The Power of Negative Reviews


Here’s one lowlight review on Amazon for my first novel, The Lost Testament. 

“I put the book down after the first few chapters. Who cares about the lost testament? NO ONE alive is from those times so why waste your time giving your opinion on “lost” things. No one knows and they won’t either until all of sudden, we gain all that knowledge.”

The Lost Testament is a Christian fiction thriller centered around the discovery of an apocryphal text written by Jesus Christ post-resurrection.

This young lady seems to believe that since no one from the first-century Christian church is alive, then nobody should care. Throwing out 2,000 years of history doesn’t seem like a good idea, and, at first, her opinion made me made enough to spit nails.

Then, I read an article about how a bad review can add balance to the opinions about your product. I’m still not sure if I believe it. After all, a bad review is a bad review.

On the other hand, the bad reviews are the first place I go when considering a new service or product. Not that I’m a pessimist, but I like to see what’s the worst someone can say about something and whether or not it has merit.

What are your thoughts?  

One thought on “The Power of Negative Reviews

  1. It’s a bad review – sure, but is it a legitimate one?

    It reminds me of those pictures floating around of Facebook status updates where people claim History is a useless school subject, and is ‘stupid’ – I allways laugh at them, although its probably i’m a little too elitist. I, for one, love History for itself, and even beyond that (A fairly subjective thing) its inarguable History can teach us a lot about ourselves, our civilization, and indeed the future( Psychohistory, anyone?)

    While a Bad review would dishearten me, a review like that would do nothing of the sort – I’d laugh, and ignore it. Someone like that could never like anything i have written, and i am okay with that – you can’t please anyone. This person has just, instead of understanding it’s simply a matter of taste and preference, decided to give a bad review. I’ve read plenty of books i didn’t like, due to taste, but couldn’t really review badly. If i saw that review when considering buying a book, it’d promptly ignore it and move on to the next review.

    So, i wouldn’t feel too bad about a review like that.

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