You're supposed to respond to every review? Really? Eek. I've been doin it wrong for more'n a decade now. Bad me.
As a reviewer -- and at one time I was a great reviewer, in terms of volume -- having writers thank me for my thank you sometimes got tedious, and sometimes it was just embarrassing.
On the other hand, the balance of debt between writer and reader is a more complicated thing than all that, I think. I believe that readers are the generous ones, both in fandom and in the world in general. Writers are going to write their stories -- in most cases, we just have to in order to exist as ourselves -- but nothing compels strangers to read our work, or to pay for it with reviews and/or money. That people do so is humbling and awesome to me as a writer, and if I could write long letters to the handful of folks who've bought my fiction, I probably would. They have no idea what kindness they've given.
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Date: 2010-09-01 03:32 pm (UTC)As a reviewer -- and at one time I was a great reviewer, in terms of volume -- having writers thank me for my thank you sometimes got tedious, and sometimes it was just embarrassing.
On the other hand, the balance of debt between writer and reader is a more complicated thing than all that, I think. I believe that readers are the generous ones, both in fandom and in the world in general. Writers are going to write their stories -- in most cases, we just have to in order to exist as ourselves -- but nothing compels strangers to read our work, or to pay for it with reviews and/or money. That people do so is humbling and awesome to me as a writer, and if I could write long letters to the handful of folks who've bought my fiction, I probably would. They have no idea what kindness they've given.