I’ve been monitoring a breakdown by an author, this past hour. It isn’t pretty. Apparently the story is that he’s self published (I believe) and asked several bloggers for a review. After receiving a ‘free’ copy of his ebook, they didn’t read and review.

Now there’s been a lot of other info coming up about this – the reviewer was 17 and he said he was younger than his own 48 yrs to befriend her etc.

(actually, you can read the Absolute Write thread on the fallout here and it’s from about post 1384).

Now the original Goodreads post where this all kicked off has been taken down, but it doesn’t really matter. You’ll get the idea. And you also see quotes from the author melting down because of it. Not good.

The recent development is that the author has uploaded a list of reviewers who need to be ‘dealt with’ because of their lack of ‘professionalism’ in not reviewing his books.

Huh.

But this would actually make me laugh if it wasn’t so sad and creepy and so, so misinformed.

I’m not an experienced author by any stretch, but there’s a few things I’ve learned over this past year since signing my first contract. And those few things are as important as writing the book, in many ways, and I’ll condense them down to 3 …

First off? Don’t be an ass. Be professional and never personal. This goes out to authors and bloggers alike. However frustrating it is to get a bad review, it’s not personal. And if a reviewer (or author) makes it personal, then bad on them and they can go to hell. Rise above it. This is your career and acting like a child being refused a toy will get you nowhere you want to be and will get you on an exclusive list of your own.

Supporting a fellow author/reviewer/book industry person comes second nature to most people I’ve met along my writing journey. And if you’re wrong in whatever stand you’re taking (like this author, imho), you will be hung, drawn and quartered. This is never good when you’re trying to make an impression. Especially given that this industry talk A LOT to each other!

Second. However much we love our books, it doesn’t mean they’re going to sell and you’re going to become the next big thing in publishing.

I’m all for self publishing. In fact, whatever avenue you take to publication is great, as far as I’m concerned. But when you go into publishing your book with arrogance and an ‘entitled’ attitude, you’re going to fail. No-one HAS to buy your book, no matter how much marketing you put out there and how much you tell them it’s fantastic. And no-one HAS to review your books, no matter how many ‘free’ copies you send to bloggers. If you take these things on the chin, and don’t allow your ego to dictate your actions, you can go back to writing another book – hopefully learning lots from the first and maybe next time you’ll be the next big thing.

Simple.

And third? If you’re too busy being precious about everything you do, you’ll miss great opportunities. And believe me, there’s still a lot of great opportunities going around.

Yeah, be yourself online (don’t be a sheep) but I don’t need to see your drama and your epic failings as a person. And most other people won’t either. If you put as much time and effort into writing that next big idea as you do actually being a social media marketing machine, or surfing the internet and being an idiot, just to get publicity for your work, you’re doing something wrong. Bad publicity, in this case, is simply bad publicity.

The writing world does NOT revolve around you (or me – something i’m completely devastated about  :whistle: )

And dumb people will always be dumb people. You’ve got to take it all in your stride, knowing they’ll be the first to go when the Zombie apocalypse hits.  :yahoo:

And that’s the end of my rant for today  :wacko: