Please stop all this llama drama
Wow, 2012 the year of the apocalypse, the year the mayan calendar ends, the year Pam gets an agent and apparently the year of the entitled author. There are several things I want to touch upon in this post.
A. I have been a blogger for four years. When I got my agent I asked her if I should stop reviewing. She told me pretty much stop reviewing and I’ll cut your fingers off. You know with less threats and more nice. To her, my reviews are important. So now I am at this half blogger, half author, half literary agent in training (and yes I can do math now shush) and it is a weird place to be in. I made a joke on Twitter the other day that people took out of context (I already apologized and it is fine) but that was my first time seeing how readers react to an author who makes a mistake. It was brutal. I had my tweet screencapped, when I talked in a group discussion on GR the screencap was introduced into the conversation as means to say “Oh, don’t mind her she is the one who said this mean thing about this girl.” So, suffice to say I didn’t say a mean thing about any girl. I had to hunt down the girl and we talked and its all good but wow, that was cray cray y’all.
B. The thread that I was participating in as a blogger where the other thing was mentioned was cray cray too. A reviewer shared her thoughts about a book and the author proceeded to send out an email asking people to tank her Amazon reviewer rating. The blogger in me was outraged. The author in me felt a little sick to my stomach and the learning to be an agent part of me felt relief that it wasn’t my client (ha!). So here and right now I will make a promise to every blogger/reviewer on the planet: I will never be vindictive or spiteful towards you. I will never use my platform to try to cause your platform harm and I will never come to you about a negative review. Because I have hated books and I have reviewed negatively and no matter how many books I write I will always be one of you and I will always go to bat for bloggers.
C. I don’t think that being a blogger means that we have to be held to journalistic standards. Hell, two months or so ago the Supreme Court ruled that bloggers had to cite the sources of their information because guess what? They aren’t journalists. We don’t have huge amounts of money and editors and other peeps backing us up. Most of the time, our blogs are a one man horse show and we do it for the love of books.
However, I do not think that means that we have to be entitled mean people either. We can say in a thoughtful way or even a funny way or even satirical the things in a book that didn’t work for us. We don’t have to pile on the snark and insults, but if you do that’s your thing. I just won’t read your blog because I don’t find that type of wit entertaining.
Allison wrote a review of Julie Halpern’s latest title Don’t Stop Now. She didn’t like the book for many reasons. Reviewing and blogging and reading are all personal subjective things and she explained her reasons for not enjoying this title. There was no mention of the author, no snark or anything else present. However the author felt the need to vent publicly on her blog. That post has been deleted but a screenshot remains. You can click here to read the post by Halpern after reading Allison’s review and decide who was being entitled and petty.
Basically, as I feel like I am being quartered I would like us all to take a step back, realize how we are acting and think on ways we can improve our relationships. Because when it all comes down to it… we are all passionate about books.
By: Jeffrey (@JeffreyWest)
Very well said and with class too.
By: Jenne (@mooshujenne)
Oh sounds like the drama we had back in the Finnish band days. People just need to learn to work together not against each other.
By: Mary @ Book Swarm
That last bit? Totally needs to be repeated: “Because when it all comes down to it… we are all passionate about books.”
Some we’ll love, some we’ll hate but it’s the books that are important. Reading all types of books, talking about those books, recommending (or not, as the case may be) those books.
By: Books are my Boyfriends (@booksaremybfs)
And sometimes you can be funny and satirical in a completely silly and lighthearted way and still have bestselling authors Hell-hath-no-fury your behind on the Tweetblogosphere. All you can do is your best and hope that everyone else all the playground tries to play nice too.
By: Books are my Boyfriends (@booksaremybfs)
On the playground, I speak English as my first language, I promise.
By: Lucy
It’s a little odd you complain about what you say being taken out of context and then do the same to other people in return. You joined the conversation to (rightly) set someone straight about making fun of an author’s appearance.
My response was:
I agree Pam has a point.
I also want to point out that she is this Pam: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx7n8vtBaj1qhd6bw.jpg
The other comment was from Paige: You do have a point; there is no need to resort to name-calling. Just don’t try and everyone on this thread with the same brush just because a very small number of people on this very large thread called her names and such. We’re already aware you have a problem with Goodreads thanks to the recent debacle with Kira’s Tempest review.
We both acknowledged you politely and agreed with what you were saying, and then (and only then) did we indicate your perceived participation in another issue. No one jumped out to accuse you of being mean to Kira in that moment.
By: Liz (@elizziebeth)
I like this. Even if you say something and it ends up sounding snarky, there IS a way to save yourself other than continuing on a path of destruction. It’s a good lesson for interneting as well as life in general!
By: John Abramowitz (@onthebird) (@onthebird)
I just don’t understand how authors can be mean to review bloggers. Quite apart from the fact that they’re giving *their* time, too, and usually for no compensation, it’s just BAD BUSINESS. The blogging circuit is like the school yard — if you have a bad attitude, it will get around.
And that could be very, very bad for a writer’s career.
So if something is rude, ungrateful, and stupid, then my question is: why do it?
As a blogger, would I prefer if bad reviews were written respectfully? Sure, I would, but the reality is that it’s just not always going to happen that way. Bloggers have the same First Amendment rights as everyone else — if they want to be snarky and hateful, they’re allowed to.
I’m not sure I’d think of that as a wise strategy — it seems to me that that would be a good way to make sure authors don’t send you their books — but it is their right. And the correct way to deal with it is NOT to start an internet flame war.
So basically, my thoughts boil down to:
Hey everyone! Don’t be dicks!
By: Pam
Lucy, Obviously I was being vague as to not outright give your identity away… and I wasn’t being rude to you. I meant I learned a lesson about tweeting and not knowing what I am going on about and how that hurts feelings and how I sucked for doing that.
By: Lynne (@lynnekelly)
Yet another good lesson for everyone– the Internet is forever! I read Julie’s post earlier and wanted to go back to it to save as a good “What not to do” example, and found it had been deleted. I thought, “Dammit, I should’ve taken a screen shot to save it. Oh well, I bet someone else out there did!”
I know bad reviews are going to hurt (I know I’ll get them because everyone does), but nothing good can come out of responding to the reviewer or venting publicly. Authors pour so much of themselves into their work, it must be so hard to separate the books from ourselves, but we have to keep in mind that reviews are about the books, not about us personally. Not everyone’s going to like every book, and some reviewers express their dislike more harshly than others. Reach for the chocolate and a good friend and back away from the keyboard!
By: Scath (@Scath)
I know who comes across as the entitled and petty.
The author should read my latest blog post, LOL.
You know what House Hunney says, Pam? There’s always people just looking for something to be offended over.
Sadly, he’s right. :(
By: Reviews, Impulses, and the Mental Censor Button « Scattered Pages
[...] there’s been a kerfuffle recently (isn’t that a surprise). Bookalicious Pam has a good recap of it, including a link to the review and a screenshot of the rant that started it [...]
By: Tanya Patrice
I get that it’s a different world for once revered authors to navigate, but a little common sense goes a far way – and I saw that email from the author who wanted her friends to tank the bad review – the way she spoke about someone she didn’t know was disgusting! And you would think an author would know not to put something like that in print!
This is my 1st time at your blog – LOVE! I couldn’t find your contact info, but just wanted to let you know the “read more” links on your front page all point to the same main page (sorry to put it here).
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[...] lambasted simply for sharing an opinion (I won’t go into it – you can read the details here in the last two paragraphs plus the original review here), I do find myself sighing and thinking [...]
By: kanamimi » Blog Archive » Authors Behaving Badly
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By: Gabrielle Carolina (@modpodgebooks)
<3 <3 <3
G.C.
By: Angie (@Kingmod)
So glad you posted this… I have looked around the internet asking people what happened and no one will say. Like it is a big secret. Though they will throw out comments like everyone is supposed to know what happened!
Angie