Shitty author behaviour

Something happened to me the other day that's never happened before. And it both blew my mind, and pissed me right off.

And I have to call it out. If you're going to skim this blog quickly to find out who the author is, I'll save you some time and tell you right up front that, despite them being an asshole, I'm not going to out them. So, if that's what you're looking for move on.

Image by Çiğdem Onur from Pixabay

So, a few days ago, I got a book off Amazon. The premise had been promising, right up my alley, and it sounded like it was going to be a fun, short read, so I read it—as one does.

And, while the actual writing was pretty good, the rest was...not.

There's a litany of things that weren't good about this and, knowing that if I put something out like this, and seeing a one-star review come back, I'd appreciate knowing why it was a one-star.

Seriously, as an author, I can tell you, it's frustrating to see a low rating with no review. At least, it is for me, because I'm staring at that lonely star and thinking...okay, but why?

And here's the thing: I don't mind critical reviews. I actually encourage them. My thing is, I want my readers to have a reaction to my work. Loving it is the best, but if I can't have that, I'll take a strong negative reaction too. Go ahead and hate it intensely, I'm fine with that. What destroys me is either the, "meh, it was okay" reaction...or absolute silence.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of readers fall into that last category...as is their right. Because my other thing is, if you took the time to read my stuff, I'm grateful. You now have the right to review it as you see fit...but also the right to not review it either. You read it. That's all I can ask.

But you have also earned the right to review it. Honestly.

(don't get me started on the assholes that don't read a book, but feel they have the right to review it anyway because they don't like the author, or they adore the author or whatever. Until you read it, you don't have the context or right to review)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

I read the book. I found many issues with the book. So, I wrote a very detailed review outlining the issues with the book to accompany my one-star review.

What issues, you might ask?

Without giving away any of the plot or hinting at the actual book in question, I ran across...

• The central mystery of the place has to be uncovered. To do that, they have to discover the clues very plainly scratched into the walls that decades of previous visitors to the place clearly missed, or they had to uncover the cache of files... that decades of previous visitors to the place clearly missed. Seriously?
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• Despite uncovering the vague clues, the merry band makes the most wildly imaginative leaps of logic to come up with wildly supernatural causes to what they were seeing. And of course, every single one is spot on.
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• There's an entity that's haunting the place, and it can't decide if it wants them to leave, or stay forever Literally, it will say, "Leave! You're not welcome here!" then, a few pages later, "You are trapped here forever." So...confused much?
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• But the most egregious error was the lack of editing. I read a chapter where they exit the place and leave...like, literally get far enough away to look back at the place and...end chapter. Then the next chapter starts and...they're exiting the place and leaving, getting far enough away to look back at the place. The second leaving had more dialogue but...it was the same scene, but written differently.
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Image by Tung Lam from Pixabay

I detailed all of this in the review. Because, one of the things that makes me bonkers as an author is, we're creating a product to put out in the world for others to purchase and look at, intently. So, that product should be as perfect as we can make it.

By the time a book is sitting on the Amazon site, up for purchase, the author will have had to take the contents and format them to Amazon standards, and have a cover generated. They'll have to hop through all of Amazon's many hoops to get the book created and the content uploaded. They'll get reminders to ensure the book is ready for publication before the due date. In short, they will have ample time and opportunity to review every freaking aspect of that book prior to hitting "publish"...so, if what you're putting out is sloppy?

Then I'm not impressed. If the author doesn't care enough about their story to put out the best they can do, then why should I care about it?

So, in my review, I pointed all of this out, because some of it is just not-good storytelling, but much of it is sheer neglect for the finished work.

And, to be completely honest, I have a very strong impression this was a mostly AI-written project, but they got their AI of choice to rewrite that one chapter, and just plugged it in without removing the previous iteration.

So, I read it, and then I reviewed it.

I will say, had I gotten a review like that for one of my published works? While it would have stung, I also would have been grateful for the feedback, and I would have corrected that shit post haste.

What I would not have done...is what the author did next.

I received a request to remove my review. The reasoning was that, apparently, they "had never meant for the book to be up for review" ... uh huh. I asked if they were going to pull the book then, and have all the other reviews deleted (three five-star reviews). I received no response to that.

Instead of arguing, I decided this was not the hill to die on and removed my review. It's been almost a week, and I notice the book is still on offer, and those five-star reviews remain.

So, this pathetic weasel of an author just couldn't handle the fact that someone didn't love their book with the fiery intensity of a thousand suns, I guess.

This is my problem. There's FAR too many authors out there that can't handle any negativity of their work. People, this is ART. And ART is SUBJECTIVE. Everyone will have their own opinion of it, and it's not always going to align with yours. Just because you spit out a book doesn't mean rainbows now emanate from your ass and encircle the world with love.

So, here's my suggestion to any other authors who have a fragile little ego that can't handle anything negative: If you can't take criticism, don't publish books, because they'll attract both positive AND negative criticism.

And, I'll tell you one thing more: I will never remove another critical review for some withering adult-child who can't handle the truth. You wrote it, you sold it, I read it, I reviewed it.

Deal with it.

Tell me: What do you think?

Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men