Why I Refuse to Feel Guilty About Not Replying to Comments
I’m a writer. I have comments. I don’t reply to them all.
Back when I first started writing, I listened to a lot of people I thought were the blogging experts. They always said to do two things: keep your writing consistent and reply to every comment. The consistency of writing was to get the mythical algorithm to favor your content, while the comment-replying was meant to build a “tribe” by currying engagement.
At first, I found both easy. I loved writing, and I had the time and inclination to do it as often as I wanted, so consistency was no issue. Every email with a new comment was exciting to open and read. I loved hearing what my readers were thinking about my story, whether positive, neutral, or negative. I felt like I was finally building my fabled tribe.
Tribe, if you’re out there, thanks for sticking with me so far.
But then I started noticing a trend. Many of the comments, especially on my more vulnerable, heartfelt or emotional stories, were a bit… hurtful.
I wish I could say I was thick-skinned enough that it bounced right off me. But honestly, I’m not — I’m easily bruised and I take these types of things to heart. So when I started reading some of the absolutely vitriolic things that some people were taking time out of their day to write and contemplated the effort and energy it would take to reply? It made me want to stop writing.
In my head, I could hear all those gurus I’d followed this far, telling me what to do:
They’ve taken the time to read and reply — you owe them an answer.
Well, I’m going to stop right there: you don’t owe them a moment of your time. You've poured your heart and soul out onto a computer screen. They can say whatever they want, of course, but you do not owe them an answer.
Sometimes they’re trying to leverage your influence.
Comments get you noticed by the writer. Negative comments? They tend to stick even more than the nice ones, unfortunately. And
I recently read a story aimed at helping people get a certain number of followers under three months, and one of the…
