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Reader vs. Author
Apr. 21st, 2008 11:16 amI think that Karen Scott made a very valid observation in her post when she said:
She's referring to Tess Gerritsen's post "Authors Who Bite Back", which seems to imply that it's okay to cyber-stalk a reviewer who don't give writers five star reviews as long as you don't get caught, and the posts that follow, including her adieu to the cruel world of blogging.
Being a cynic, the part about Deborah Anne MacGillivray's foolishness being only that she got caught is disappointing and offensive but not hugely suprising to me. What really gets my back up is more or less blaming Dear Author for her blogging exit. She put the words out there on her blog, for better or worse. The fact that readers and other bloggers found it offensive and said so? Not the fault of Jane or DA. Welcome to the Internet, where everyone can read what you have to say, and many will respond.
My patience with this sort of circle-the-wagons, readers-are-morons-who-should-pay-to-read-my-work-and-shut-up kind of attitude is dwindling. In the last year or so, less and less of my websurfing is looking up new (and old) authors online, because I just don't want to know that the person who wrote a book I loved is an ass. Most authors aren't. And even those few who sometimes come across that way probably aren't either -- I just happened to catch them posting on a bad day. Maybe they meant to be funny and it just didn't come across that way. (Is that what Gerritsen was trying to do? I don't know.) Again, welcome to the Internet, where your humor is hard to discern through whatever font you've chosen for your blog.
I've got a couple of Gerritsen's books in the TBR mountain. The fact that I found her original post on the whole Deborah A. MacGillivray/Amazon abuse situation offensive isn't going to make me discard them. But it does remind me that we inhabit different places in the reading/publishing world. And in her part of that world, readers should not say anything mean or critical of an author's work...unless they want to be stalked online and perhaps in person. In my part of that world, as long as I don't make an ad hominem attack, I'm free to share my opinion of that work.
If you guys don’t really believe that there’s a Reader v Author disconnect here in Blogland, well I just see this as further proof. Because unless you’re fawning over authors, deep down, a lot of them just aren’t that interested in hearing your opinion as a reader.
She's referring to Tess Gerritsen's post "Authors Who Bite Back", which seems to imply that it's okay to cyber-stalk a reviewer who don't give writers five star reviews as long as you don't get caught, and the posts that follow, including her adieu to the cruel world of blogging.
Being a cynic, the part about Deborah Anne MacGillivray's foolishness being only that she got caught is disappointing and offensive but not hugely suprising to me. What really gets my back up is more or less blaming Dear Author for her blogging exit. She put the words out there on her blog, for better or worse. The fact that readers and other bloggers found it offensive and said so? Not the fault of Jane or DA. Welcome to the Internet, where everyone can read what you have to say, and many will respond.
My patience with this sort of circle-the-wagons, readers-are-morons-who-should-pay-to-read-my-work-and-shut-up kind of attitude is dwindling. In the last year or so, less and less of my websurfing is looking up new (and old) authors online, because I just don't want to know that the person who wrote a book I loved is an ass. Most authors aren't. And even those few who sometimes come across that way probably aren't either -- I just happened to catch them posting on a bad day. Maybe they meant to be funny and it just didn't come across that way. (Is that what Gerritsen was trying to do? I don't know.) Again, welcome to the Internet, where your humor is hard to discern through whatever font you've chosen for your blog.
I've got a couple of Gerritsen's books in the TBR mountain. The fact that I found her original post on the whole Deborah A. MacGillivray/Amazon abuse situation offensive isn't going to make me discard them. But it does remind me that we inhabit different places in the reading/publishing world. And in her part of that world, readers should not say anything mean or critical of an author's work...unless they want to be stalked online and perhaps in person. In my part of that world, as long as I don't make an ad hominem attack, I'm free to share my opinion of that work.
