Hey Readers, I’ll Meet You In the Middle
Authors and readers have a complicated relationship. I’m pretty uncomfortable with some of the ways I’ve seen it portrayed of late (us vs them, readers vs authors, steel-cage match, blah blah blah) but that’s because I am a reader, and I am an author, and I am never going to stop being either.
The vast gulf between author and reader doesn’t have to be some uncrossable chasm. All we really have to do is have a little respect for each other. I can’t speak for everyone else, but here is what I’m willing to do. Maybe some of you will be willing to meet me in the middle for margaritas.
Things That Are Not a Reader’s Responsibility
- My Career. It’s not a reader’s job to keep my career on track. If you care enough to find out where I make the highest royalties on sales or how to get me on a bestseller list, that is a wonderful awesome thing, but it is not your job and I will never, ever expect you to take responsibility for it. Any legal way you procure my books is gravy, and all I have to say in return is: Thanks.
- Loving Everything I Write. Sure, I’d love to think I am entertaining people, but I swear, I’m not going to turn into a rampaging monster if you don’t love every book equally. If the latest book didn’t work for you, it’s okay. We can still be buds.
- Loving Anything I Write. If you really like me but can’t stand my books, that’s okay too. We can still be twitter buddies, or blog buddies or even real life friends. (No wait, real life friends, you have to pretend you love my books or I’m not making any more cookies. This goes doubly if you’re married to either of us.)
Things That Are Not My Responsibility
- Sharing My Career Decisions With You. I have absolved you of any responsibility for my career for a selfish reason: I refuse to give you any say in it. The only person who has a say in my career is me. (Okay, Donna, but it is our career.) If I have fights with my publisher, I am damn sure going to have them in private, just like I wouldn’t have blogged about a disagreement I had with a project manager at my day job. Expecting an author to bad-mouth their agent, editor or publisher is asking way too much.
- Reading Bad Reviews. I don’t care if you like my book or hate my book, but reviews are for readers, not authors. It is not my job to read every bad review so I can learn from it. This is insanity, since I can pull up bad reviews that have 100% contradictory opinions on every book I’ve ever written. Sometimes I will collect common themes from negative reviews and incorporate them into my growth, but it is not my responsibility to take anyone’s advice but my editor’s.
I’m sure I could sit around and add things to both of these lists. Maybe I will later, but right now I’m getting ready to start the margarita party, and I’m hoping this not-insurmountable list of obstacles won’t keep too many of you from hanging out with me in this happy middle ground I call, “The place where everyone loves books.”
This is a nice place. I’d like to spend lots more time here, loving books.
EDIT: As usual, Stacia Kane has said everything else I could have possibly wanted to say, and done so with kick-ass eloquence. Usually, whenever anything happens in the romance world, I can just wait for Stacia to make a post because then I don’t have to bother…I can just link to hers whenever anyone asks what I think. This chick rocks.
Also, if you’re looking for a blogger perspective, there’s a Wicked Little Pixie who got her rant on. I’m sending her the leftover limes for margaritas!
EDIT 2 (March 9th): I never intended my post to be calling anyone out, and though I’m not going to deny that Rob Thurman’s twitter feed partly inspired Point #1, so did all the ebook authors who demand no reader take advantage of Fictionwise sales. And I didn’t put all the other points in there to hide that, I feel just as strongly about every one of them and wish they all hadn’t vanished under the drama that followed.
I don’t know why people are still visiting this post in the numbers they are…well, no. I do. People are still making new posts and keeping it alive like a rambling zombie of drama that is far past its “Use By” date. Also, I was linked on fandom_wank. Unfortunately, I’m familiar enough with fandom_wank to know what I’m going to do next:
Keep my damn mouth shut.
(If you come back next week though, I promise to have a wonderful public meltdown and then give you all my deeply earnest thoughts on some terribly dull topic…oh wait, I already did that with the Math of 3rd Party Royalties.)
My message is still the same. We all love books. I’d like to get back to loving books, and hopefully other people will join me. Yay books!
Categories: All Posts · Tags: i heart books, ranty mcrantypants
I will happily meet you in the middle and follow all the insanity that is Twitter and other social sites just to stay up to date on what you write and when it releases. I do not promise to love all of your written work but do promise to give some of it a try and make up my own mind. I also thinks that you have many more fans than you might think who truly will read anything you write simply because you wrote it, case in point here I am reading this blog post and commenting on it today!!
jackie b central texas
Well said on all counts.
Readers are wonderful, authors are wonderful, reviewers are wonderful, but there do have to be boundaries among the groups. Absolutely.
Anyway, very nice blog. And I am a reader as well as an author, and I really enjoy your books, and you! (and Donna!)
Sam
But…
I never get cookies anyway. *sniff*
@Jackie: Awww, you’re too sweet!
I’m glad you commented! Let’s have margaritas!
@Samantha: I agree, boundaries are important. As long as we can set respectful ones for everyone. And we like you too!
@Matt: Oh FINE you can hate our books, but you better not come down here expecting cookies. That ship has sailed, mister!
Maybe I should read more of your stuff before I decide to hate it.
*Looks sheepishly around* Or read at least one…
Wait… there are cookies?
Sam
Well put. I love writing reviews but I would never expect an author to take what I say and change how they write. It is my opinion and meant for other readers. Hehe, people really expect you to read all their reviews and take their advice? A person could go insane from that. Your books are great just they way you write them.
Stephanie G
rofl works for me now pass me a margarita. And so far I’ve loved everything I read of ya’lls. Not read them all but a few.
Thank you thank you thank you! lol
@Samantha: There are always cookies! I love to bake.
@Stephanie: I never want to think that I can’t get better at writing (I always try to write the best book I can, but my best book now is hopefully better than my best book was 2 years ago!) but there’s only so much you can learn by reading a single review. And yeah, I COULD go insane, since the part that bothers one person might be the parts someone else loves. It’s a balancing act, but at the end of the day I need to reserve the right to not read any of it. Sure, people can hate my book, but sometimes it’s easier for me if I don’t have to watch them do it.
But thank you!
@Pam: Thanks Pam! Margaritas for all.
@Natasha: You’re very welcome. Any time.
great post..as a bookseller it’s not appropriate for an author to tell me I can’t sell their book a day early if it has a soft landing..I get that it messes with the numbers..but DUDE it’s a sale…
Your post is eloquent and I thank you for it…
Ummm…I’ll pass on the cookies but if I ask nicely can I have 2 margaritas?
Excellent post by the way.
No one told me there was cookies. hmph, I am not sure we can be best twitterbuds anymore if I don’t get cookies.
Ok ok i guess we can, but if andrew could bring me cookies without a shirt I would be your minion forever. kthxbai.
What you said.
@synde: Yep, like I said on twitter… a bookseller can’t be expected to memorize a list of every new release every week. Barnes & Noble literally was NOT SET UP for me to hold books that weren’t Strict On Sale. If they didn’t come in a box marked with a street date, they generally went on the cart to go out the next day. I didn’t have any other place to put them!
And if an author verbally abused me over it, well… I’m not going to say anything else. Except “don’t verbally abuse underpaid booksellers.” Seriously. Don’t.
@Emma: Sure, triple margaritas maybe.
I’m making them in an industrial sized blender this morning!
@Tiffany: Did I mention Andrew is known for cooking breakfast for people shirtless? I think I should have mentioned that. (Okay, now I’m just tormenting you for fun.)
@Meljean:
(The emoticon of champions! 
)
Bree,
Hate to tell you this, I really do, but if you don’t buy my next book exactly on Wednesday, Winter Solstice at Big Box Books at precisely 2:37 p.m. EST and pay with Visa and hype me to at least 4 other people in the store while wearing my T-shirt and singing my theme song THEN I’ll have to blog about how you not only hate me with much hatred, but you want my career to fail so I’ll end up homeless and alone.
Also, I’ll tell the world about that time you got drunk, bought a plastic werewolf mask and robbed an old lady at an ATM while singing Werewolves of London.
And we don’t want that, do we? O_O
Remember, follow those instructions exactly or I spill the beans.
Bring it, Melton. Or do you think what happened in Vegas is gonna stay in Vegas this time?
I have the doctored video tapes, and I’m not afraid to use them! I’m buying your damn book at 2:39 PM SO PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT!
Oh very nice post…as usual. See there, I love every post you do equally.
I am Ann Aguirre & I endorse this post.
<<@Tiffany: Did I mention Andrew is known for cooking breakfast for
<<<people shirtless? I think I should have mentioned that. (Okay,
<<now I’m just tormenting you for fun.)
No that is just mean. Why do you enjoy torturing me so?!?! I am going to be curled up in a ball muttering his name soon enough and you will be to blame!
How does every post I make on your blog get back to Andrew? hm.
I totally heard about Melton and his vegas escapades, i heard it involved a unicorn.
@FV: I think you’re just biased because I’m your twitter buddy.
@Ann: First the blog posts…next I’ll be having you make phone calls endorsing my candidacy for President! Muahahaha.
@Tiffany: You started it! LOL No blaming me for the Andrew talk. Uh-uh.
And as for Melton…unicorns and chainsaws. It was horrible. Puppies cried.
Bree I heart you.
But does this mean no more reader campaigning for Monty Python lyrics in your books??
*pout*
@Edie: I will always make an exception to any rule when it comes to Monty Python campaigns. After all, Adam Dubois is a vampire lumberjack, and he’s okay.
WOOT so I can get back to campaign headquarters and get the youtube video up, and unite the bloggers.. and..
Seriously, I can’t be the only person who thinks it would be soo cool for a vampire to sing (or be tormented by someone else singing)
“I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay.
I sleep all day, work all night.
I cut down trees. I skip and jump”
I would be surprised if Dylan could keep himself from making Monty Python jokes–if nothing else, behind Adam’s back.
Will you have my babies? *throws next Bishop your way*
Ooooh, sparkly. Oh, and I saw reference to a next book being a book of stories, maybe? Maybe another Dreams Made Flesh deal?
Excellent summary of how you – and so many others of us! – see the ‘responsilibilites’. It all makes great sense but seems to get hidden sometimes under melodrama. I love the idea of more supportive places “where everyone loves books”
. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for commenting, Clare! Yes, I like hanging out where everyone likes books.
There is a falling out between Authors and Readers? This is the first I’ve heard of it. Different is good, it’s all about perspective. Being able to view life from more than your perspective is a key to having a peaceful life. I’ll take a strawberry one thanks.
Being able to view life from more than your perspective is a key to having a peaceful life.
That is exactly what I think. I was a reader for many, many years, but I don’t think I’ve lost that point of view. I didn’t exchange it for an author point of view, I simply added an author point of view. It does make for the occasional internal-battle, but in the end I decided to just treat readers the way I’d like to be treated as a reader.