Getting Your Rude On

[dancinghorse]

What is it with certain members of the general public and authors? I checked the amazon plogs today (I have one under each byline, and they've been getting a lot of traffic--not so many comments but lots of readers, and sales are spiking, yay!) and among all the nice messages, hiyas from familiar faces, and the usual, was this person who declared in a tone of great offense that she did not see why she had to waste her valuable shopping time with this "baloney" and she would never buy a book by me except as a gift anyway.

I wish I could say this was a factor of online life--trolls thinking the words on the screen are computer-generated and not quite catching on to the fact that they are written by real human beings--but the truth is, this is what book signings all too often are like in the non-virtual world. If you're not being asked for directions to the bathroom or the cookbooks, someone will come along who will tell you your genre stinks, your books must be sucky (not that they would ever stoop to read them), and your mother dresses you funny. If they're particularly fine examples of the species, they'll tell you another author writes ever so much better than you could ever dream of writing (not that they would ever read your books to be sure of this) and you really are a waste of time and space.

It is a bogglement. I tend to write off one-star amazon reviews as either kids (of whatever age) having some fun (beats burning down churches) or disgruntled would-be authors taking out their rejections on those who did manage to get published. But to come into a blog and insult the blogger is remarkably like coming into a signing and insulting the signer. In this case perhaps I can be charitable and figure she thinks the blogs are written by amazon staffers; her post did have the tone of a complaint letter to the company.

But really, these things are posted 'way down the book page, the Add to Bag button is 'way up top, and there's no need to scroll down that far at all. So why get all bent out of shape? Jealousy because only published authors can have a blog on amazon? General disgruntlement with the thought that books aren't automatically generated by some rarefied machine and materialized by magic in Tonstant Weader's hands? Subscription to the academic belief that the only good author is a dead one, and the act of literary creation is so high and holy that no mere, breathing mortal should presume to attempt it?

It is amazing how rude people can be to people who write books.

/rant

Whew. That one's been a long time coming.

In other news, our big storm has been walloping everybody but me. I have literally had a circle of clear sky overhead most of the day--squalls have circled all around, but DHF has been like the eye of the storm. It's probably Pooka's fault. He does hate rain. But he's quite snorked tonight because I won't turn off the wind. That was supposed to be my job.

Dinnertime was quite adventurous. The main herd went into the stalls and paddock at lunch so they would have shelter, and they spent most of the afternoon in two stalls. Yes. Six horses, two stalls. Pandora was separately stowed, since she tends to back Capria into corners and clobber her; she hung out beside the stall where all four Girlz were snoozing in a pile (she took time out to tease Pooka into tearing the hot wire apart in the arena along that side, which made for some cussing and repairing after dinner). Keed and Capria took over the stall next door. When I came out, however, except for Capria who parked in her own stall and waited patiently for dinner, and keed who decided he was moving into Tia's stall, everybody went bananas. They wanted dinner! They wanted the wind turned off! They wanted blankies!. I did eventually get everybody sorted, not without some Airs. And they got dinner and they got blankets and everybody was much happier after that.

By that time the rain finally closed in. It's very windy now, and spitting rain. Feels wonderful after so many months of dry, dry, dry. Horses are snugged up warm with hay and will get more later, dogs are in and warm, life (in spite of rude people) is good.

Comments

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

So why get all bent out of shape?

Folks like that fall into the same category as those who hang out in forums for TV shows simply so they can bitch about how awful said TV show is. If it sucks so bad, then why are you wasting time a.) watching it and b.) going online to bitch about it?

Some people are just nattering nabobs of negativity, and they can't live their lives without trying to bring everyone else down into the same pit of despair they themselves are trapped in. It's sad, really.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

I don't get trolls, either. I do find that ignoring them usually makes them go away. I learned from my years in retail that it's not personal; usually it's that you're the person in front of them, and they take it out on you (whatever 'it' is). I pity them, really. Then I move on. ;)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Do they infest the music world, too?

I get the impression such people make themselves feel better by trying to make other people feel worse. If the other person is a public figure, that adds extra points.

It's a sad reflection on them.

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

They do, though they tend to be employed as reviewers. I haven't seen as much of it on the mailing lists etc. as I do for TV shows/books/movies.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course. I didn't respond in the blog--no point. It's like trolls and Energy Creatures: if you don't feed it, it goes away.

But I do wonder what makes these people do such things. Do they not understand that people who write books are people, too? (I'm a writer, this person is going to end up in a book, I need to figure out the details.)(Ah yes. Writers have the best revenge there is. They can put you in a book.)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Hmph. Some people just don't know how to behave.

...I am trying to come up with a better theory, but that's pretty much all I got. Jeeze, lady. If you don't like it, go read something else. It's a big wide world o' books out there.

I don't know if you came across this when it was new: Excerpts from actual one-star Amazon.com reviews of books from Time’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present. Perhaps it will be comforting, or at least amusing.

[cindershadow.livejournal.com]

Yikes! I'm so sorry--it's appalling but, sadly, not unbelievable that people would act this way. (I tend to be the opposite: when I met Ursula K. LeGuin at a signing, I could barely choke out my thanks for her writing, because I was on the verge of tears . . . and had to be shepherded out by my kind friend, so I could give way in private! So, for what it's worth, some of us pretty much fry our brain circuits with joy and admiration when we get to meet you Real Life Writers who have given us so much.)

I don't know if you'll get all the storm we've had here, since we've gotten lots of the rain out it . . . but there appeared to be FOUR INCHES in the buckets out at the barn this morning. My guys are safe and dry if silly from the wind and chill in their covered 24' x 24' pens; I did feel bad for the others, only one of whom has a shelter (although today he stood with only his head under it, acting as a fine ad for his rainsheet but not for his I.Q.). They even got some hail not too far from the coast, and there was snow in the foothills. Still, it's water, and thus that much less risk of fire . . .

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

But really, these things are posted 'way down the book page, the Add to Bag button is 'way up top, and there's no need to scroll down that far at all. So why get all bent out of shape?

Actually, if you've bought a book by author X at Amazon.com previously, you'll automatically get their "plog" added to your amazon main page and your amazon books page. Whee. I don't mind, but I can see someone getting surprised by it and thinking it was the *author's* idea. It's a nice promotional idea, but the current implementation means that you see plog posts on nearly every page that isn't an item page.

I'm really sorry she was so rude to you about it. Not classy :(.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

LOL! Those are a riot. I'd seen some of them, but not the whole thing. LOTR has too many adverbs! *dies*

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

We've had very little rain. But at least we've had some.

And yes, still pondering the wonderful offer of ad. I can't seem to decide where to put it.

Maybe we need a poll?

What a sad life she must have...

[melinda-goodin.livejournal.com]

Some people really can only feel better by putting others down and you just got a flyby from a shining example of that sort of vampire. She probably went away feeling all virtuous too. Ignore her or pity her, but good on you for not replying.

[cindershadow.livejournal.com]

A poll sounds like a great idea. Meanwhile, since I finally used my brain and found your Paypal address, I thought I'd just send on the cash (tonight or tomorrow--depending on when I get my act together) and let you figure out what you want to do with it--ad, or any other contribution to the wonderful Lipizzan Experience you are offering. (If I weren't so busy, and so besotted with my own little guy, I'd be camped on your doorstep. So I'm getting vicarious thrills out of reading about Horse Camp!)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I don't get the impression she thought it was the author's idea--in fact she didn't seem aware the author would be reading the comments. It read like a complaint letter to the company. So you're probably right.

Still, anyone with a brain ignores all the farp on the page and just goes to wherever they're going. I keep getting recommendations for books I wouldn't read if you paid me to, but I'm not complaining to the authors that my books page is seventeen screens of books I have absolutely no interest in.

It gets me sometimes that class = not responding to insults, trolls, bad reviews, and other delights. It's bleedin' 'ard to be classy.

Re: What a sad life she must have...

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Usually I don't pay attention to these things, but for some reason this one tipped me over the edge. 20+ years of them will take a toll.

Do Not Feed The Energy Creature is my motto. Hard fought at times, but there you go.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I wonder why? Music is more abstruse or something?

Ouch on the ones that do exist being reviewers. :P

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

Some people just have the manners of a toad. You see that sort of thing all the time in fandom, which is why I tend to stay hidden on the fringes. Many are disciples of Eris whether they know it or not, sowing discord wherever they go. It doesn't matter whether they've seen the film, read the book, heard the song, etc. They just like to argue and complain and pick fights.

[tharain.livejournal.com]

It's the internet formula: Electronic Anonymity + Slightly Rude Person = Flaming Asshat.

I've seen people come into the chat rooms (I'm only there to talk -- cough cough) and be purposefully and deliberately mean and hateful, and for no good reason. It is, to me, unfathomable behavior.

Trolls: they aren't just for bridges anymore.

[christymarx.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, fuck'em.

You are creating works of literature.

They're just spewing bullshit.

[monder.livejournal.com]

I'm recently reminded that, people like that just seem to like to do those things, because it makes them feel like they aren't the pathetic wastes of oxygen molecules that they suspect they might be. I don't know what it is that makes people feel that they are entitled to belittle other's accomplishments, but boy it does go around. Sorry the trolls were snotting and ****ing in your direction.

Yay rain!

Hugs

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why either ... but at least in my case, I'm apt to have more patience for a book or TV show or movie I consider bad than I am a piece of music I don't like. If I hear a bad piece of music, I immediately shut it off and dismiss it from my life. I don't think I'm alone in this. Dunno, maybe it has something to do with different parts of the brain processing input from different media?

[onalark.livejournal.com]

I work in the gaming industry. Specifically, the online gaming industry.

We've had forums and communities for going on a decade now. The abuse I see lobbed at authors is similar to the same crap that players heap on the games, the company that makes the games, the servers that run the games, the field mouse that glanced at the game, and so on.

But once a year we (used to) have a convention. And inevitably the trolls show up. And guess what? 90% of the time, they're total pussycats. Their cajones, it turns out, are entirely virtual.

There's also a great deal to say about the utter lack of body language in online communication.

So long as trolls aren't threatening my life, I find them vaguely amusing. And a little disheartening, but only because I think that all this energy of hate could be harnessed to much more productive things. In particular, people who start entire communities and websites intent on lambasting one writer. If the only way they can generate amusement and joy in their life is to be meanspirited and cruel...well, that's just sad.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

...start logging their IPs, I'll take them down. One.by.one. >:)

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

I saw the post. I'm pretty sure that the writer has no idea that her post was public, or that you would see it. She doesn't like the whole "plog" thing, and doesn't want to see it on her home page.

At least, I'd like to think so.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

I wonder, too. I don't understand how people can dehumanize others like that. I also don't get racism, and other forms of hatred. I'm very lucky that I was raised by parents who didn't teach me to hate.

I didn't think of getting revenge like that! An excellent idea. ;)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Could be. Or else music is something fewer people can make, but everybody uses words--so there's this sense that if you use words badly, you're a real idiot (and also that everyone is qualified to makes summary judgments thereon). Whereas if you're stupid about music, well, lots of people are tone-deaf, you know?

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The writer's most deadly threat: "I'll put you in a book!"

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, but that's OK--let's figure out where to put the ad and you put it in. Otherwise if it comes in now, it will just go to pay bills.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I'd think so except that I've had things like this said to my face, by people (plural and at various times) who knew who I was and what I was doing there.

There's a real lack of understanding out there about what writers do.

Surfing by from friendsfriends

[harmonyfb.livejournal.com]

I tend to write off one-star amazon reviews as either kids (of whatever age) having some fun (beats burning down churches) or disgruntled would-be authors taking out their rejections on those who did manage to get published.

Many times, I'd imagine that's true. But I've left one-star reviews before, and I'm neither of those things. Some books are simply that bad ('Night Travels of the Elven Vampire' and 'Touched by Venom' leap to mind.) I don't leave negative reviews to be mean to authors, I leave them to help other readers make informed decisions when book-buying.

Yes, bad reviews can sting, but you can't please everyone (and sometimes, those bad reviews are right on target and the author needs to pay attention to them. ::Anne Rice and Laurell Hamilton, I'm looking at you::)

Please note that this is not to imply that I condone rudeness towards the author. Negative reviews are one thing - personal insults are quite another.

[cindershadow.livejournal.com]

That's fine with me, but I also don't mind if it goes into the big bill-paying pot and some version of it goes out later for the ad! So feel free to change your mind and email me to that effect.

My Little Grey Guy is so incredibly gorgeous as he trots/floats back and forth in his covered pen (no doubt muttering mentally about how annoying the rain is and how dinner should be served earlier on boring wet days). I love the idea that other, less fortunate horse lovers are going to get to see that, and so much more, up close and personal with your horses. It's just plain magic, the beauty of that movement! (Hey, even his Princely Stride--what we normally see as he waits for His Staff/Minions to bring the Royal Dinner--gives me tingles.) We are so darn lucky.

Re: Surfing by from friendsfriends

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Point taken. But when a book has 90% five-star reviews and a cluster of one-stars around a certain date, one surmises there is disgruntlement of some sort there--especially if the reviews attack faults the book doesn't have. I got one once that slammed me for doing the opposite of what I actually did. It read as if the reviewer had received a rejection on this point and was looking for it in the books it read.

There is a difference between an honest negative review and a grudge review. I have had negative reviews that I felt were accurate and I did take them to heart; I learned from them. Versus grudge reviews, which serve chiefly to make the reviewers feel better about their own inadequacies. I shrug at those, unless they're abusive or obscene (or scary, like ripped-out pages scrawled over in black marker, which I got once, 'way back along)--then I report them to the appropriate authorities.

In the "can't please everyone" department, I am particularly amused when the same thing will get one star from one reader and five stars from another--or a rave in one publication and a pan in the next. If there was ever an object lesson in why authors should not pay much attention to any one review, that is it. (Now if there is a trend and they don't all seem to be coming from the same source, that's a heads-up that there might be something in them.)

Re: Surfing by from friendsfriends

[harmonyfb.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between an honest negative review and a grudge review.

Agreed. Happily, I think it's pretty clear to readers which reviews are motivated by spite rather than honest opinion.

like ripped-out pages scrawled over in black marker, which I got once, 'way back along

::grimaces:: Oh, man, that would be scary.

I am particularly amused when the same thing will get one star from one reader and five stars from another

There is no accounting for taste, that's for sure. :)

[tharain.livejournal.com]

I've run into that phenomenon in the Chat Room World. I chat ou here in various areas, and one room gets together in San Francisco every Friday at a bar up in the Castro.

The fishwives, who are all venom and acid online? Milquetoasts. You're right. Virtual Cojones.

I, on the other hand, am freed by the presence of vocal tone and body language and facial expression to unleash the full range of my venomous tongue wit and humor. =)

If the only way they can generate amusement and joy in their life is to be meanspirited and cruel...well, that's just sad.

Absolutely. There's a guy I know online, student at Berkeley. Rants on and on about how intelligence is the ultimate aphrodesiac, but does nothing but insult people he percieves as less intelligent than himself. Intelligence may be what he claims, but rudeness is the ultimate buzzkill.

Re: Surfing by from friendsfriends

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Happily, I think it's pretty clear to readers which reviews are motivated by spite rather than honest opinion.

For sure. Readers ain't stoopid.

I am particularly amused when the same thing will get one star from one reader and five stars from another

There is no accounting for taste, that's for sure. :)

I figure in that case, the author has been successful because the book arouses a strong reaction--positive or negative--and the fact the same thing gets such widely divergent reviews just makes the whole thing more interesting. Love or hate, either one's better than "Meh."

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

I think you have a point there.

An apropos perspective...

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And it's worse if you had the notion of "ladylike" crammed into your head early. If you do feel a desire to respond still, you can point her to their "Help" section. They mention the "plog" feature there, but they currently only have help for authors in managing their plog, and no instructions for customers. They also have an email link for if their Help section didn't help. At least that way someone at Amazon can see her complaint, and if you're the sort to be gratified by being helpful well *g*.

Rudeness

[mpoppe.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, it's just amazing how rude people can be, period. But I think it's easier to be rude online where no one can recognize you. I sometimes wonder if courtesy has gone out of "The World As We Know It."

--Marilyn

Rude Reviews and Axe Grinding

[hoolieb.livejournal.com]

All these comments got me thinking (a frightening thing, I assure you) and I tried to recollect if I've ever left any bad, non-constructive reviews for any author. Sheepishly, I must admit to doing so. It was a mystery-ish book, but I struggled getting into the story because I felt the author was trying to impress us with a thorough knowledge of her thesaurus. I should have just left two stars and walked away, but I admit to adding a comment about how I felt too mundane and common to read her works. And really, that wasn't necessary. My only excuse is that I was much younger and less enlightened then.

Back OT, it doesn't matter how many stars a favorite author's book receives from readers or critics. If a book is written by a favorite author, I'm gonna buy it. And since you're one of my favorite authors, I'd buy an airline safety card if you had penned it. I'm just loyal that way.