Stephen King on a social media rampage!

Imagine Stephen King wakes up. He has a personal email, that he normally has his p.a. check but he thought, what the heck, and so he checks it. It says: Dear Stephen, I read an arc of your latest book, it was okay, but I didn’t like this, that and this. Wow, Stephen thought, I should have had my coffee first, that’s some nerve I don’t come to your house and personally tell you about all the grammar issues in your letter to me, but okay. So he gets online only to find out that his latest cover model is also doing a cover on John Grisham’s newest release. **The nerve** So in his upset mind frame he makes a twitter comment about being upset. His publicist is going crazy! “What did you do!!” she yells at King.

He grumbles to himself, “What did I do? I should have had my coffee. I should never have gotten on social media.” So he makes his coffee and logs on to talk to his favorite blogs, only they no longer like Stephen because they are also friends with John, so they perpetuate his mistake and start posting about OMG can you believe the drama! And then Suddenly Stephen finds himself in the midst of a ton of gossip and he is not sure what to do, so he logs off and quietly goes into hiding until his book releases and the fans rave and they forget all about his morning oops with the tweet.

Sounds bazaar right? Stephen King in the midst of all of that? It doesn’t even seem feasible. So why is it that this is happening daily within our Indie community?
Are the lines becoming blurred within our community, between, author, friend and blogger?

Are some blogs getting a sense of entitlement? And what about authors? Do they have a responsibility in this social media pandemic?

If you missed it, a week or so ago an author posted about how she was feeling bullied by a catfish reviewer, who would basically talk bad to every single person who liked her book. She was victimised so she decided, I’m not going to be a victim and she basically hunted the reviewer down and confronted her to make it stop. She calls her own behavior crazy. And it was, but in reality this woman put her heart and soul into her dream and she felt like some one was trying to take that dream from her. Would you not have bazaar behavior if your dream was to become an attorney and some random person decided they didn’t like you so they kept messaging the Bar to spread rumors about you? A bunch of blogs decided to do an author black out. Refusing to participate in any post because of one authors wompy behavior. I’m not saying I agree with her behavior, heck I don;t think even she agrees with her behavior, however I can see why she got all wacky.

So let me ask again, Are these blogs participating in a black out of all their post right?

Here is one thing I know for sure. I think that one of the things that make our community truly spectacular is the ability to connect with authors as easily as we can. I also believe that because it’s so easy, it’s easy for us as the reader or blogger to sometimes forget how we should treat them. You would never try and create a social shit storm with Stephen King.

As bloggers I believe that we should take a huge step back and ask ourselves why do we blog? Is it because we get advanced reader copies sometimes? If that answer is yes, pack up your bags and just read. PLEASE.

Bloggers have something huge in common with authors; when we put a ‘pen to paper’ we create a magic, it can be transcended. Words can carry on, change lives even. Bloggers are yielding this power the same way an author does.

I have been blogging for almost three years and the reason I started was because I read something that I loved and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. It was so good, and I was so excited,I needed to share my enthusiasm. In fact when I started blogging I didn’t even know what an ARC was.

As a blogger I would never sign up for a tour and then not fulfill my obligations. I’m also an author. When I published my first book, I was in a group and a girl said Oh I read your book and I loved it. I said oh really what blog? She told me and of course they were one of the blogs that received an arc and never posted anything. Now as an author, you’re not supposed to engage. But it hurt. And it made me question what is going on with blogging.

Is there a solution? I’m not sure, but in my opinion, if you are a blog that is saying we are blacking out authors, then to me you are not doing this for the right reasons. Get back to basics. Discover new authors. And above everything READ and discuss it in polite way. Do not personally message authors saying hey your book is shit. That’s not right. (this happened to a friend of mine who is a NYT’s author) There is good to be found in everything.

My intention of this blog post is not to cause more drama, only to say hey let’s take a look at ourselves. There are a ton of blogs that are doing the right thing. There are a ton I follow and that I enjoy. I don’t have all of the answers to fixing our community, but I do think that it is an extremely special place and we all need to be more mindful of how to keep it a well balanced special place, otherwise our authors that we love so much may decide, I’m not engaging in social media. And then what fun would that be??