“There are books full of great writing that don’t have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story… don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the words -the language. Don’t be like the play-it-safers who won’t do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.
— Stephen King
(Warning: this is quite long, go make a cuppa first!)
I’m a self-published indie author, a young writer struggling to convince people he’s a writer, full stop. Last week, I emailed a small website, one I’d seen a friend mention on her blog. I was seeking help to promote my tatty wares, and like most self-published indie authors, I kinda hoped for a nice little review/a simple enough confirmation my books were well worth a read.
The website, I won’t name names, offers those it chooses to review a seal of approval, one for quality of writing and the overall merit of the book (you get an actual badge to add to your book cover, at least if they deem you worthy enough). I read the site’s submission policy, the precise standards of excellence dictated by the woman who runs the site, namely what both she and they look for in an acceptable book. It immediately felt long-winded and somewhat boorish. Actually, the general tone-of-voice in the woman’s self-important directions began to remind me of a priggish character in one of my ebooks, That Semicolon Bitch Had To Die…..
Even so, and despite this ominous association, I read on regardless, and, somewhat foolishly, emailed her.
Of course, a week later I got a reply:
Dear Tom
Sorry, but I won’t be reviewing your book (Rich Pickings for Ravens). The passive writing in the first two paragraphs of chapter one indicate that I am likely not to give it a good review.
This post on avoiding using forms of ‘to be’ & other subtle ways that we tell rather than show, will explain what I mean (website link). I highly recommend that you read ‘Self-Editing for Grammar Idiots’, particularly chapter 13.
Regards
Lady Stickler
I re-read the words “passive writing”, somewhat despairing as I did.
Meh! she’s one of those, I thought to myself, a “show and teller”, a “stickler”, a damn “grammar Nazi”!
I despaired some more, offering up a deep kind of sigh to the Gods of Patience and Understanding. After all, “stickleritus” is a terrible affliction, troubling as many as one in five and a half adults.
Known symptoms?
Clenched buttocks, your face appears akin to a smug toad and every time you read the work of a wayward indie author, you come out in blotches, usually in the shape of semicolons.
Cure?
Read some Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf, stick to your sacred writers who never haunt you with their erroneous or wayward verb usage.
Anyway, bad jokes to one side, I’ve met people like this lady before. Two a penny. The kind of uptight and petty soul spending hours swatting up on grammar rules, perhaps attending naff creative writing seminars, merely to enable them to snappishly dismiss/lord it over all those, not quite so uptight, or well versed on complicated syntax, frags or other whatnots.
In other words, they’re the snobs of the literary community.
In fact, if they weren’t writing contemptuous blog posts (we’re getting to the blog posts), their snobbery would assuredly manifest in other ways. Perhaps, looking down their snooty noses at the post-code you live, or the supermarket you shop (I’ve a bag for life, don’t cha know).
Grr (shakes fist).
I breathed deeply, re-reading Lady Stickler’s reply.
Sorry, but I won’t be reviewing your book (Rich Pickings for Ravens). The passive writing in the first two paragraphs of chapter one indicate that I am likely not to give it a good review.
I mean, I guess it wasn’t exactly rude, was it? You could even argue she was being extremely helpful, in a prickly kind of way. What’s more, and far more annoying still, she was sort of right. My opening two paragraphs, for chapter one, did need a slight tweak.
I’d written:
A pale faced man dressed as Julius Caesar was walking purposefully down a poorly lit London street. He was holding a sizable umbrella over his dark haired, leafy crowned head. It was a rather oversized umbrella, one of those very-inconsiderate-to-everyone-else kind, or the kind best suited to a golf course and as such carrying the altogether fitting name of golfing umbrella.
I’d repeated my “wases”, “was walking”, “was holding”. I could use “walked” and “held” instead.
A pale faced man dressed as Julius Caesar walked purposefully down a poorly lit London street. He held a sizable umbrella over his dark haired, leafy crowned head. It was a rather oversized umbrella, one of those very-inconsiderate-to-everyone-else kind, or the kind best suited to a golf course and as such carrying the altogether fitting name of golfing umbrella.
Better. I had to admit, much better.
I then read the paragraph again, realising I could go even further with my revision.
A pale faced man dressed as Julius Caesar walked purposefully down a poorly lit London street. He held a sizable umbrella over his dark haired, leafy crowned head. The umbrella was assuredly oversized, one of those very-inconsiderate-to-everyone-else kind, or the kind best suited to a golf course and as such carrying the altogether fitting name of golfing umbrella.
In truth, there are quite a few ways I could construct that paragraph, at least assuming I had the inclination to continually edit and an endless amount of time to do so. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on your outlook) I’m working on the sequel and third book in my trilogy. I’m also working on a series of novellas and short stories, on top of which I have a job and bills to worry about (like nearly every other self-publisher).
I emailed Lady Stickler back, politely agreeing with her observation, whilst also pointing out that my general grammar is to a high standard, that this paragraph wasn’t atypical of my overall work. I suggested she perhaps read one of my shorter novellas, a work I’d recently edited/re-edited for a fifth time, and as such, close to flawless in its grammar.
She declined.
The novella didn’t interest her, although she said she might still review my original submission, assuming I was willing to take the risk of receiving a one star review.
One star? What the heck?
Lady Stickler had even attached a link for aforementioned one star review, a review she had allocated to another chap’s book. I clicked onto Amazon. I Looked Inside, reading the first few pages of a nice looking tome. It had a great cover and nice formatting. The writing seemed okay too. Not great or good, but okay.
I then read Lady Stickler’s review.
Jaw drop. Eyes open with seething incredulity. The utter horror of her damn words!
It wasn’t just a one star review, but a brutal seething display of nit-picking. She’d attacked every little detail, full of sneering and trivial observation, little of it justifying or applicable to what I’d sampled in those first few pages.
I emailed Lady Stickler back:
I just read your Amazon review. I also review books for my website, and I’m not sure I could ever give an indie author one star. Their work would have to be seriously poor. Absolutely woeful writing, i.e. real basic flaws in punctuation, prosaic ideas or a major combination of both. I think I’d also have to consider myself a great writer to reward a fellow author such a rating (and yet I still wouldn’t). If I thought a book to be that bad, I’d simply not review it, or decline to read it from the off.
The thing is, like any other author, I know exactly how much effort goes into writing a novel, a fact rendering a one star review as somewhat petty, mean and spiteful. I’d say a one star review is for a faulty kettle, not a book. Three maybe. Two at a push, but one star ignorantly ignores the sheer hard work of self-publishing!
Admittedly, I’d laid it on a bit thick, but I felt provoked into wordy action.
Lady Stickler soon enough replied to my reply.
I don’t consider myself an amazing writer, far from it. (Fortunate, because she really ain’t).
It’s much easier to see flaws in other’s writing (yep, I found some in hers) than to see them in your own, but it worries me that others see posting such a review as spiteful. What do I have to be spiteful about, seriously! There’s nothing personal in it. I write reviews in service to the readers who are being asked to pay money for these books.
The idea of “service” and the “seriously” (with exclamation mark) both bothered me. I once more replied.
I’d have to disagree, writing books is about as personal as it gets and by extension so is reviewing them. Offering your words and soul to the world for pocket change deserves respect and deep consideration.
And spite, well, such an emotion can manifest its ugly head in varying forms. Hypothetically, it could simply be that one writer secretly thinks he/she is very talented (deserving of notoriety) and it annoys said writer as the market becomes increasingly saturated with other books, books he/she thinks are substandard to their own. What with entry point becoming paws and an internet connection, this might increasingly become the case. I mean, there’s a lot of snobbery in the publishing world (trad and indie alike), especially as education levels differ and what seems obvious to one person, is more taxing to another. Punctuation and grammar can therefore be held up, much like accent and manners are used to discriminate in person. Also, awarding a book one star, elevates your own work (that book’s rubbish [sneer, sneer] mine on the other hand is awesome!).
Me personally? I try to always judge a book by its character, its plot, its overall feel, originality, wit and the ideas expressed. Definitely, before I pound down on style and grammar. For instance, a person may have received such a poor education they simply don’t know their “your arse” from their “you’re elbow”, but it could also be possible they have something amazingly original to say, even despite that annoying but ultimately insignificant mistake. Either way, we as authors should respect the effort and attempt. Ultimately, the book you reviewed did not deserve such a derisive rating.
This time, Lady Stickler didn’t reply. I didn’t expect she would. At least, not directly. Instead, she maturely communicated via the semaphore of blog posts (much like this one).
The first one started with an “agh”, alluding to a dislike for the overuse of the word “was”. Not exactly subtle. Especially since the blog post delivered to my inbox thirty minutes after my last email to her (I’d signed up to follow Lady Stickler’s blog when I sent my initial email – I’ve now unfollowed). The post further suggested if an ebook is full of mistakes, you shouldn’t “inflict” it on readers.
Inflict? Mistakes?
She’s a one to talk. If I took the first mistake I’d found (on the Look Inside sample of one of her books) as wholly indicative of her knowledge of grammar, I could maliciously/erroneously conclude she didn’t know the difference between past and present tense. “Led” not “Lead”, or you could remove the “that” and use “leading”. Besides, passivity or an overuse of “was” isn’t strictly a mistake (like Lady Sticker’s), but anyway, to go on about such a triviality would be cheap and “stickler-like”. I merely conceded the point because mine definitely “was” tardy writing (not bad, but a little tardy) and it really “wasn’t” ideal to overuse any word (although overusing the word “subconscious” strangely didn’t seem to harm Fifty Shades of Grey’s sales any).
Her next blog post, again delivered to my inbox yesterday, directly addressed the question of one and two star reviews. Basically, a self-justifying and smug rant about why she feels the awarding of one star reviews is doing some noble “service” to the reading community (kinda strange therefore, how she’s since removed the scathing/vicious example review, from Amazon).
In her blog post, Lady Stickler further explained how she felt she offered this service, to help readers out there avoid shelling out dollars on tripe or “bad writing” (bad writing, which she astonishingly defines as prose with too many “wases”).
Q: what kind of unhinged small-minded crackpot defines bad writing in such a way?
A: sticklers arses, that’s who.
Also, to make a value judgement that something is “bad writing” you have to define “good writing”. Luckily, and of course, Lady Stickler has done just that. She has “modestly” awarded herself a badge of excellence, heralding herself as excellent.
Q2: what kind of vain ego-maniac creates an award and gives it to them self?
A2: again, stickler monsters and grammar creeps, that’s who!
So, having generously assessed her own book, awarding herself the tacky badge of smugness, she can now parade about feeling she is somewhat fit to self-publish, continuing to write her scornful blog posts, telling supposedly “lesser” writers to give up, directly stating they should sod off, and, in the process, un-publish their work forthwith, lest they infect the wondrous English language with their “bad writing” (btw, out of twenty books advertised on her site’s front page, only two of the twenty have the golden badge, hers and her main contributor. From that you can draw your own conclusions). Anyway, her blog post read less as a display of benevolence and more as a rather sickening strut of pomposity, an aggrandizement of her own unfettered and rabid ego as she suggested, without her snide input, readers would otherwise flounder, drown in a sea of too many “wases” and, horror of horrors, perhaps the odd frag or two? Instead, they should assuredly buy her dull books, and those she carefully selects (carefully (?) aka, books she reads one paragraph of and quickly dismisses).
I shook my head, screwed my hand into a fist despairingly.
Q3: how could a seemingly well-educated woman with such a self-acknowledged and sound sense of grammar be so utterly short-sighted and lack so much judgment?
A3: perhaps, due to that very reason. Lady Stickler, so impressed with her own erudition, so completely focused on flexing her mental prowess, by implementing her near flawless syntax, neglects and ignores other key areas. For instance, I found her stories technically well written, but rather bland, formulaic and less than awesome. I found myself bored within the space of ten meticulously well written paragraphs.
Furthermore, it’s distinctly possible her refined and precious stickler sensibilities have diluted her ability to identify and focus on the other essential qualities of a book: characterisation, descriptive detail, an ability to explain, argue a point, originality, emotional depth, heart, demonstration of personality, wit, colourful ideas, a need to provide decent cover art, structure, tying a story all together, breaking some rules along the way, and most importantly, engaging with, entertaining and exciting your reader.
Ultimately, I just had to let it go, try not to picture Lady Stickler surrounded by other literary fags, a mix of self-important toffs and lower-middle class sycophants, each of them pseudo-intellectual bores, dogmatically adhering to their spoon-fed and petty bourgeoisie rules. So many of them out there, so utterly toxic. Not truly supporting indie authors, but arrogantly lording it over them, all those plucky self-publishers, writers honestly struggling with the written word, and, well, I guess…I guess that’s kind of how I ended up writing this!
>
Written by Tom Conrad (author)
Next week, I’ll be posting further notes on self-publishing, perhaps some more scrutiny of fussy sticklers and the reviews they offer up to the reading world. If you want to keep tabs, please click the follow button to the bottom right.
Also, if you enjoyed my anti-stickler spiel above, I recommend reading That Semicolon Bitch Had To Die….. It’s one of my favourite works.
…
You weren’t kidding when you said that it was long, but, I have to admit, what you said was exactly the truth. That person was definitely someone to stay away from. There are other reviewers out there who recognize and respect the Indie author. Yes, sometimes I give out bad reviews (not often, but sometimes) and sometimes I’ll mention the grammar… but for the most part, unless it is disruptive of the story, I don’t let that bother me in the least. If the story is great, as are yours, then I can let a few spelling or grammar mistakes slide.
One thing about me is that I am so far away from the grammar police that I actually find them, their rules, ludicrous. Most people don’t worry about a few mistakes, although, I have to admit, I have quite a few 1 star reviews, more than I care to admit that I have. I could do without those, but for some, you just can’t please them, no matter how great your story might be, or how much editing you put forth in your novels.
Screw her! She obviously didn’t recognize a great story when she read it… oh wait, she didn’t read it. 2 paragraphs does not a story make. If she’d continued to read, she would have realized what a wonderful story Rich Pickings for Raven’s is. I think when I reviewed it, I said I wished I could have given it more stars than 5!
I admit, I’m part of the grammar posse. But only because some people really do publish their first drafts, and I think that’s doing a disservice to the Indie community. In my self-pubbed book, that I thought was mistake-free because I edited it to death, I later found eighty errors! So no one is perfect.
That said, I found your blog post engaged me from start to finish, and if this is a sample of how you write, then I can’t imagine your work not being great.
Great post, and I did read all the way through. I am baffled by the pretension of the self-appointed lit-highguard. A decade ago, books were supposedly dead, reading was was on life-support. Our great literacy sinking in the mire of media.
Then, an explosion of written word. Perhaps more words forming on the page than ever in human history. More readers, more books, more content, more thoughts, more expression, more creativity, more communication — oh hey, that’s not how you use a semicolon. HOW DARE YOU?
It should be a celebration, and they throw the turd in the punchbowl. Why? Are they threatened? Jealous (that book they never wrote but always dreamed of)? What brutal secret truth do they protect by lashing out with harsh criticism?
I will reward these uptight grammarians with a simple phrase, in the parlance of the younger generation:
“Haters gonna hate.”
Fantastic post, Tom! Loved reading that. And I echo…echo…echo your words. I often ignore 1star reviews, they usually tell you more about the reviewer than they do the book.
Reblogged this on gelakel…Angela Kelman and commented:
I think this is a great post. Been thinking a lot about this issue lately…worth a read
Angela
I read the whole blog and totally agree. I think while grammar nazis could lighten up a bit we also have to be careful not to get lazy. It’s a personal thing, what annoys me might not annoy you but there’s no reason to look down on someone for disagreeing. It’s really only opinion after all. If poor grammar is your biggest problem in life then you’re a lucky person.
Like you if I thought a story deserved 1 star I simply wouldn’t write a review. Great post.
Wow, this Lady Stickler needs to “stick it” that’s for sure! It sounds like she is trying to be a editor from the slush pile. How in the world can you assess a book to review it without reading it through? My last review had a prologue that really bothered me. It wasn’t uninteresting, or poorly written. It was written in passive past tense, but prologues are always past tense. The problem was, prologues are supposed to be short. This was over 60 pages long! The point is, the story, the plot and the cliffhanger at the end were really good. I don’t have a rating system on my blog, I just tell a bit about the story and my view of it as a reader. I am not a critic, nor do I want to be. I want to recommend good books to readers that like to read that kind of book. I do, as a service to the author, also publish my review on Goodreads and Amazon. They do use the rating system. I gave the book a 4 star. I really felt is should have been a 3.5 star, but since that wasn’t possible, I went in favor of the author. I probably would have given her a 5 star without that prologue. There is absolutely NO reason to tear down any author no matter what. There is always something good to say about any work. Like you mentioned, it would have to be quite horrible to get a one star. I have never given a one star. I have given a two star. I’ve given only one 5 star so far. I am so far behind on my queue that I have had to suspend any new requests until I get caught up. But I do read every single page of every book. How else could I give a fair review? I hope I never get caught up with her. I would have to review her books and who knows, she might be my first one star!
Thanks for the post!
You make very good points, Tom. Moreover, from my own perspective of grammar, my observation of your first paragraph is that you only used “was” once. Your verbs were not passive. They were past-progressive active, meaning that you were involving us in the ongoing action as it happened. The other two wases were auxiliary verbs, for what that is worth, i.e., helping the main verbs walking and holding, both perfectly respectable active verbs. I would say the book reviewer, however much a stickler she was (sorry for the forbidden word), did not know grammar herself. And I would agree that the story itself, the creative ideas, the imagination, the plot and the character development are all far more important than grammar. The best reason for “grammar” is to write in a way that the readers can understand. I can get so entangled in ideas that my colleagues in my writers group tell me they haven’t a clue of what I am saying. To untangle and make intelligible something that fails to communicate is the only reason I see for using grammar rules at all.
Hello and thanks!
I’d anticipated some grammar police “rants” to be posted in these comments, but you’ve all been understanding and beautiful. I like seeing your faces/avatars appear in my comments widget, so I’ll reply to you all in this one comment.
Beth, thanks as always, yep, “screw her” and the way I look at it, I got a good post out of it/met some new people.
K.L Gore, exactly. Just like Billy Wilder once wrote “nobody’s perfect” and so I think it’s about exercising humility and some perspective. Her allocating a perfectly good book one star, and implying mine was too, rankled me to the max.
Tom Lucas, thanks so much for the poetic comment. It made me wanna check out your work, and I’m glad I did. Read the Look Inside for Leather to the Corinthians and it’s fantastic writing. Reminds me of Ready Player One and Snow Crash, but more the satire of Ben Elton.
Gelakel, nice echo…echo! I had no idea…no idea “we” could re-post blog posts. Was cool to see it on your blog…on your blog
Jane, thanks, and yep. I’d just not write a review. I think the fact she removed the link for the 1 star review she’d sent me (for some other guy’s book), suggests she either got antsy about bad publicity, or, despite herself, saw my logic.
Rebecca, yep, she mentioned “slush piles” in her derisory blog posts. She’s written three scathing ones that all referenced my email to her (though she didn’t name me, so I didn’t name her).
Kathleen, I think I love you: “Your verbs were not passive. They were past-progressive active, meaning that you were involving us in the ongoing action as it happened.” I’ve re-read that three times. See, people, a grammar aficionado with charm and style. If Lady Stickler used charm instead of attacking people, I think she’d get a lot further, but hey, each to their own.
Anyway, I’ll be writing more posts about my writing and stickler-itus, as and when. The above (long essay) was originally 4,000 words, so I chopped it in half to save on your eyes. I’ll post the rest in a ten-point bullet-point arrangement, probably soon-ish.
Thanks again for dropping by, and remember, don’t take any BS from those GNs.
Tom.
Great post! I shared with facebook, but like I said in the post, I enjoyed reading it, but wouldn’t ever have had the exchange with a “Grammar Nazi” because they remind me of the old saw:
Never wrestle a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it. LOL
I love this post! I’ve gotten a couple of reviews myself, complaining about grammer (thankfully not many!). I had one Grammer Nazi leave an Amazon review saying “There were some many grammer errors that I started writing them down.” FOR WHO, WOMAN!? WHO IN GOD’S NAME WERE YOU WRITING THEM DOWN FOR!? I wanted to jump on Amazon and ask her that myself, but I know it’s bad form to respond in any way to a bad review (strangely, she still gave the book 3 stars, even though her whole review was basically criticism. What the hell?). Luckily, another reader responded to her review in the comments section (here’s the link to the review and the comment of the other reader, cutting her down to size: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L46CT35DF5Y/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1478195568&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful I recommend that you read both, purely for the entertainment value alone!). I have to admit that if felt kind of good to have a reader verbally backhand this woman, when I myself could not. And I will admit to a certain amount of hysterical giggles when I read it (and all the smiles I still get everytime I think of it). That being said, you’ll never make every reader happy, and some don’t even want to enjoy your book. They go into it looking for mistakes, which, in and of itself, prevents them from ever being able to enjoy a story other than their own. It’s actually kind of sad. Are my stories good? I’d like to think so, but for $3.99 a copy, Shakespeare it ain’t. Even name brand authors have mistakes in their books, and they’ve gone through several professional editors before being released (and as we know, most of us Indie authors can’t even afford one editor, which, by the way, can charge up to $4000.00 to edit a 80k book. At $0.99-$3.99 per sold copy, I think not, Grammer Nazi lady!). Tom, you’re very funny, and for that reason alone, I will read the book the Grammer Nazi lady so gleefully peed on. I can’t offer you a badge for your book, but if you email me your address, and I like the book, I can, and will mail you a gold star sticker that your more than welcome to attach to your shirt! I will also review it for you, and no matter how many times you used the word ‘was’, I solemnly swear not to give you a one star review! Thanks for your article, Tom. It really brightened my day!
I can’t be the only person who finds it ironic that her sentence (copied below) is both passive and does not follow the rules of agreement (passive writing indicates, not “indicate”).
“The passive writing in the first two paragraphs of chapter one indicate that I am likely not to give it a good review.”
I love this… Wonderful!! Truly… but I am SOOOOO wanting to know who Lady Stickler is… I want to read her writing…Seriously
I would love to know who she is too. I am a reviewer, she definitely is NOT. She is not even a critic, but an attacker. I am also writing my debut novel, so I’d really like to steer clear of her!
Yeah, would be nice
More comments. Big thanks for dropping by.
@Brendan, that quote will stay with me forever more, cheers!
@Stephanie, it is kinda strange. She said you need to take a “remedial” class but gave you 3 stars. I think your book looks groovy, and you’re dead right; some people just don’t want to enjoy your writing. They go into it wanting to find fault and once they do they make it their job to find every last one. It’s pathological. You’re also on the money about me being funny
so please go forth and enjoy the humorous Rich Pickings for Ravens (I should get at least one sale from writing this lengthy post). A review and gold star would also be kind of swell: tom@theindiepedant is my email, let me know if you do either.
@KC, I literally have no idea what any of what you said truly means, but if it is true, it does make me smile (I copied and pasted the email, it is verbatim). Thanks for pointing it out!.
@S.L. Dearing. I was momentarily tempted to use her name, to even send her the link via Twitter and really crank it up, but to quote Brendan: “Never wrestle a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Also, she never used my name in her 3 blog posts, and, finally, it’d just drive traffic to her site, so… I’m not telling
I haven’t read all of this, but I did read about the first half. You might remember that i read a sample of RPFR ages ago and thought it was funny. Okay, in need of an edit, but basically well written and amusing. I just wanted to remind you of that, because I don’t agree with most of what you’ve said!
You’d say if you thought a painting was awful, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t say, ‘oh, but he’s spent so long producing it that I’ll buy it and hang it on my wall’. ‘We writers’ don’t deserve kudos simply for writing a book – once we put it ‘out there’ it is to be judged as a product to buy. If we want to be taken seriously as writers we have to allow our work to be judged by the same criteria as the traditionally published. If we expect to be mollycoddled and given Bs for effort, then we should stay within the safe confines of creative writing groups, and not expect people to pay money for what we write.
Have you ever gone on Trip Advisor to look up a hotel before you book it? Maybe not, but many people do. You don’t see the reviews on there saying “Well, the food wasn’t up to much and the service was pretty crap, but it’s jolly hard to run a hotel, so I’ll still give them an average rating, and I’ll stay there again so I can give them constructive suggestions about how they might improve things.” Do you?
If a book has bad grammar and clumsy sentence structure, it makes it not readable, to many, including me, which takes me back to stuff I’ve said before – that you have to make sure you can actually write before you start writing a novel. I don’t mean you personally, I mean anyone. It’s nothing to do with being a stickler, it’s to do with wanting to read books that are well written and well presented. If the site you’re talking about is the one I think it is, she started it because she was fed up with reading the badly written, and wanted to rid the reading public of the idea that indie books are crap – and believe me, many people think this. So many writers, eager to live their dream of being An Author, are rushing out stuff that just isn’t ready for publication. Okay, you can do that if you want, but you’ll need to be okay about accepting the consquences.
We don’t deserve ‘respect’ simply because we make up stories and write them down. We don’t deserve any more ‘respect’ than anyone else. If you think a TV programme or a film is rubbish, you’ll say so, won’t you? If you put the goods out on display, you must accept that some won’t like them. I agree with her that she was not being ‘spiteful; such a word implies that she had a personal reason to give the book a one star review. She wasn’t; she was simply saying to the reading public, don’t buy this book, it’s not worth the money. In her opinion. Which she was entitled to give.
Sorry I’m not being ‘understanding and beautiful’ – but this was sent to my Goodreads inbox so I thought it only polite to read it!
Terry, I read the first half of your comment and then stopped.
No, only joking! Of course I didn’t, (unlike you) I read the whole damn thing. Again, your opening defo made me laugh: “I haven’t read all of this, but I did read about the first half.”
You then close by saying: “Sorry I’m not being ‘understanding and beautiful’ – but this was sent to my Goodreads inbox so I thought it only polite to read it!”
“Read it”?, which you didn’t “quite” manage. Admittedly, it’s 2000 words long (and maybe not to your refined taste), but despite it arriving in your beautiful and lovely Goodreads’ inbox, you’re of course not obliged to read the essay at all. You chose to though, sort of. I mean, if you’re going to leave a 500 word comment (25% of my actual post), I’d have thought it prudent (not quite so ignorant) to at least read the whole thing.
As for: “You’d say if you thought a painting was awful, wouldn’t you?”
No, I wouldn’t. That’s exactly the point, Terry. I “wouldn’t” say if I thought a painting was awful (definitely not if it was by an amateur/unknown painter – tbh, perhaps not even if it was by a popular one). It’s a question of tact, character and respect. (Dictionary.com if you need to look up each word, mate). I’d certainly not post a review on Amazon. How petty and small minded is it to take time and actually post a one star review? Besides, the book she gave one star, really wasn’t one star material. It was a spiteful, nit-picking review she’s since removed. You can read into that what you will.
And you’re totally viewing Kindle and self-publishing as something it ain’t. But that’s the source of my next blog post, so I won’t go into that now (tune in next month, and read half – whichever half you choose).
Oh, but before I go… my final point about the site (one which you’ve nestled up to), well, it isn’t that the premise is a bad one. I obviously thought it a good one, i.e. alerting people to indie books with a high standard of grammar and presentation etc. I think that bit is an okay idea, perhaps somewhat flawed but okay. No, my overriding problem with it, and here’s my final-ish point, is she (the woman on the site) wanted to elevate her own work by knocking other people. That’s where the spite comes in. By all means promote your own book as these paragons of “supposedly” great writing (great writing defined by how many wases you use, apparently – sod so many other elements of story and certainly the book covers), by all means add your badges, tell other people their books aren’t for you, but don’t mark people as one star whose books are actually good. Certainly, in my mind, one star reviews are for faulty kettles, and for other “products” (a point you would’ve read if you’d been arsed to actually read the post, again a post you then wrote a 500 word comment for). Final, final, add on point: writers should definitely do research before offering up opinions/comment (like reading the whole post of a fellow author). I can now only wonder how many of the ideas in your books still require “an edit”? Writers need to read too, Terry Tyler.
Tom.
P.s. “product”, seriously? You see your books as “products” and comparable to booking a hotel? If you really do, how depressing. I hope they have more heart and soul than a Travelodge, Terry.
Well done Tom.
I love it when we/authors fight back!
I totally agree with you about not leaving an indie author a one star review.
We do not have the resources that some of the big publishing companies are blessed with, and the majority of us are slaving away for endless hours just trying to achieve something.
I didn’t say I saw my own books as ‘products’, like a room in a hotel, or anything – if you had read what I actually said and not what you wanted it to say to enforce your own argument and little Travelodge quip, you would have seen that I said that they are seen as products by the people who buy them, unless your books are only bought by friends/people you know online, of course.
You seem to have wallowed in the bitchy yourself, Tom, mentioning over and over the fact that I did not read the whole article (I have, since, and am still of the same opinion), and wondering how many ideas in my books need an ‘edit’. I can almost see you getting all annoyed, sweat on brow, patches of pink appearing on your cheeks! The answer to that is none of them, because I do my research properly. I’m not saying they are without typo, grammatical error, editing fault in themselves; I am, however, answering what you said.
As long as indie authors see themselves as sensitive little souls who need careful treatment, and don’t want to be judged by the same standards as the traditionally published, they will continue to be seen as amateurs. The only valid remark is the one made by the gentleman after you, who pointed out that the traditionally published have resources at their disposal – indeed, yes – which is why we have to work that bit harder, and not put out stuff that’s sloppily edited, rather than think we deserve a gold star for such a jolly good essay.
I’ve since read the beginning of RPFR again, and still found it amusing, etc – I’ve just realised why you said you wondered how many ideas in my books need an edit. It’s because I said i thought RPFR needed one. And they say women are bitchy…. I thought your reply was unnecessarily so, whereas I was just putting across a different point of view, so I shan’t read anything you reply to this as I imagine it will be in a similar vein – however, I expect it will amuse your mates!
I was momentarily tempted (I wasn’t) to delete Terry Tyler’s above comment, since she’s adopted the “I’m an five-year-old in a playground approach” to arguing her point, I.e. I’m going to have my say (again) and then cover my ears and “shan’t” listen/read your reply, that is whilst pretty much insulting everyone else’s opinion as “invalid” (don’t worry she probably only read half of them anyway).
Btw, just to re-iterate – I know she’ll appreciate this – because Terry Tyler says: “I have, since,” read the actual essay. Phew! I suppose, that’s one way to do it. Comment first, actually read what you’re commenting on a “week” after.
Terry Tyler: “As long as indie authors see themselves as sensitive little souls who need careful treatment, and don’t want to be judged by the same standards as the traditionally published, they will continue to be seen as amateurs.”
Terry, with your continuously patronising tone, I can’t help but think you’re kinda missing the point of why people self-publish in the first place and what it’s all about. Yes, technically, by charging small sums for books it puts self-publishers in the same arena as traditional publishers, but let’s “get real”, because we all know self-publishing is an arena for amateurs, as well as professionals. It’s essentially an extension of blogging. No one approves our work or requests it (there’s no monetary advance). Yes, some indie authors charge a small amount for their books, but it’s pocket change (like a mate’s band who charge a quid for entry to their gig at a local club) and besides, many indie authors give their work away for free.
Of course, you’re right about one thing (a thing I never disagreed with in my “gold star” essay), we/self-publishers do “need” to work harder to reach a high or reasonable level of quality, but this also requires a level of perspective from readers, short-sighted people like you, and certainly review sites like the one you’ve nuzzled up to. A site, out of spite and simple lack of judgement, awarding perfectly okay books one star, and implying my book (which you’ve strangely said “twice” is okay), is also one star material because of too many “wases”.
Anyway, I just think you’re looking at it all in the wrong way, which is strange and off putting because instead of continuing to show support for other people, amateurs or would-be professionals (like you seemed to be doing when we first met on Twitter) you now choose to trash indie authors.
For instance, you post comments like this on your Facebook page (not the first one I noticed). A page which you then invite me to like the same day? Very odd?!
“To anyone who has ever read an ‘indie’ book and thought ‘hmm, won’t try that again’, here’s the site for you – (Ladystickler.com) is a site which includes books that are accepted only by publishing professionals or approved reviewers. Read no more the badly punctuated, the lazily formatted, the clumsy written!”
Someone pointed out you’d written clumsy instead of clumsilLy (I mean, clumsily – damn, so tricky). Sigh. This is the thing about you small-minded sneerers aka self-appointed “publishing professionals” (who determine what is “valid” and what isn’t), well, your own houses/books are more often than not built on very shoddy, lazy and clumsily constructed foundations. See, Terry, I’m being “bitchy” but it’s in reply to your bitchiness (you ooze it). It’s not just me venting my spleen without provocation like you do so readily. There’s a difference, mate.
Finally… yes, books aren’t hotel rooms, Terry. I’m glad you finally agree, but these “supposed” readers (the ones “you” seem to think see books in this naff ignorant way) again, need some perspective when reading self-published work, because as Joseph says in the comment above, which you agree with (and I’ve addressed in my next blog post), we just don’t have the same resources. And so, instead of pandering sycophantically to this “presumed by you” reader ignorance, you should challenge it, where you “supposedly” encounter it.
So… ultimately, yes, self-publishers charging a small amount for their work should work hard and aim as high as possible, but… yes, also, people like you… get some bloody perspective, and don’t arrogantly parade about as if your own books couldn’t do with “an edit”, some urgent reformatting and someone to copyedit your own “clumsy” writing. True professionals celebrate their own strengths. They don’t see the need to launch “unprovoked” attacks on others to elevate their own work.
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