Sharp Words

There’s a helluva long thread over at Dear Author regarding another author/e-publisher behaving badly. Karen has a few crumbs, too. The whole thing makes me sad–the mudslinging, the back and forth. Some of the alleged behavior is so terribly Jr. High.

But the really sad part is, at least when it comes to the over-the-top and unethical alleged behavior regarding Amazon Reviews, I can kind of understand what motivates it. Authors are sensitive creatures. We get freaked out easily. I totally understand that first rush of horror and anger when you read something that seems to threaten or disparage your work. It seems so unfair!

Sitting in front of a computer as much as we do, it’s easy to get sucked into the Internet and imagine that it actually matters (see my irrational mini freak-out over the other Bettie Sharpe, below). The important thing is to step back, relax, and remember that the only graceful response to a negative review–if you must respond–is, “Thank you for reading and reviewing my work. I hope you’ll enjoy my next story more than you enjoyed this one.”

Kinda makes silence look appealing, doesn’t it?

Yeah, what she said: Shiloh Walker has a calm and collected post on the matter. Want to read more? Go there.

I have said before, I don’t do reviews, am terrible at them, blah-de-blah blah blah. But Janet over at Dear Author, she writes a hell of a review, and it so happens that her review of Private Arrangements is exactly what I would have said if I weren’t such a doofus.

It has a coherent explanation of the plot, nuanced descriptions of the characters, quotes from Sherry Thomas’s lovely prose–the works. Go read it.

No secret here, I’m not a very good blogger. I’d love to be fascinating and insightful, but, honestly, I have way more fun reading other people’s blogs than I do writing my own. For instance: Tumperkin.

You may have read her book reviews on I Swear it’s Not Chick Porn, or her short story in “The Serial” but if you haven’t read her blog, you are missing out. Her blog posts totally rock. They’re insightful, interesting, and thought-provoking. They are, in short, the kind of blog posts I would want to write if a magical fairy one day floated down from the heavens and blessed me with the gift of Good Bloggery.

She has a marvelous ongoing series of posts on classifications of Romance novels. Her posts on fairytales are tons of fun. And she dares to ask the question, “What in the bloody hell is up with the anatomically misplaced hymens in so many Romance novel love scenes.” Okay, maybe she didn’t say “what in the bloody hell” because as she has wisely pointed out, “why in the bloody hell” is not terribly British.

Anyway, point is, this is a blog that always gets me thinking, and if you haven’t read it, you should give it a try.

Yeah, What She Said is an ongoing series in which Bettie will discuss the blogs she reads instead of writing her own blog.