Authors, prepare yourself for the inevitable one-star review. In the publishing industry, one-star reviews are practically a rite of passage.

And no one is immune. Whether you’ve got 10 best-sellers to your credit or it’s your first book, you can expect at least a single one-star review.

They run the gamut from weird to inappropriate to useful (believe it or not).

People actually wrote these one-star reviews

There are the one-star Amazon reviews that make you roll your eyes.

“If possible, I’d give this pile of garbage zero stars.”

“Not really of much use for me. Seems like just a lot of useless information to fill up a book.”

“The best part of this book is the cover photo.”

Then there are the one-star Amazon reviews that have a little more substance.

“If you know nothing at all and are not good at Googling this might be a good choice.”

“I really didn’t like this book. I don’t understand why it’s so highly rated. I found the characters to be either overly dramatic, willfully ignorant, or utterly apathetic. They were just too extreme.”

“I was expecting a great deal of sociological analysis that relate to the author’s personal experiences but instead got a 272 rambling, inconsistent, humble brag of a memoir sprinkled with a few facts and statistics for good measure.”

What’s the difference between the two types of bad reviews?

You can’t learn anything from the bad reviews that seem nonsensical or just plain mean.

But if one-star reviewers consistently comment that they were disappointed because your book didn’t include information they expected — and each bad review refers to the same missing information — you should update the description to forewarn readers: “This book is not about ‘X.’ ” (And perhaps add that missing information to a revised edition.)

Or, if reviewers repeatedly comment that the book is poorly written, is so riddled with typos that they couldn’t finish reading it, or that the dialogue was stilted, it’s time to take note.

Sometimes the feedback is useless, sometimes it’s helpful, right? The challenge is to be objective enough to see it for what it is.

3 reasons to embrace one-star reviews

But even useless or mean-spirited one-star reviews serve a purpose. Here are three reasons to embrace the lowly one-star review:

1. Readers aren’t stupid.

When you see a one-star review that says, “I bought this as a gift but it arrived too late,” what’s your reaction?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you probably don’t think any less of the book or its author. Perhaps you think less of the reviewer for reviewing the delivery schedule, not the book’s contents.

Readers can see past silliness as easily as authors can.

2. They make the four- and five-star reviews believable.

Be honest: When you see a book with 60 reviews and they’re all five stars, does a quiet little voice in your head say, “Really? Not even one four-star comment? Or a couple of threes?”

That’s because you’re smart enough to know that this is a subjective business. You might hate what I love, and vice versa. So it seems kind of odd when everybody agrees that it’s a great book.

A 4.6, review average, especially when there are lots of reviews, is more credible than 5.0. (Because, as noted in point 1, readers aren’t stupid.)

3. They can provide feedback that helps you improve the book or its description.

As noted already, if you get the same negative feedback from several people, pay attention. Consider taking action on it.

For example, if you’re charging $14.99 for a 90-page paperback and you’ve got a slew of one-star reviews saying the book isn’t worth $14.99, it’s time to evaluate price versus perceived value.

Look for patterns in those negative reviews to see what you can learn from them. Sometimes, it’s nothing. But sometimes it’s something — even a big something. You can use that feedback to your advantage.

Responding to negative reviews

This brings up another point: Should you respond to negative reviews?

For the most part, no, but there are a few exceptions. Learn more about that in, “Should you respond to negative reviews?”

I counsel authors to move quickly past a random negative review but to pay attention when one- and two-star reviews become the norm, not the exception. There’s usually something you can learn from when that happens.

How do you feel about one-star reviews? Useful? Useless? Painful? Share your thoughts in a comment. 

When good buzz goes bad

By Gretchen Hirsch

Even before you finished your book, you were deep into your buzz-building marketing plan.

You created e-mail lists, scoured rosters of reviewers, and lined up friends and family reviews.

You arranged for a book launch online and in store, wrote your tweets for distribution, and built a website and Facebook page.

You taped a trailer.

You alerted your media contacts.

You did these things on your own if you self-published or in concert with your publisher if you worked with a traditional publishing house. Every bit of your preparation was perfect.

Your book was released and everything went as it was supposed to. Initial sales were brisk.

But now, the unthinkable has happened. The five-star family and friends reviews have dried up, replaced by a stream of jarring one-star assessments.

What to do now

You’re allowed one hour of self-pity. Then look at the reviews again and ask yourself three questions:

1. Do you see trends in the criticism?

Are reviewers citing one or two issues consistently? Readers will forgive a typo, but they have less patience with repeated misspellings or recurrent grammatical errors.

Are they complaining about sloppy research? Then these folks are doing you a favor. They’re telling you what you need to work on as you continue to write. Open that Great Big Dictionary more often. Buy an eighth-grade grammar book and brush up on what you’ve forgotten.

Check and recheck dates, ages, locations, and facts as you write, and do it again when the book is finished. The devil is in the details, and if you don’t give the details the attention they deserve, reviewers will rebuke you for it.

2. Is the reviewer credible?

If you receive a particularly savage review, check other critiques that person has posted. Often you’ll find that he or she reviews more hair care products and toys than books, and you may discover the reviewer never provides positive commentary on a book.

These folks delight in giving even exceptional work a thrashing. You could psychoanalyze that behavior from here to breakfast, but don’t waste your time. Ignore them.

3. Is there anything you can do? 

If you’re traditionally published, you may have to grin and bear it.

Self-publishing offers an option, though. Pull the book and fix the errors, perhaps with the help of an outside editor. I did this recently when mistakes I thought had been eliminated in the final proof cropped up again in the published version. It was my fault, not the publisher’s, because I had inadvertently approved the wrong draft–the one that hadn’t been looked at by my proofreader.

Yes, making corrections may cost you some money, and you have to weigh that decision, but think of it as an investment in your long-term success.

Readers want a quality book. Do everything you can to give them one. Mistakes can be valuable, and even bad buzz can serve a useful purpose.

(Learn how to get reader and literary reviews in “How to Get Honest Book Reviews in 3 Easy Steps.” Read the details online and register now.)

What’s the worst thing that has happened with your book since it was launched? And the best?