It seems that every author has a following. There are some readers who really enjoy the work of a particular author, and these readers consider themselves to be “fans”. There are also other readers who appear almost to be anti-fans. They seem to be annoyed by the fact that a fan base of readers will follow one particular author and rate their work highly. These anti-fans, or skeptics, often make remarks that are snide or insulting to the fans, discounting anything that they say solely on the basis that they are “fans” and therefore cannot be objective.

My personal experience as a reader is that I am a fan to several authors myself. My devotion to these authors and my love of their work, though, is not based simply on the fact that I know them. I honestly do not have personal relationships with most other authors. I have no real knowledge of who they are as individuals. It is their writing that I love.

So what I’m arguing here is that there is a reason why an author has fans. There are reasons why fans follow certain authors. Their loyalty to these authors is not unconditional. Everything is contingent upon the quality of their work. If an author that I admire releases a book that I find sub-par, I do not have a problem with expressing my opinion honestly.

As an author, I greatly appreciate the feedback that I get from fans, and I can assure you it is not all positive. The one thing that annoys me most, though, is when a reviewer states something negative about one of my books and then feels the need to qualify their criticism with a statement that they are sure all my “fans” will not like the criticism. To me that defensiveness seems to be a put-down to these other readers who may disagree with the reviewer. It’s like they are saying, “I’m being objective, but anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. They are just ‘fans’ who will say they like the book regardless of its flaws.”

I also think that there is a slice of the literary population that is just plain contrary. It always surprises me when I’m perusing reviews and find a book that overall receives very high ratings. There will be page after page of four and five star reviews, and then out of the blue one or two people rate it one star and write scathing reviews. While it is entirely possible that these readers just did not like that particular book for whatever reason, I have to wonder if maybe they just are the type of people who are not comfortable with liking anything that is popular. In their minds, to do so would make them conformists, perhaps.

I think we have all known people like this. I have a friend who refuses to read any of the Harry Potter books or watch any of the movies. I heard people say similar things about the Twilight series or the movie Titanic. Anything that has achieved box office success or literary acclaim is deemed “trendy” to them, and they are just above those sorts of things.

In my opinion, if you ignore everything that is popular, then you are likely to miss out on some truly magnificent creations. There is a reason why things gain popularity. There are plenty of reasons why Harry Potter is so huge. It is absolutely brilliant. There is a reason why Brokeback Mountain won so many awards and was a huge box office success. There is a reason why the Titanic became one of the most popular movies of all time. Just because a lot of people like something, this does not automatically make that something inferior, nor does it mean that to acknowledge this fact would in any way be sacrificing your individuality or compromising your principle of non-conformity.

If something is good, it's good. If the majority of readers evaluate a book as good, most likely it is good. If a tiny percentage of readers or reviewers evaluate a book poorly, I wonder if perhaps that are just anti-fans or non-conformists.