The 3 classes of collaborative and “helpful” reviewers and how to deal with them

Reviewers are a pain in the butt.

I’m not talking about people who write reviews of your book on Amazon or Goodreads. I’m talking about people who offer their opinions as part of your book creation process. Unless you know who they are and manage them proactively, they will create angst and chaos.

To avoid that, you need to figure out what kind of reviewers they are and then manage them appropriately.

Classifying people who offer opinions on your writing in progress

These are the three classes of reviewers whose opinions on your book you need to heed.

1. Collaborators. People who are actively working with you to make the book better. This includes editors, subject matter contributors, and coauthors.
2. Approvers. People whose criticisms and suggestions you must address, because they can withhold needed approvals. This might include your publisher, your boss, or others who approved the project in the first place.
3. Optional reviewers. People who have a right (or an invitation) to review the content, but whose opinions you are under no obligation to address.

The first step is to be proactive in surfacing reviewers. If you’re a ghostwriter, for example, it’s key to understand who on the client’s end might be looking over the content (that might include their colleagues or even their spouse). Then you need to understand which reviewers are in a position to contribute, which to block you or shift your direction, and which are just “helping.”

How to manage collaborators

Collaborators are capable of making major contributions. For example, in a ghostwriting project, the author — the client — is a collaborator that supplies source material you need. In a project I recently completed, the client’s colleague was a statistics and survey expert who was enormously helpful in gathering and interpreting data we needed. If you’ve hired a developmental editor, that individual, if competent, is going to be quite helpful as you work on your book.

The key to successful collaboration is to design a process that enables everyone to work together in harmony. You’ll most likely be meeting with collaborators before you start the project to align on goals and contents, before each chapter, and after their reviews come in. They’ll be revising fat outlines and drafts. Keeping their contributions in sync is essential, so you get everyone’s help before you start writing and everyone’s comments and feedback before you start rewriting. An efficient process requires you and your collaborators to agree on goals and deadlines.

How to manage approvers

While approvers can help make books better, they can also set the project back by insisting on changes to the main idea, terminology, or organization of a project. To minimize the disruptive effect, the key is to manage the timing.

Identify and then communicate with the approvers ahead of time, to help them understand your goals and the timing of your work. Welcome their contributions, but be clear when suggestions will be productive and when they’ll be problematic. Allude to the fact that course corrections are easy early in a project, but costly and disruptive later on.

When possible, get the approvers large chunks of the manuscript in as solid a form as you can. Make note of elements that you know are going to change (e.g. “We’re changing the term we use for this to xxxx, but I haven’t yet made that change consistently throughout.”) Set clear deadlines, and add a buffer: suggest dates a week or two earlier than you actually need the feedback.

You may need to remind approvers as the deadline is approaching, or that it has already passed.

When possible, have approvers make comments on one pass only — and ideally, not the last rewriting pass, when changes will potentially ripple and create more problems.

If an approver suggests a change that you can’t or would prefer not to make — for example, deleting credit due to a source you’re citing — respond to them and let them know what you can’t change and why. Ignoring their suggested comments only invites further meddling later in the process.

How to manage optional reviewers

Book projects have a way of attracting lots of curious folks, especially if you’re writing within a company. Such reviewers can actually help with unique insights, but only if you manage them so they don’t generate a constant stream of suggestions.

Here are some suggestions for managing optional reviewers:

• Set policies to keep the number of reviewers limited. For example, you might respond to a request for review with the statement, “Thanks for your interest in our book project. Our managers have recommended that we limit reviewers at this stage to those with relevant technical expertise to keep the process efficient. Once the book is complete, we’ll get copies to everybody interested.”
• Set project checkpoints when you’ll distribute review copies. For example, you might out the full first draft, or the full second draft, to these optional reviewers. Include a relevant memo indicating the goals of the book and the stage of development it’s currently in. Also include a deadline, with language like “Because of the schedule for the project, we won’t be able to respond to reviews we receive after September 1.”
• Tap an administrative resource to manage reviews. It can be useful to have an admin person manage reviewers requests, collate feedback, and surface comments that are likely to have a significant effect on the project. While the writer can do that themselves, it can interfere with the time needed to concentrate on the research and writing. The administrative person can also send out thank-yous to assure those who sent reviews that their contribution is being addressed and is useful.
• Take note of reviewers who feel their reviews must be addressed. Sometimes a reviewer believes their contribution is so important that they should be an approver. If they’re right, move them into the approver group and manage them that way. If not, diplomatically explain that you’ll review their comments but may not be able to address all of them.

Avoiding disaster

There are two kinds of disasters that reviewers can create.

• A type 1 disaster is a reviewer with important contributions that you’ve neglected to improve, making the book less effective.
• A type 2 disaster is a late or disruptive reviewer that requires major changes late in the process.

To avoid type 1 disasters, think early and carefully about who might actually be a useful contributor and tap your network to find people whose contributions might make a big difference to the power of your book.

To avoid type 2 disasters, be paranoid. Get word out early that reviewers are limited, and see who responds. Be clear about whose comments will be obligatory to address and whose will be optional. And make drafts as complete and excellent as possible, so most of the reviews are just, “This is great, but I have a few minor suggestions.”

The time to think about this is in your planning stages. That way you can spend your time on creating a great book, not dodging angry reviewers with disastrously disruptive comments.