Artists tend toward the introvert side of the human experience, but increasingly we are called upon to take the lead in promoting our own careers. Many recoil with distaste, perhaps sabotaging the recognition they might otherwise accrue. Others brag with gusto, thereby sabotaging their own efforts with a veil of well-earned distaste. There is a middle ground, and it’s not that hard to identify, as I realized recently in a discussion with fellow writers about reviews and what one should and shouldn’t do with them.
The practice of mining reviews and news for favorable quotes was called “spin” long before that term made it into politics and the colloquial lexicon, and before it attained its more negative connotations. It’s an essential part of promotion, but like most things, it can be used and it can be abused.
To do it successfully, you only need ask yourself, “If I read this excerpt, then read the source, would I think the source had been misrepresented or not?”
It should be obvious that if you take a line out of context in order to make a negative review appear positive, the answer would be “yes.” If you go around misrepresenting your reviews, the world will see you for what you are, a douche with a coat of desperation. But that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t present what is written about you in the best light; that’s just common sense. Research has shown that your single biggest source of new readers is trusted referral. So it’s important that you collect and use good review quotes–but in a way that always preserves the honesty, even the objectivity, of your presence as a source of referral.
That being the case, resist mining the one positive comment in an otherwise lackluster review
