Friends, colleagues, family—everyone wants to give you advice when you are writing a book. But what do you do with advice that is confusing or feels contradictory? Here are five tips to help you navigate all that feedback so you can make your manuscript even better.

1. Know your book’s premise and target audience. Do you know who your reader is likely to be? Do you have a clear statement that explains what your book is about, including the “hook”? For nonfiction, the hook is your reader’s problem and how your book can help solve it. For fiction, the hook is the emotion that grabs your reader’s attention and motivates them to buy your book.

When you are armed with specific knowledge of your premise and target audience, you’ll have a way to test how relevant the feedback is to your book’s goals. Ask yourself questions like:

o Will this feedback make the book clearer / more interesting / more relevant / more authentic to my target audience?

o Does this feedback support and strengthen my premise?

2. Set boundaries upfront. What feedback you need often depends on where you are in the writing process. Communicating what you need when can make it easier to get the feedback you desire. If you are working on a rough draft, you want to be clear to those helping you that you only need feedback on the big picture, not grammar or other details. If you are in the proofreading stage, especially if you have a production schedule to meet, let your reviewer know that the narrative is set and that you are just looking for help with objective errors.

3. Seek to understand their point of view. We are all products of our experiences, our times, our influences, and our personalities and preferences. The friends and family you’ve asked to read your manuscript are no different. If their feedback doesn’t feel like it fits your manuscript, test that theory by trying to understand their point of view. An easy way to do that is to make a simple, nonjudgmental request: “Please, tell me more.” While people rarely initially give the reasons behind their feedback, if asked to share more, the reason often reveals itself. And the request of “tell me more” avoids any hint of defensiveness; instead, it shows your interest and feels inviting to the person who gave the feedback, which encourages them to give you the background you need to put their feedback in context.

4. Others help you see problems; you identify the solutions. It’s your book. You best know your goals for your book and the key messages or story you want to give your readers. While it’s always a good idea to give credence to any concern a reviewer highlights for you, often, people couple proposed solutions with the identified problem. Honoring the feedback you’ve been given doesn’t mean you have to solve the problem their way. There are many ways to solve any problem, and as the author, you are empowered to find the solution that you feel is best for your book.

5. Get help from a professional. Sometimes you are so close to your work, or to the friend or family member who is helping you, that it is hard to objectively evaluate the feedback you receive. Editors, art designers, and other book industry professionals can bring both the experience and objectivity to help you make sense of the concerns your friends and family have raised.

With these tips in mind, you can embrace the feedback you’ve received and use it to make your manuscript stronger.