Monday, February 6, 2012

Bad Behavior Day 1, a Rambling, Ranty, Let's Get Over Ourselves Edition


 One of the great beauties of the World Wide Web is that it gives all of us an opportunity to behave badly in a public and indelible way. No longer are our misdeeds restricted to the sloppy memories of inattentive friends and family. "Do you remember when she did that?" "Oh, I heard something different. Hey, where did you get those totally cute shoes?"

So, if your friends are simply too negligent to keep track of your bad behavior, there are dedicated souls somewhere on the World Wide Web who will invest the time to be properly shocked.  These gallant deeds result in what is called a kerfuffle or perhaps a brouhaha. (Fancy people call them contretemps.) Often shenanigans is thrown in. Kerfuffle is nice because it makes you think of a chocolate and popcorn snack, but brouhaha is better for colder weather: "Come sit by the hearth and I'll fetch ya a nice steaming bowl of brouhaha."

What was I saying? Oh, yeah, bad behavior. Lately authors have been accused of acting badly by actually reading their reviews and commenting on them. And also harassing the reviewers. And even, gasp!, rating their own books with five-stars on Goodreads and telling fans and friends to "like" good reviews. Sensitive people have been having conniptions and the vapors.

But the World Wide Web has room enough for bad behavior from everyone, even corporations because, corporations, my friend, are bad-behaving, data-mining people, too. This bad behavior seems to flare up more with YA fiction. Which is to say, females who love books are ganging up against other females who love books.

The latest brouhaha concerns Agent #1 who read a negative review of her author's hugely hyped book on Goodreads. Agent #1 posted who's-this-bitch! messages to her author and then summoned forces to troll the reviewer's blog and Goodreads review. The reviewer, quite popular because she is a terrific reviewer (one of my personal fave's), was justifiably offended. The reviewer kept her cool, but her readers and the author's fans went at each other, and there was a lot of virtual hairpulling and shrieking.

Another such incident happened when a bad review of Moira Young's Blood Red Road ran in the Guardian (UK) and the agent, author, fans and bloggers made a ruckus.

A fandango of hootenanyesque proportions erupted about a bad review of Julie Cross's The Tempest. The Book Pushers (having severe banner envy!) has a rundown of this calamity.

It's nice to think authors can control the behavior of their agents or should speak out publicly against an agent's bad behavior, but ha ha ha ha. If you think your employers have behaved badly, do you post an apology to the customers on the World Wide Web? Try that and tell me how it works out for you.

Blogger-reviewers say that they are uncomfortable with authors reading the reviews the bloggers have posted on the World Wide Web. (What about "world wide" is difficult to understand?) People from all factions say that authors should never respond to reviews, whether good or bad, or even those posted just out of meanness.

A lot of readers and bloggers claim that sites like Goodreads and Amazon are there for readers, not authors. They are wrong. Goodreads and Amazon are there for profits. Let me repeat that: Goodreads and Amazon's sole purpose is to make profits.

A major component of their business models is to acquire valuable content for free from reviewers and readers. There's a reason that neither site has a "no star" rating. There's a reason that the day a controversial book is published on Amazon, it will have hundreds of five-star and one-star reviews by people who have not read the book. There's a reason people can rate a book on Goodreads that isn't even available as an ARC.

And there's a reason Goodreads wants members to tweet and post to Facebook (can we say "face recognition technology" anyone?) directly from their site and to take polls and answer questionnaires.  This is a vast data-mining operation and you can be sure that the company is going to make the big bucks selling the data. Amazon isn't interested in offering a public service. Amazon is interested in selling products.

So you'll understand why I'm not outraged that publishers, authors, and agents are using these commercial sites for their own advantage. Any way that authors can use available commercial resources to promote their novels is generally okay with me. Of course, I'd be okay with spray-painting my book covers on kittens if I could figure out a way to stop them from licking the paint off their fur.

I am appalled at the agent who went after the reviewer. It's one bad review. A few (or even many) bad reviews aren't going to destroy an author's career. Pride and Prejudice has over 14,000 one-star reviews at Goodreads. I especially like this one: "For several pages a lady remarks to a man about what wonderful handwriting he has. Not exactly gripping material." This is also fun. "I know I'm supposed to like Elizabeth, but she just talks smack the entire novel."

Will I change my opinion of P&P because these reviewers have more snark than ability to comprehend literature? Nope. Will I enjoy someone talking smack about Lizzie Bennet talking smack? Absolutely. Here's my favorite bad review of my first novel: "This book is so wildly inappropriate. I do not recommend anybody reads it. There was language, crudeness, and the most shocking/disgusting things." Another reader laments, "If I could only give Zero stars...."

Isn't it fun reading that people slam my books, especially because I think I'm so clever? Yes!

Which is to say, bad reviews are part of the fun.

Do I draw lines on bad behavior? Yes, I do not like when authors, reviewers or agents personally attack another. I know of an author who gave out a reviewer's home address and children's names and I think that is horrible and unforgivable. I do not like the anonymous trolls, or readers who  start calling each other bitch, and confirming the worst opinions of female behavior as backbiting, sneaky, and conniving.

Some attendees at the American Librarian Association conference this January commented that a few (not all) book review bloggers were shoving others and grabbing multiple copies of ARCs for blog contests, leaving some of the librarians without copies of highly desired books like Kristin Cashore's Bitterblue. This is not okay.

I am annoyed by 1) authors acting like anyone who doesn't like their books should be punished; 2) bloggers acting like their reviews shouldn't be read by authors on the aforementioned world wide web; 3) readers acting like authors should be role models instead of writers; and 4) agents acting like psychotic helicopter moms for their authors.

More later this week.


GRATUITOUS VIDEOS OF THE DAY

The theme is bad behavior. Bad, wrong, evil. I like this Supernatural tribute, but I can't embed it, but this is good, too.







Friday, February 3, 2012

Waiting for the End of the World Books & Bad Behavior

I don't know which is the newest cover.


Next week I'm going to write about some of the contretemps with authors, reviewers, agents, and readers. Luckily for us, there's been truly appalling behavior from all groups. I hope you're ready to feel morally superior to these bad eggs -- I know I am! I'll be bringing insight from my own extensive experience as a bad egg.

Speaking of which, here are some new and upcoming apocalyptic and dystopian books. Because a brain-eating zombie is always a bad egg. I'll post a few below. First, though, if you want some new books, Suzanne Johnson has several books in a range of genres that were never claimed in her amazing contests. So head on over to Preternatura and enter to win! She's got everything from paranormal romance like Demons Like It Hot to steampunk time travel like The Map of Time.


The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2) by Paolo Bacigalupi
May 21, 2012

SUMMARY:
America has devolved into unending civil wars, driven by demagogues who recruit children to become soulless killing machines. Two refugees of these wars, Mahlia and Mouse, are known as "war maggots": survivors who have barely managed to escape the unspeakable violence plaguing the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities. But their fragile safety is threatened when they discover a wounded half-man--a bioengineered war beast named Tool, who is hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers. When tragedy strikes, Mahlia is faced with an impossible decision: risk everything to save the boy who once saved her, or flee to her own safety.


Pure (Pure #1) by Julianna Baggott
February 8, 2012

SUMMARY:
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different.


The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson
 April 17, 2012

SUMMARY:
Sixteen-year-old Scotch struggles to fit in—at home she’s the perfect daughter, at school she’s provocatively sassy, and thanks to her mixed heritage, she doesn’t feel she belongs with the Caribbeans, whites, or blacks. And even more troubling, lately her skin is becoming covered in a sticky black substance that can’t be removed. While trying to cope with this creepiness, she goes out with her brother—and he disappears. A mysterious bubble of light just swallows him up, and Scotch has no idea how to find him. Soon, the Chaos that has claimed her brother affects the city at large, until it seems like everyone is turning into crazy creatures. Scotch needs to get to the bottom of this supernatural situation ASAP before the Chaos consumes everything she’s ever known—and she knows that the black shadowy entity that’s begun trailing her every move is probably not going to help.


GRATUITOUS VIDEOS OF THE DAY

The sun is shining and the sky is blue so my theme is sun, bright, sky, blue, clear, day, that sort of thing.





This song makes me want to slap someone. (Refer to "bad egg" above.) Is it just me? If not, please feel free to slap the person closest to you. It's okay. Really.



And because it's Friday...it's a sunny tribute to Richard Armitage. Because sometimes schmaltz can be fab.