by: Joelle Charbonneau
Yes – that is a lofty title to this particular post. Perhaps too lofty for me to accomplish alone. However, I’m going to take a whack at it in hopes that if I miss something someone will come to the plate and take their own swings.
Aside from the start of the major league baseball season, last week featured a terrible online moment for authors/writers/bloggers. You might have seen it. A blog featured a review for a self-published author that wasn’t entirely favorable. The author then decided to confront the reviewer in the comments section of the blog. Actually, the author commented more than once and was not only confrontational, but a bit classless. Word about the review and the author’s reaction spread over social media, as it has a tendency to do, and within hours there were over 300 comments posted. The author’s book also took a beating over at Amazon in the reviews section pulling 1 star reviews from people who were commenting on her online behavior and not on her writing.
We’ve talked about reviews here at DSD. Reviews are part of life. Good, bad, indifferent – authors have to deal with reviews and they are under an obligation to themselves to deal with them professionally. In the old days (yeah – I’m referring to less than ten years ago here), an author would get reviewed, tell all their friends and readers about the good ones and mourn the bad ones with a gallon of double fudge chocolate ice cream. If you didn’t subscribe to the trades, you never saw the review. Nowadays there is nowhere to hide. Social media spreads the word about good and bad – and let’s face it – it spreads the word about the bad much, much faster. Had the author from this week’s review meltdown kept quiet, the review would have basically gone unnoticed by the book reading universe. Her friends would never heard about it. Almost the entire pool of potential readers would never have seen it. The world would have moved on.
So here is my list of dos and don’ts for authors. Yes, some of these might seem totally obvious, but hey this week demonstrated that maybe for some they are not.
1. Keep your emotions and your conflict on the page – writers work hard at ratcheting up those things in their manuscript. Readers love emotion and conflict when it is central to your story, but they don’t belong as part of your public author persona.
2. Never put anything in writing online that you do not want to follow you for the rest of your career. A piece of paper can be burned but the internet is forever. Agents, editors, bloggers, booksellers and readers all can and do use Google. Trust me – you don’t want them finding this stuff.
3. Don’t create fake accounts on Amazon or on other review sites just to bump up the number of good reviews. Yes, people do this, and, yes, people get caught.
4. Always think twice before hitting send on any post be on Twitter, Facebook, a blog, e-mail or anywhere else. Refer to rule #2 for the reason.
5. Do not create a Facebook or Twitter account if you know you cannot control your emotions. This doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad promoter. This makes you self-aware.
6. Call your friends, family or favorite pizza place when you get a bad review. Never share that disappointment in public. It makes you look bad.
7. Never post on a blog where an author has created an unprofessional spectacle of themselves. You do not want your name associated with that kind of train wreck in any way, shape or form. With that in mind, you also don’t want to post Amazon reviews as a way of kicking an unprofessional author when they are down. Get out of the way of the train, watch it pass by and move on.
8. Posting a reviewer’s home address or phone number on Twitter (or anywhere else) and telling your fans to contact the reviewer to disagree with the review is never a good idea. (I wish this one had never happened, but a NY Times Best Seller did this. She has since heeded rule #5.)
9. Remember the Golden Rule. How you treat others online will determine how you are perceived. Does this mean you can’t disagree with people? Hell no! The best discussions I have on Facebook and Twitter are ones where there is heated disagreement. But it is the manner in which you argue and fight and even how you agree that is important.
10. When in doubt, turn off the internet and write. Hey – we’re writers. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
Well, that’s my list. What rules on your list did I fail to mention?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Where's the Mystery?
by
Scott D. Parker
A generation and a half ago, a little old lady looked at a hamburger and asked, "Where's the beef?" In 2011, I'm looking around at some of the things I've been reading and asking myself where's the mystery?
Lately, crime fiction comics have been my fiction of choice. Part of the reason is that I'm genuinely interested in the art form. The other part is, well, soon to be announced. What has struck me is--at least in some of the titles I've chosen (Gotham Central, Hunter, Coward (Criminal), and Incognito)--there is a distinct lack of mystery involved. Like a great deal of *crime* fiction, those stories deal with the lowlifes and criminals, their way of life, and the choices that they make. It's fun reading, to be sure, but it has brought up a question: is there a line between mystery fiction and crime fiction?
Here's how I tend to generalize the two. Mystery fiction is trying to solve a crime, usually murder, and figure out the killer. While there are undoubtedly titles out there that use criminals as the protagonists, this style of storytelling tends to focus on the good guys, the ones trying to answer the question of whodunit?
Crime fiction seems to be about criminals or ordinary people caught up in events beyond their control. Where mystery fiction ends when the killer is identified, that's often the place where crime fiction starts. Mystery can be an aspect of crime fiction, but not always. For example, a heist film has little mystery to it other than to show how the robbers pull off the deed (or not).
Perhaps I've not read broadly enough, or perhaps I'm looking for different things nowadays. I'm not sure. But it just seems that there is a chasm in the middle of this genre we call home that separates us. I wonder why that is?
TV Show of the Week: Body of Proof
The good: Dana Delany's Megan Hunt is a bit like Sherlock Holmes, so far ahead of others that she appears superhuman. Oh, and there are dumb cops. Odd to see Sonja Sohn (The Wire) on network TV. Delany has some good chops that are best shown when her character actually has quiet moments. The bad: For someone who is seemingly surrounded by idiots and still pines for her old job, Delany's character seems to flit through the episode without much care. Perhaps that's the way we are shown she has no friends. I enjoyed the pilot and will continue watching. Anyone else?
Scott D. Parker
A generation and a half ago, a little old lady looked at a hamburger and asked, "Where's the beef?" In 2011, I'm looking around at some of the things I've been reading and asking myself where's the mystery?
Lately, crime fiction comics have been my fiction of choice. Part of the reason is that I'm genuinely interested in the art form. The other part is, well, soon to be announced. What has struck me is--at least in some of the titles I've chosen (Gotham Central, Hunter, Coward (Criminal), and Incognito)--there is a distinct lack of mystery involved. Like a great deal of *crime* fiction, those stories deal with the lowlifes and criminals, their way of life, and the choices that they make. It's fun reading, to be sure, but it has brought up a question: is there a line between mystery fiction and crime fiction?
Here's how I tend to generalize the two. Mystery fiction is trying to solve a crime, usually murder, and figure out the killer. While there are undoubtedly titles out there that use criminals as the protagonists, this style of storytelling tends to focus on the good guys, the ones trying to answer the question of whodunit?
Crime fiction seems to be about criminals or ordinary people caught up in events beyond their control. Where mystery fiction ends when the killer is identified, that's often the place where crime fiction starts. Mystery can be an aspect of crime fiction, but not always. For example, a heist film has little mystery to it other than to show how the robbers pull off the deed (or not).
Perhaps I've not read broadly enough, or perhaps I'm looking for different things nowadays. I'm not sure. But it just seems that there is a chasm in the middle of this genre we call home that separates us. I wonder why that is?
TV Show of the Week: Body of Proof
The good: Dana Delany's Megan Hunt is a bit like Sherlock Holmes, so far ahead of others that she appears superhuman. Oh, and there are dumb cops. Odd to see Sonja Sohn (The Wire) on network TV. Delany has some good chops that are best shown when her character actually has quiet moments. The bad: For someone who is seemingly surrounded by idiots and still pines for her old job, Delany's character seems to flit through the episode without much care. Perhaps that's the way we are shown she has no friends. I enjoyed the pilot and will continue watching. Anyone else?
Friday, April 1, 2011
COST BENEFIT
By Russel D McLean
In case you’re wondering where I’ve been these last few weeks, I’ve been out on tour. Not physically. Oh, no. I’ve been working the blogs. Shaking my ass on other people’s sites. Working that moneymaker.
Which has been fun. Tiring. Exhausting. But fun.
And then someone asked me this question:
How much effort did you put into this? And how much benefit did you reap? Did you gain enough new readers to offset the time spent writing a new article every day? Did your sales go stratospheric?
If I look at the cold, hard numbers, the answer is that I’m not sure. I really, really don’t know. But then, as we’ve seen this last week, in the world of publishing no one knows anything. No one can agree on anything.
Looking back on the tour – and looking back on last year’s physical tour – I would say that in terms of cold hard numbers, both could be considered supremely inefficient. Yes, people got a kick out of them (honestly, I’ve had letters to prove it) and I myself had a ball. But in terms of extra sales, of word of mouth, of people who actually went out and bought a copy…
The effort to benefit ratio seems wrong.
Of course, I’ve never been a cold hard numbers person. I don’t understand cold, hard numbers (just ask my mum). Most of the time, I don’t get how they add up or why. Seriously. They seem more random than people give them credit for.
Perhaps more so in cases like this.
The fact is that I know my effort to benefit ratio is appalling when I do events, tours and so forth. But then the effort to benefit ratio in writing a novel is appalling anyway.
So why do it?
The key sentiment above:
“…people got a kick out of it and I… had a ball.”
I love doing events. I love doing interviews. I love doing blog tours. I may sometimes have to pass them up when things get seriously down to the knuckle (don’t forget, I also work a full time day job) but they’re part of what makes this job fun.
And besides, in the end, all I can do is have faith that the numbers will work themselves out. One way or another. Because like I said back there at the start:
in this business, no one knows anything.
In case you’re wondering where I’ve been these last few weeks, I’ve been out on tour. Not physically. Oh, no. I’ve been working the blogs. Shaking my ass on other people’s sites. Working that moneymaker.
Which has been fun. Tiring. Exhausting. But fun.
And then someone asked me this question:
How much effort did you put into this? And how much benefit did you reap? Did you gain enough new readers to offset the time spent writing a new article every day? Did your sales go stratospheric?
If I look at the cold, hard numbers, the answer is that I’m not sure. I really, really don’t know. But then, as we’ve seen this last week, in the world of publishing no one knows anything. No one can agree on anything.
Looking back on the tour – and looking back on last year’s physical tour – I would say that in terms of cold hard numbers, both could be considered supremely inefficient. Yes, people got a kick out of them (honestly, I’ve had letters to prove it) and I myself had a ball. But in terms of extra sales, of word of mouth, of people who actually went out and bought a copy…
The effort to benefit ratio seems wrong.
Of course, I’ve never been a cold hard numbers person. I don’t understand cold, hard numbers (just ask my mum). Most of the time, I don’t get how they add up or why. Seriously. They seem more random than people give them credit for.
Perhaps more so in cases like this.
The fact is that I know my effort to benefit ratio is appalling when I do events, tours and so forth. But then the effort to benefit ratio in writing a novel is appalling anyway.
So why do it?
The key sentiment above:
“…people got a kick out of it and I… had a ball.”
I love doing events. I love doing interviews. I love doing blog tours. I may sometimes have to pass them up when things get seriously down to the knuckle (don’t forget, I also work a full time day job) but they’re part of what makes this job fun.
And besides, in the end, all I can do is have faith that the numbers will work themselves out. One way or another. Because like I said back there at the start:
in this business, no one knows anything.
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