December 5, 2021
The One Star Review
I feel bad for the gentiles.
Well, not all the gentiles. Just the gentile writers.
When they get a bad review, they have no one to blame but themselves.
We Jews can blame the anti semites.
Now as luck would have it, my books have been very well reviewed. Almost the Truth got a great review in Kirkus, a fact I manage to slip into nearly every conversation. And Bubbe Meise received a starred review in Blue Ink Review- where the reviewer called me an “irresistible character.”
Now unless you are a writer you have likely never heard of Kirkus or Blue Ink. Most people will invariably say “is that a friend of yours?” Eventually, they will all end up asking how many books I have sold. I will then repeat “I got a great review from Kirkus” and then they will ask again how many copies I sold and I will mumble “nearly 200.” Although it might be closer to 100. Then the person will sometimes say “oh, so I bought 20% of your books.”
Anyway, that’s what happens.
But on occasion a negative review will show up on Amazon or on Goodreads and I will show it to a friend who is always nice enough to say “antisemite.” Even my non Jewish friends know to say anti semite and that makes me feel a little bit better but not really. They aren’t really saying that the reviewer is antisemetic. It is just shorthand for saying you can’t please everyone and I know that’s true but the negative reviews really bummed me out. My friend Helen said that most writers don’t read their reviews and every writer has had to suffer through bad ones. My friend Steve Levine said “at least you didn’t get a Fatwah declared on you” which also made me feel better.
In the end, I decided to just go cold turkey and stop reading reviews. Instead, I ask Kitty, my admin assistant, to go through the reviews from time to time and update me on anything which is good. I tell her not to even hint at anything which might be bad. So that works pretty well although sometimes she will say that there is nothing new and I of course interpret it as being that there is nothing new which is good so by default they must be bad. Anyway it is a matter for my shrink and not my editor but it works for me.
Most people in my life now know that I am not interested in hearing about bad reviews and, if they are kind enough to write their own review, they will just forward it to me.
Of course most people in my life are not Lewberg, who has a “fuck them if they can’t take a joke” attitude and doesn’t understand why I don’t share it, so I wasn’t really surprised when he sent me a text which said
“Did you see the Amazon review from the dick who only gave you one star?”
And I replied “Jesus Lewberg.”
And he said “Guy said he couldn’t read the font. Said it was too small. He returned the book like it was a defective toaster. Gave you one star. That really fucks your average.”
I then waited for Lewberg to text ‘antisemite’. But no text came.
So I sent it myself.
“Antisemite,” I texted.
And Lewberg texted back “nope.”
And I said “nope?”
Lewberg texted “nope. Sheldon Levkovitch”
Then he texted “semite.”
I pulled out a copy of Almost the Truth from my bookshelf and checked the size of the font. It was perfectly fine. Perfectly legible. Then I compared it to the one in The Bubbe Meise. It too was perfectly fine.
There wasn’t much to do other than conclude that Sheldon Levkovitch was a myopic misanthropic piece of shit.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
Or could I?
I email our book designer and asked if she could create a file with larger print. Amazon has print on demand. In theory, we could remove the existing print file, replace it with a large print version, order a copy, and then return to the original file. It would cost me a couple of hundred of dollars in design costs, but it could be done.
It was dumb.
I should just have ignored the one star review and gotten on with my life.
But
I couldn’t.
I called Lewberg and told him of my plan.
“Let me see if I got this right,” he said “you are going to spend a few hundred dollars just in order to get a custom large print version of the book so you can send it to him in the hope that he will change his one star review?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who he is or where he lives?”
“No”
“Do you have any reason to think that the type of person who goes out of his way to give you a shit review because the font is too small is the type of person who will then change his review?”
“No”
“Do you even know if it is possible to change a review?”
“No.”
“Of all of the bad ideas you have ever had, and you have had a few, I think this might be the worst,” said Lewberg.
“It’s moot unless reviews can be changed,” I say.
“You won’t do it just for the customer service?”
“No. Fuck him. This only makes sense if reviews and ratings can be changed. Otherwise, it is a waste of time.”
“I could review your book and then see if I can change it,” offered Lewberg.
“Yeah?” I said
“Sure,” said Lewberg.
“It’s a crazy idea,” I said.
“The craziest,” said Lewberg.
“Do you think it might work,” I asked.
And Lewberg replied “Yeah, it just might.”
Goldfarb calls me ten minutes later. He launches into the conversation without a hello.
“You still have that thing about not wanting to hear about negative reviews?”
“Goldfarb, what are you doing looking at Amazon reviews?”
“It relaxes me.”
“It relaxes you?”
“Well, I thought it might be a bit cold if I said it cheered me up.”
“Jesus Goldfarb!”
“What can I say. I have a thing for schadenfreude.”
“No schadenfreude here Harold. You’re too late. Lewberg just told me. I already heard about myopic Sheldon. I’m taking care of it.”
“What are you doing?”
I told Goldfarb my plan.
“Lewberg doesn't have to test it. Of course you can edit or delete an Amazon review. I think it is a crazy waste of money but the guy might appreciate it.”
Turns out though, that Sheldon Levkowitz did not really appreciate very many things. He didn’t appreciate the Los Veracruz restaurant because “the paper towels in the bathroom were so coarse I feared tearing my skin.” He didn't like the new James Bond movie because “I wouldn’t feed that popcorn to a Guantanamo prisoner.” And he didn't like Jim’s Hardware store because “their parking spots appear to be only large enough for a child’s tricycle.” All one star reviews. This Sheldon Levkowitz was a piece of work and I realized that maybe I got off easy. So there wasn’t much I could do. I would just have to live with the one star review and the drop in my overall ratings. The phone rang and it was Goldfarb.
“It’s not myopic,” he said.
“What’s not myopic?”
“Well you called him myopic Sheldon but myopic means nearsighted. What you meant to say was hyperopic.”
“Goldfarb,” I said “are you fucking kidding me with this?”
“I was just thinking if you end up writing this up in one of your little stories that you are going to look pretty stupid. Some guy like Sheldon will give you one star because you got it wrong. I am only trying to help.”
I thought about it. Goldfarb was probably right
“Ok thanks. If I ever write it up in one of my little stories I will fix it. Although I'm not sure I am ever going to write about this one star review.”
“No not your finest moment,” said Goldfarb.
“This Sheldon is quite the prolific reviewer,” I said. Then I proceeded to tell Goldfarb about the other one star reviews.
And Goldfarb said “you know. I think it actually might be a good thing.”
“What do you mean? This guy is just a curmudgeon.”
“Yeah. But his complaints are always about secondary factors. He doesn’t actually slam the product. If you fix the secondary factor, in this case, the size of the font, he might actually make a change.”
“You think.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to try.”
Kitty found a Sheldon Levkowitz in Seattle, one in Chicago, and one in Miami. We printed three copies of the book and sent one to all three Sheldons.
And then we waited.
One month.
Two months.
Three months.
Every month I asked Kitty if there was a new review from Sheldon.
Every month she said no.
On month four she sent me a very excited email. Sheldon had changed his review and had now given the book five stars.
I called Kitty
“Five stars?”
“Yes!”
“Ok. Read it to me.”
“I have to compliment Amazon’s commendable customer service. Upon hearing my complaint that the font on their product was too small and illegible, they replaced it with a large print version. I am impressed. Five stars.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing about the book?”
“Let me look again… no.”
“Hmm. That sucks. But five stars?”
“Yes.”
“So my rating went back up.”
And the phone went silent. Then Kitty said “no.”
“No?”
“No.”
“That’s weird. Maybe it takes 24 hours for their algo to kick in. Let’s check again tomorrow.”
“Ok.”
We checked again the next day, the day after that, and the week after too. But the rating did not go up. That didn’t make sense. But I wasn't going to let it bug me.
And I didn’t.
For about six hours.
At 3 am that night I turned on my computer and logged into Amazon. I found my book. Kitty was right. Sheldon had changed his review to five stars. But right below Sheldon’s review was the reason why my rating did not go up.
Another 1 star review.
Which Kitty was forbidden to tell me about.
It was a review that the person who posted it was supposed to have removed. But who, perhaps with the aid of one or two Kettel Ones, had forgotten about.
This was the review.
One Star Review
“I wish that I too, like my fellow reviewer, could say that the font in this book was too small to read. Unfortunately, I was able to read it all too well. One star. Only because Amazon doesn’t allow me to put in zero. Damn you Sheldon you lucky sonavabitch.”
Amazon Customer Lewberg.
The end.