So, a lot of you read my post awhile back about Authors that Complain. There was one particular indie author whose books I loved, but she drove me crazy with her negativity on her blog (she basically said she hated her book and only wrote it to please fans and then a week or so later proceeded to complain about the fact that said fans hadn’t bought the book – well, if you tell me you hate it, it dampens my enthusiasm just a little bit!).
But, I am an optimistic person at heart – I like to think the best about people, and I don’t give up on them easily once I’ve formed an attachment. I had enjoyed this author’s books and had really wanted to support her (I’d bought every book she’d released). I wanted to just let her negativity go. I still bought her latest book (the one she hated – no, I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t comment on whether or not her hatred was deserved) and I decided to play it by ear and see how it all went.
Except, here’s the thing. From that point forward, every time I would see an email from her blog, I would cringe a little, wondering if it was going to be ranty or not. I would avoid her social media because I didn’t want to see what she might say next. I wanted news on her latest books, but I started realizing that I was dreading reading anything she put out there. And I started thinking, “What’s the point?” Some of her blog posts I read, but most of them I just skimmed a little. Nothing too scary – I was okay. Until Saturday.
Saturday, we got another rant.
This one was about piracy. And I TOTALLY agree that piracy is a horrible thing, and that it is harmful to authors, and that it completely sucks. Normally, I wouldn’t mind an author ranting about piracy because it’s … well, something actually horrible to rant about. But, somehow, this author always manages to rub me the wrong way with her “woe is me” and her “if only my readers supported my really good books” attitude. She once again points out how she only agreed to write more books in her most popular series because her readers “begged for it” and insists that she simply can’t do it anymore – the pressure of writing these books and fighting the pirates is ruining her mental health … and so on, and so forth.
I’m normally a very sympathetic person, so typically I would feel really sorry for someone under these circumstances. And, actually I did – the first time she ranted about it. But she has threatened to stop writing this series so many times that it’s become laughable – and really annoying. Just don’t write it already! Stop complaining about it!
So, since she was (yet again) announcing that she was abandoning her planned series indefinitely, her post was called “Indefinite Abandonment,” which I just now realized is incredibly ironic since that’s exactly what I did – I abandoned her. Indefinitely. I stopped following her blog, I unliked her FB page, I unfollowed via Twitter. I have decided that I am done with this author. I’m making a clean break.
So, that’s my rant about an author who rants too much (yep, I totally see the irony here). How about you? Have you broken up with an author you wanted to love? Tell me why!
Sadly, I know exactly who you are talking about. I’ve had similar feeling to the author’s post and newsletters. Sounds to me like they need to take a step back away from it and stop being so negative.
Yes! I was really trying to give her a break and cut her some slack, but the amount of negativity that she puts in her posts and updates just got to be overwhelming. If I’m dreading opening her posts, there’s something wrong. I think I made the right choice by unsubscribing from everything.
I just totally searched that post. Lol. Well, I’m glad I’ve never heard of the author. I’ll probably be in your shoes as well if that series is one that I enjoyed. At the same time, I understand why she’d quit (piracy hurts her pockets). Though, why anyone would slave over a book that they didn’t want to write in the first place is beyond me. If you’re not doing the things that you love, you’re wasting your time.
Yes, I do agree with you about piracy – like I said, I can totally understand why an author would be upset about piracy. It’s just the fact that she rants so often on her blog (not just about piracy), and she always brings it back around to how she really never wanted to write this series in the first place. They just always have a hint of bitterness against fans of her most popular series that I’ve gotten tired of. If this had been the first post like this, I’d be totally sympathetic – but it’s definitely not! (Oh, and I also think she should write what she wants – just do it without complaining about the other books she was forced to write.)
Whoa. Okay, so I actually know of this author (kind of). I hadn’t heard of her but I won two of her books, one being the “abandoned” series. Ironically, that wasn’t even supposed to be one of the books I won, it was a different one, but whatever, I was happy to win. But… why would I read it now? I mean, I HAD heard good things about the books, so I was planning to read them, but now that you’ve publically said that there won’t be a conclusion? Pass.
Honestly, it is unprofessional at best to be inundating fans, (or really, anyone who isn’t your mom, your significant other, or your best friend) with such complaints. Do you really think the people who pirate the stuff subscribe to your newsletter? Follow you on Twitter? Nope. Those are the fans who ARE paying for your book, who enjoy what you write. This is maddening. I think a career change, or a serious self-reflection are in order. I mean, I wish her the best, but she is only torturing herself, and seems to have no enjoyment in it. She doesn’t seem like a bad person (she seemed lovely in the brief communication I had with her) just… lost. Sad, really.
You’re totally right about the audience. She’s writing these posts to the people who have been supporting her, so it feels like a little bit of a slap in the face. Why not write something along the lines of, “Thank you so much to all of my loyal fans who actually pay for my books and love them.” And then feel free to go ahead and rant against piracy. Instead, I feel like her posts are always antagonistic toward people who love that series – as if we are causing her pain for liking her books.
A rant about rants—LMAO! Well played. I don’t follow any authors that outright trash their own books, that seems absurd to me, but I have dropped a few that bash reviewers who didn’t like their novels, or complain about readers wanting to interact with them on social media. There are some things that you just shouldn’t do, and this is definitely one of ’em.
Yeah, it was pretty disheartening when her new book came out and she almost immediately started writing about how much she hated it. It certainly wasn’t encouraging me to run out and buy it. And I agree that there are some authors that just don’t seem to get the damage they can do with social media. Then again, I honestly think that some authors just don’t care.
*shakes head* This kind of behavior from authors really bothers me. She is LUCKY to have fans in such a saturated market. She is lucky to have people who want to buy her work, and those people love her work too! And want to see more of it! I would be over the moon if that happened to me. I can understand being upset about pirating, but the truth of the matter is that pirates and the people who download pirated works are NOT an author’s fans. An author’s fans are the ones buying the books and asking for more. It’s shame she doesn’t know the difference between those two.
Yes! There are so many authors who are struggling to find any audience at all, so it seems like an author who has loyal readers should really try to be positive about that, not complain about it all the time. Piracy is really awful, and I can definitely understand why it would be horrible to feel like you were fighting against it all the time, but I just got tired of this author’s constant negativity toward her most popular book.
I have never done that myself, but it sounds like I would have made the same decision if I had been following that particular author. It sounds like a huge insult to fans to say you hate the books and then to keep threatening to abandon it. If the writer has no enthusiasm for her books, how are the readers supposed to?
Exactly! I get that the author liked her other books better and wanted her fans to read those instead of asking for more of the one series, but the way she went about it was ranty instead of “Hey, and check out these other great books!” As a fan who had read (and promoted) all of her books, I just got really tired of reading her negativity about the one series (which is the the book that made me start reading her in the first place!).
Wow. I’ve never heard of an author bashing their own work. I’ve had an author be nervous when she had me beta read her book but that’s totally different. It sucks that an author you once loved has made you change your mind about them.
Yes, being nervous is completely acceptable, but this author just went on and on about how much she hated writing the book because she hated the main character. And I totally get that some books are hard to write – but she just never put a positive spin on it. It was more just left as, “Well, I was forced to write this book because that’s what the fans wanted, so this is what they got.” Very frustrating!
I try to keep out of my favorite authors’ personal stuff, exactly for this reason. I’m even hesitant to follow most of them on twitter, because I really don’t want to know what kind of people they are! I’m just scared they’re ruining the books for me by being a horrible person.
Ha! Yep – that’s exactly what happened to me!