My Memoir Received it's First 1 Star Review on Amazon: 10 Reasons I'm Grateful For It

Before I publised the book my biggest fear was getting slammed on Amazon. It almost led me to not publish. I faced that fear, which was magical unto itself.

And when the fear came to fruition all it did was sting for about 10-15 seconds.

I can leverage this experience to move forward on other projects that scare me.

Amazon favors books with more reviews, good or bad. This review will help, ever so slightly, boost the books visibility. And I'm 1 review closer to hitting 100 reviews.

What can I learn from this review? How can I use it to improve on my second book?

The 2nd book is currentley in the works.

I have the opportunity to reframe what was my biggest fear and create a gratitude list.

I'll use the experince to create content for my 1:1 coaching business. I'll discuss fear and the goals we set for ourselves.

It's no longer something floating around that may happen. It happened and will probably happen again.

It feels like a right of passage to receive a bad review. Every single book ever published has received 1 star reviews. I just finished "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini which I absolutely loved. It has 24K positive reviews on Amazon.

Here's one of the 1 star reviews:

"Worst story too graphic for anyone to read. Not sure how this is even considered literature."

I'll figure out a way to use it to market the book.

I believe it was Robert Cialdini on @JamesAltucher's podcast who said the optimal rating for a book on Amazon is 4.2 to 4.7. Consumers don't trust 5 star ratings, they believe all the authors friends rated the book. This review dropped me to a 4.8.

Before I wrote the first word, I was shaken to my core thinking about the first critical comment/review the book would inevitably receive.

I was convinced I couldn't handle it. I was convinced it would destroy me. I was convinced I'd never write again, even though I hadn't even written anything at all.

I was standing at "A" and freaking out about "X, Y, Z."

When we embark on a new journey, we think we know how we're going to feel and react while we're on the journey.

Our past hurts inform our future fears.

But we don't have a crystal ball. We don't know how we're going to feel until the moment actually happens.

There's something so critically important to connect with at the beginning of any journey:

You have to go through B before you get to Z.

And, by the time you get to X, Y, & Z - you're not the same person you were at A. You've been transformed; you've evolved in a way that you couldn't see or comprehend when you first started.

Because you've slain the fears and the doubts from journeying from A to B and all the way to Z.

And the person you've become is no longer scared of X, Y & Z.