Authors, Their Own Worst Enemy

[Fenris Technique]

Perhaps this is a bit morbid, akin to slowing down the car to get a good peep at a traffic accident as you roll by, but I can't resist gawking when an author decides to douse themselves in verbal kerosene and set themselves ablaze in the public square.

On that note, I present:

Author has hissy fit after being left off NYT best book list
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/2320...est-book-list/

Authors Behaving Badly
http://outwherethebusesdontrun.com/2...support-group/

Digital stone, folks. The internet is digital stone. Writers may want to take out their grudges against reviewers, readers, or major media outlets in some other venue.

Though, it would be a lot less entertaining if they did.

[Druidic]

And if anyone asks me again why I make a point to separate a writer from his work, I'll point them toward this thread. Alas, though...in those examples writers and their work seem almost one...

[Druidic]

Of course, even good writers can lose it. I believe Tom Disch once behaved badly at some Award Presentation, but in such cases you can point to their works and say This is why we value them. With bad writers behaving badly...well, maybe you should just take 'em out and shoot 'em.
Then again some people think I'm an extremist.

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Fenris Technique

Perhaps this is a bit morbid, akin to slowing down the car to get a good peep at a traffic accident as you roll by, but I can't resist gawking when an author decides to douse themselves in verbal kerosene and set themselves ablaze in the public square. On that note, I present: Author has hissy fit after being left off NYT best book list http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/2320...est-book-list/ Authors Behaving Badly http://outwherethebusesdontrun.com/2...support-group/ Digital stone, folks. The internet is digital stone. Writers may want to take out their grudges against reviewers, readers, or major media outlets in some other venue. Though, it would be a lot less entertaining if they did.

I'm surprised that Ayelet Waldman has anything to complain about. On her Twitter feed, her bio describes her as, "Author of Love & Treasure. Mother of 4. Wife of 1. Lover of donuts (as many as possible)."

This is uncannily similar to Emma Bradford, whose Twitter profile, according to this article in the Daily Mash, describes her as, "mother, teacher, cupcake evangelist".

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/s...-2014051286439

As Professor Brubaker of the Institute for Studies notes, "That’s two proper things followed by an amusingly light-hearted thing. She doesn’t take herself too seriously because the various brilliant aspects of her personality are perfectly balanced."

Etc.

Not at all surprising, coming from Waldman. She displayed the same overdeveloped sense of entitlement back in 2008 when, after organizing a fundraising drive for Barack Obama's presidential campaign called "Books for Barack" (for a certain amount donated, one would receive signed books from her author friends, in a nifty "Books for Barack" tote bag), collected the money (and presumably passed it along to the election campaign) and then after the number of donations became too large for her to easily handle, threw a hissy fit and dropped the part about shipping books and tote bags as too much to bother with. I did receive mine, in all fairness, but I got in early.

[Fenris Technique]

I should probably add - Don't threaten to call the FBI on your Amazon Reviewers.

That's not going to win you any sympathy points with the reading public.

Check out Kiernan's comments in response to some of her negative reviews on Amazon, if you want a couple chuckles some idle hour. She even stoops to criticizing their grammar and spelling in some cases, as if that answers their misgivings about her work.

I admit that if I were a published writer I might find it difficult not to engage with detractors, but there are definitely limits set by good sense which some of these guys ignore. I include Joshi in this category. Engaging with the likes of that know-nothing Daniel Older displayed truly bad judgment. I share his irritation at the ridiculously ignorant trashing of HPL, but he just ends up looking like a fanboy, albeit a top shelf one, with the vehement blog entries decrying Lovecraft's treatment in the recent press coverage.

[ramonoski]

The kind of reply to criticism I hate the most is the good old: "if my work is so bad, let's see you do better" or "I wanted to read your novel to see if it was better than mine, but alas you haven't published anything so why should I listen to you" and variations of those. I've actually lost respect for a couple of authors who ended up saying similar things to reviewers or critics. That just seems low to me, perhaps even more so than resorting to picking at their grammar or syntax.

[miguel1984]

I am not sure if this is the correct thread for this post, but I think the Neil Gaiman "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch" answer to a fan's honest question didn't do him any favors. The post is called Entitlement Issues; the fact that he complained about American Airlines in the same post (you know, entitlement) seemed pretty ironic, in my view.

Neil Gaiman's Journal: Entitlement issues...

[Fenris Technique]

Quote Originally Posted by Howarth

Check out Kiernan's comments in response to some of her negative reviews on Amazon, if you want a couple chuckles some idle hour. She even stoops to criticizing their grammar and spelling in some cases, as if that answers their misgivings about her work.

On your advice I took a peek . . . and, WOW! Kind of surprised, but it is pretty much as you described. I found the following to be particularly ironic.

Amazon.com: R.M.B.'s review of The Red Tree

 

Amazon.com: R.M.B.'s review of The Red Tree

(paraphrasing here)

Reader: I've read books with gay/lesbian sex but don't particularly enjoy it so I dropped this book after five chapters because of heavy lesbian content.

Author: Reader is homophobe who is hate speeching all up in this comment section and they didn't even read the whole book! Delete their words!

?

So . . . the author is calling for censorship in the name of tolerance . . . or something? I don't even know how to classify that.

I guess I'd call it an 'ill-considered' response.