#haleno

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42360838-kathleen-hale-is-a-crazy-stalker

Counterpoint to the Ethical Author badge that was developed by the Alliance of Independent Authors. I agree, insofar as I think no badge is going to get people the behave ethically if they are not inclined. However, as a process of education for (especially) newbie writers, the badge may have merit. Food for thought. From the post: "Let us say you are the kind of person whose response to a bad review is to stalk the reviewer online, lie to get her home address, drive to her house. We’ll call you, off the top of my head, ‘Kathleen’. Does anyone really believe that Kathleen, who was happy to lie and stalk, would hesitate at breaking an internet pledge? Or that Kathleen, who wrote a self-congratulatory article in a national newspaper about the whole thing, would have the insight to see that she could not in conscience sign an Ethical Author pledge in the first place? And it’s not just lack of insight. Does anyone believe that someone who is prepared to copy-paste someone else’s work, go through and change names, plonk a probably stolen cover image on it and sell it as their own would hesitate to claim an Ethical Author badge to which they aren’t entitled?"

Note: This is a record only of tweets that assume the blogger is somehow at fault (and curated replies). The good news is that most people were pretty upset when they read the article, and were not afraid to say so.

Ok, so I'm a little late getting this up before the official start of NaNoWriMo. Some bad advice about how to interact with your readers for the aspiring writer, or the already published! Advice #4: Correct negative reviews There are only two types of reviews: the positive kind, and the kind where the reviewer didn't understand the book. A bad review of your book is actually a cry for help! Whenever you see a negative review that makes you say to yourself, "I should reach out to this person, perhaps in a borderline illegal fashion," by all means do so. Find out where they live if you want! Show up on their doorstep and offer to politely explain how they simply failed to understand your novel. Make it clear that this is something they need to resolve within themselves and not a reflection on your work, and also that there's no need whatsoever to call the police, so please put down the phone and stop crying.

Ceilidh at Bibliodaze

shallowreader

Lovely psychological and economic analysis of fandoms and writers. If book bloggers are only valued insofar as they can be used by PR departments to sell products, and not as engaged members of a critical community, then Kathleen Hale's actions make sense. They were ecomonic sanctions against a voice Hale believes she owns. And it worked; Blythe has been silenced. "In a sense, all of a culture’s fandoms and spaces are ‘competing’ for resources in the form of new members. A literary culture built to service the needs of fans will develop values that protect fans and allow them enough space to find themselves and do what they want to do. Conversely, a literary culture built to service the economic needs of a professional literary class will seek to restrict fans’ agency to the point where they are merely passive recipients of PR and economic resources to be exploited by those deemed worthy of entry to the professional classes. Is a literary culture that emphasises the passive nature of its non-professional participants really more ‘competitive’ than a literary culture that allows non-professionals the space to express themselves freely? Would a 14-year old version of you rather invest in a cultural space where they are expected to sit still, pay up and help to sell stuff or a cultural space that allows people to find their own voice regardless of what it might have to say? I am not convinced that a literary culture built to service the needs of a professional literary class is as viable as a literary culture built to service the needs of book readers everywhere. I think that frowning on negative reviews whilst turning a blind eye to attacks on reviewers silences voices and makes it much less likely that fandom will attract new voices to replace those who have been silenced in the past."