Back in September of 2010, a reviewer on Amazon.com called into question an author’s credibility because of some extremely sloppy (or even nonexistent) research he had done for his latest book, which was set in modern-day Turkey. The reviewer, a Turkish woman, called him on several inaccuracies, from getting the capital of the country wrong to giving Turks the wrong ethnicity to mistaking Turkey, whose government is secular, for an Islamist nation.He also placed Istanbul in the middle of a desert. The author happened to be Christopher Pike, known for his teen horror stories. I’m not a horror fan, so I’ve never read any of his books--teen or adult. I have, however, read The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown places Versailles north of Paris and makes intersections of Parisian streets that actually run parallel to each other. Unless your book is an alternate reality, look at a damn map, why dont’cha. If Brown’s potboiler prose weren’t already enough to turn me off, his sloppiness as a writer/researcher would have been.
I don’t know why authors do this. Do they think every American is an ignorant hick who has never traveled outside the country and who doesn’t care about accuracy? Do they have any respect for the people and the place they’re writing about?
Anyway, somebody calling himself Michael Brite, ostensibly Pike’s editor, showed up to justify the inaccuracies and tell the reviewer she, who had lived in Turkey for 10 years, knew less than the Almighty Pike, who had taken a taxi ride through Istanbul (mistakenly identified in his book as the country’s capital--heh). Turns out “Michael Brite” was Pike himself, who admitted later that he frequently goes incognito onto the Web to defend his books, as if that were quid pro quo. His rant against Caligirl was xenophobic and childish. And it turns out he’s not the only one pulling such stunts. This link contains an encapsulated synopsis of some of the fun. The original Michael Brite reply was deleted from the Amazon post linked above.
I don’t know why authors do this. Do they think every American is an ignorant hick who has never traveled outside the country and who doesn’t care about accuracy? Do they have any respect for the people and the place they’re writing about?
Anyway, somebody calling himself Michael Brite, ostensibly Pike’s editor, showed up to justify the inaccuracies and tell the reviewer she, who had lived in Turkey for 10 years, knew less than the Almighty Pike, who had taken a taxi ride through Istanbul (mistakenly identified in his book as the country’s capital--heh). Turns out “Michael Brite” was Pike himself, who admitted later that he frequently goes incognito onto the Web to defend his books, as if that were quid pro quo. His rant against Caligirl was xenophobic and childish. And it turns out he’s not the only one pulling such stunts. This link contains an encapsulated synopsis of some of the fun. The original Michael Brite reply was deleted from the Amazon post linked above.
Anyone who has ever been flamed or defriended for a post on Facebook, any blogger who has been called out by an employer or family member or neighbor for posting something said employer, family member or neighbor disagreed with, anyone who has been pulled into a digital fistfight or flamewar online knows what I’m talking about. The World Wide Web can be a place for people to connect and share hobbies and interests, to make new friends or to reconnect with old ones. The World Wide Web can also be a place where cyberbullies stalk and harrass, causing some people to commit suicide. Under alternate identities, all rules of decency and decorum can be entirely disregarded.
Since beginning this blog, I have become aware that there are authors who are creating alternate identities so they can post rave reviews, disparage negative ones, or make passionate defenses of their own work. Under these identities, they also go and harass people who post negative reviews of their books online. On Goodreads (and I’m sure that it happens on other sites like Shelfari but I have no personal experience there), authors give their own books five stars and enlist family members and friends to do the same. If a fellow author gives a less-than-laudatory review, the less-than-lauded author will go on the “offending” author’s page and give their books low marks in retaliation. “I don’t care if your book won a Printz. You only gave me two stars and you said my protag was a Mary Sue, so I’m only giving you two stars.” Then they go and encourage friends and relatives to join the dogpile. Author flounces such as Pike's have led some people to create a DNR (Do Not Read) shelf to encourage other readers to boycott an author because of his/her behavior.
Unfortunately, not all adults are grown-ups. Some are more like excrement-flinging chimps or tantrum-throwing toddlers.
Yes, there are trolls who spend too many waking hours online harassing authors. That, however, does not justify the author lowering him/herself to the trolls’ level.
Writers need thick skins. Not everybody is going to love your work. Deal with it and then get over it. You don’t love everything you read, so while you allow yourself to have opinions, allow others the same privilege. You have a few choices here:
--Pass over the haters. Look at your bank balance if you’ve sold 300,000 copies. Reread any positive reviews.
--Sit on your hands, put on your ski gloves, whatever you need to do to immobilize your hands as you read the reviews. Or wrap them around a good bottle of 12-year-old single-malt Scotch while you read. Either way you won’t be able to write a reply you’ll regret later.
--Remember that there’s a difference between snarking an author and reviewing a book. If readers are taking potshots at you for your hair or your weight or whatever, well, that’s childish and shallow of them. They shouldn’t do that. But will your calling them out on your blog or calling them names solve anything?
--On a more serious note, look at what people are saying about your book. “It was boring” isn’t specific enough. But “I thought the heroine was whiny/too perfect/too shallow” might merit being taken seriously, especially if you’re reading it from several sources and not just from a dogpile on one website. And again, even if their complaints have some legitimacy, will calling them out on your blog change their minds?
--If you do decide to go underhanded on readers and reviewers or have a public tantrum, don’t be all vexated when people start unfollowing your blog and putting you on a DNR shelf.
--If you have time to create aliases and create blogs and Goodreads and Shelfari accounts and Amazon accounts and post under all those aliases to give yourself five-star reviews, you have time to improve yourself as a writer and actually earn the five-star reviews honestly. Then you won’t have to stalk people who negatively review your books because you’ll actually be a better writer and the naysayers’ll be such a tiny minority that you can just give a dismissive wave of your hand and say, “Feh”
--Ask yourself: Do you really want to be “that” author? The sneaky whiny-ass completely lacking in grace and maturity?
Here’s a final word from the UK’s Guardian newspaper that tells a similar story from the UK and then sums up my own thoughts nicely:
"Whose book is it anyway? The hardest thing a writer has to learn is that once you publish a book, it's no longer truly yours -- even though it's got your name on the front and it lives inside you. It belongs to the readers now. All you can do is steel yourself as you push it out into the world, stay gracious, and get busy with the next one."
Caligirl's blog is bookfails.livejournal.com
The links to the Pike/Brite kerfuffle are here and here.
Caligirl's blog is bookfails.livejournal.com
The links to the Pike/Brite kerfuffle are here and here.
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