Never Read the Comments

Though you can read the reviews (if you keep Jay Z in mind).

These are my actual car keys. That’s how much I believe in the sentiment/need to be reminded.

Last Friday, I had a super awesome thing happen: The Wall Street Journal covered the relaunch of my first book, Party Girl, which I decided to PG-ify and re-release. (I also went on Access Hollywood to promote the relaunch, which was also fun.)

Anyway, I was very proud of the WSJ story—less proud to be written about than I was proud of how I handled it, which was with sheer appreciation.

As I wrote about last week, I have ruined so many gifts I’ve been granted. When I had an essay published as a New York Times “Modern Love,” I didn’t do a happy dance. Instead I read every single comment—and there were hundreds—that attacked the quality of the writing and me personally. I was in Idylwild with a friend the weekend the story came out but instead of exploring, I sat in a cabin with a sporadic wifi connection and obsessed about the comment someone made about how I had to be sleeping with someone at the New York Times for them to agree to publish my trash.

But for this WSJ story, I only focused on what a blessing it was that my book that I’ve loved so much got this attention. Not all aspects of the article were positive but I didn’t care. And when I saw the comments pile up—creeping into the hundreds and then the two hundreds—I didn’t glance at them. I mentioned that I wasn’t reading the comments to a friend who went and looked at them, smiled and supported me in my decision not to take a gander.

“Bad?” I asked.

He nodded.

“About me having been a ho?” I asked.

“That and about being self-absorbed.”

I swear to you, dear reader, I did not and do not care. Why yes, I am self-absorbed. Name a writer—nay, a human—who isn’t.

My point is this: if you’re lucky enough to have your book receive attention, you will attract negative comments. And I say that’s a sign that you’re doing something right: you’re triggering the shit out of someone. And I can guarantee that the someone you’re triggering is not living their best life. My guess is that a person compelled to criticize a stranger being written about would like to be putting themselves out there but is paralyzed by fear. Why else would they spew hatred on a stranger? Honestly, the writing part of writing a book is the easy part. It’s the willingness to put yourself in the line of fire that requires the real courage. It’s much easier to sit on a couch and write a nasty comment.

Now, when it comes to reviews, this is easier said than done. You can’t just not read your reviews. I mean, you could but it would be hard. Harsh commentary from strangers about something you killed yourself on sucks. But again, it goes back to their fear, best summarized by Jay Z in “Already Home”: And as for the critics, tell me I don't get it. Everybody can tell you how to do it, they never did it.

I’ve handled this better some times than I have others. When I released a children’s book I wrote about my son and it was mercilessly attacked by Amazon readers, I felt punched in the gut.

One woman wrote that she taught analysis of children’s books for a living and that made reading Bennie the Brute painful.¹ Now, pain sucks but I have to say, her profession reminded me a bit of the joke in Airplane about the “magazine” on famous Jewish sports legends that was only a leaflet. While I have no idea who takes a class in the analysis of children’s books, my guess is that it’s not the masses.

So I say keep putting yourself out there and ignore the basement dwellers who want you to suffer for your courage². The more you ignore them, the more powerful you become.

LINKS OF THE WEEK:

Does listening to a book count as reading? Share your opinion in the comments!

It’s never too late for your book to become a massive hit (decades later)

You think your book is long? Well, is it 1.3 million words?

I’ve been preaching forever that blurbs aren’t as important as you think and now the head of Simon & Schuster is saying the same

1. Lucky for her, the pain was ephemeral; it’s a very short book.

2. In a meta example, a bunch of the people who subscribed to my previous newsletter fit this bill. I had about 5k people and almost every time I sent out a newsletter (and I did it every week for years), someone would write me back to criticize me, saying I shouldn’t swear or make a joke about something or send so many emails or some other random thing they had a problem with. These were people who chose to sign up for my newsletter and then felt compelled, when I did what they requested and sent them a newsletter, to write me something hostile. It’s one of the reasons I decided to move my newsletter over here. I essentially decided I hated many of those 5k people and if I wanted to to write people every week, I wanted them to be expansively minded, successful and appreciative, and not the close-minded, negative ones I seemed to have drawn to that other list. The day I sent out that last newsletter saying that I was going to stop sending regular missives and all non-assholes should sign up for this Substack, one person wrote me back and told me what I’d written was way too long and I should know that no one would read something that long. (My guess is he was far too busy writing me back to read the newsletter and discover that it was about some of my subscribers being assholes.) Anyway, if you’ve made it this far down this footnote, I must tell you that you seem to be the opposite of those people. There are 1/10th of you but the responses I’ve gotten to this newsletter have been so kind and appreciative. Since you’re not a hater, I’m concluding that you’re a do-er so get out there and do the do.