is overrated. But individual creativity—now that’s something to strive for.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his fiancee and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. To stay current with Kyle’s work, subscribe to his email newsletter. He promises not to spam you.

Why I Use WordPress

November 14, 2016 / Kyle A. Massa

Want to start a blog or a website? If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, free, and customizable platform, I recommend WordPress. Here’s why:

It’s Easy to Use

If I had to code my website, I wouldn’t have a website. Which is a big reason I dig WordPress.

To be fair, there are many other platforms out there that allow you to create websites without coding knowledge. And, to be even more fair, I haven’t used any aside from WordPress. But I’m thrilled with what I’ve gotten out of the ol’ Press.

I set up this WordPress blog way back in 2011, and it was easy. I got started for free, chose a website name and then I was pretty much set. Easy stuff. I didn’t need to do much of anything to start blogging; the interface was (and still is) easy to use. I just wrote up my draft, saved it, and published when ready.

It’s Free

Blogging is essential for many writers. And saving money is essential for pretty much everybody. If you want a blog, you’d better do it on the cheap.

With WordPress, there’s no cost to get started and no charges to keep your blog going. As long as you’ve got “.wordpress.com” in your URL, you don’t need to pay anybody anything. And if you’d like to drop that part of the domain like I have, it’s only 25 bucks a year.

Don’t think I need to say much more about this one. Save your dough for something else.

It’s Customizable

I drive a Honda Element. I’ve been driving it for a few years now and I love it. It’s spacious, reliable, good in the snow, great for transporting objects of all sizes. But it’s also shaped like a shoebox. I love that car, but sometimes I wish I could change the exterior.

WordPress makes it easy to change how your site looks. There are tons of templates to choose from, most of which are free, some of which cost 60 or 70 bucks. You can also add additional pages to your website and open ecommerce platforms. All in all, it’s simple to get your site looking the way you want it to.

If you’re already on WordPress, you probably already know the wonders of using it. If not, I hope I’ve convinced you. Give it a try and see how you like it.

What’s the Purpose of a Blog, Anyway?

May 16, 2016 / Kyle A. Massa

As part of the responsibilities of my job, I work on our company blog. I look for new bloggers, I edit the blogs we receive, and I map out our schedule. Since we post three times a week, we get a lot of blogs from a lot of different writers.

Among those numerous blogs, it’s amazing to see how many read more like sales pitches. The writers understand their products well, they know how to write, and they’re clearly intelligent people. The issue is, they seem to think that the purpose of a blog can be summed up in three words: “Buy my product!”

A good blog shouldn’t just be a sales pitch. A good blog should stand on its own as an interesting and readable piece of content. A good blog informs first, sells second.

So let’s say you’re an indie author who’s trying to sell your book. It’s tempting to pretty much only blog about the book—reviews, preliminary sales, your inspiration for writing it, all that.

But I would argue that that’s not a great way to handle your blog.

In my experience with content management, when bloggers just blab about their product, no one reads it. The bounce rate for this type of content (the percentage of people coming to the webpage and immediately leaving) tends to skyrocket. Or people just don’t read it at all. And it certainly doesn’t increase sales.

So if you’re trying to sell a product, what’s the point of blogging at all?

First of all, you can’t expect your blog to directly convert sales from every visitor. It just doesn’t work that way. The real purpose of a good blog is to build awareness about your brand (which is you, the writer). A good blog can establish you as an expert in the field, or at least as a pretty knowledgable guy or gal. Also, it’s one of the absolute best ways to get people coming back to your website, which in turn increases your chances of making a sale.

Now that’s not to say that you can’t add some hard sells. Just be careful with them, and use them sparingly. The biggest turn off for any prospective blog reader is constant requests to buy a product.

Try adding a call to action for your book in the sidebar, right where someone will see it when they read your blog. Oftentimes this is a much more effective form of marketing because you’re illustrating the value of your product rather than just saying, “Hey. You should buy this.” Kind of like showing instead of telling. If you write good content, your blog shows people that you have talent as a writer rather than just telling them to buy your book.

That said, don’t be disappointed if your blog doesn’t lead to direct sales. It’s not too often that someone will come to a site, read a blog, and then directly convert to a sale right then and there. You’ll usually find that customers discover your website from a search engine or social media (always share your blogs!), read it over, then maybe explore the rest of your site, just to get a feel for who you are.

And then they’ll probably leave. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be back!

Since there are so many products out there to spend money on, most people need something like ten to twelve positive interactions with a brand before they buy. So, on average, you can expect people to return to your site at least that many times before buying your book.

Blogging, like most worthwhile endeavors, requires patience. Your blog brings visitors to your site on a consistent basis, which increases your chances of making a sale in the future. It exposes readers to your writing when they might not otherwise have found it. For writers, blogs are also invaluable for building your mechanics and your credibility with your audience.

And, regardless of whether or not you’re trying to sell anything, blogging is an excuse to write. What could be better than that?