GRRM (game of thrones author) summarized this in an apt way, that I think applies to this case perfectly: *(badly paraphrased) Before the internet, people (inc

GRRM (game of thrones author) summarized this in an apt way, that I think applies to this case perfectly: *(badly paraphrased) Before the internet, people (including grrm) sometime wrote fan letters. There was always an occasional hater, but mostly, people wrote letter to authors they liked. They generally didn't write to say they hated a book, or that they liked the first three but the last two were shite.