If you don’t want to aspire to a reviewer’s standard, then don’t. It won’t change anything for you. But if you want to work harder and improve your craft, readers will respect you for it and you will probably get more of them. It’s all a matter of if writers want to grow or not, and if they want to use reviewers as a standard to grow by. There will always be some influence over your work’s improvement. Nobody truly writes in a cave – the wifi won’t reach in.

Something to remember is that reviewers ARE readers, and while I don’t cater all aspects of my writing to all readers, I do write for readers. I want to tell a story to someone and I want my story to be read. A reviewer is a reader who tells other readers how their reading experience was and whether they suggest other readers try out said experience for themselves. A reviewer is a reader who PIMPS YOUR STORY IF THEY LIKE IT. We already have reviewers in the WebLit community and thus far they’ve helped expand readership quite a bit.

If you’re afraid that a bad review will not get you hits, then think of this: every time a reader doesn’t like your story, they’ll probably warn friends away from it. Bad reviews happen all the time, from person to person. They’re a fact of life. Not everybody is going to like your story. But if you wrote a story worth talking about at all, at least you’re halfway there.

In conclusion, reviewers are not the scary gatekeeper boogeymen. Do not fear them.

You’re right about this –

“Not everyone who writes/publishes online wants to be compared or judged as the best – just the opportunity to be read.”

– and I didn’t mean to volunteer everyone for critical study. :-)

My concern relates more to the idea that the publishing industry controls for quality, which is an argument being used to dismiss authors who haven’t navigated the publishing mine field. And it’s not just individual authors who suffer: whole markets feel this bias. (Poets and short story writers are rarely published, and never marketed.)

But still, you’re right. People should have some say over the standard they’re aspiring to. I just don’t want that authorial choice to be made in reverse by the people who control the publishing markets.

For me, ‘web fiction’ is about having the opportunity to be creative and to enjoy and share that creativity with others.

The feedback I receive from readers (and readers who take the time to review) is invaluable and has, without doubt, helped me to improve and spurred me to continue.

We have moved into an exciting new era for fiction, one were readers have the opportunity to hear all the birdsong not just that which has been deemed fit for our ears or profitable by dead tree publishers.

Not everyone who writes/publishes online wants to be compared or judged as the best – just the opportunity to be read.

I shudder at the thought of reviewer policed web fiction.

“…I want reviewers to demand as much of self-published works as they do of any other. No more, but absolutely no less. In fact, I can’t imagine anything that will do more to legitimize self-published authors.”

Here’s another way of looking at it, Mark. When web fiction/self publishing becomes legitimized (and I believe it will, though for compelling reasons not connected to critical response), the reviewers would then demand as much of self-published works as they do of any other. It’s a reverse causal relationship, I feel, that has very little to do with whether or not reviewers now treat self published work with respect.

“…I want reviewers to demand as much of self-published works as they do of any other. No more, but absolutely no less. In fact, I can’t imagine anything that will do more to legitimize self-published authors.”

I agree that reviewers won’t improve the quality of web writing or self-published works. Reviews are rarely about improving a writer’s work and reviewers are rarely qualified to speak to that issue in any case.

I simply want to be compared to and judged against the best writing anywhere. That’s the standard I want reviewers of my work to adopt. That’s where I want the bar set.

Anything less is an admission of failure.

(Oh wait, something just came to mind: I could ask you for an advance copy of Vector, for a review on Novelr, but that would be cheating you of the purchase price, wouldn’t it? =P)

If a writer chooses to change their writing to meet the standards of the reviewers, that’s probably the exception and not the rule. The reviewers serve a higher-level purpose.

One thing I just realized is that we don’t have many “advance copies” in the weblit world. That would definitely help boost the profile of reviewers, if they had insights ahead of time…