You can't please everyone

I know how actors feel when they read the reviews the morning after opening night and find one scathing assessment of their work. The performance was bad; the script was worse; and the actor was beyond awful. Struggling to find something positive to write, the reviewer notes, "She did remember her lines." The actor travels from dumbfounded to disappointed to depressed in the space of one paragraph. She doesn't even recall the other reviews. THIS is the only one that matters.

The feelings are much the same when the review is about one's book. I know because I received one. It was just an e-mail, so the rest of the world didn't see it—or at least I hope not. The only good thing the reviewer had to to say was that I had "a way with words."

Today, a colleague sent me a review she had posted on-line. It was thoughtful; it was glowing; it was all over the Internet. I'm going to blow it up and have it made into a poster. The best part was how quickly it obliterated the preceding withering critique, which by the way, is the only one I've read.

Judgment Call

Everyone is a critic, but that doesn't mean every opinion carries equal weight. Whose judgment counts and whose do not? First and foremost, you have to please yourself. You must love your own work. Second, if you have a client, you have to please that person because he or she is paying you. If you love it, and the client hates it, the client's view trumps yours.

That's it. Two people: you and your client.

Even if 62 other folks weigh in on your work, their opinions may be illuminating or instructive, but in the end, they really don't matter.