*headdesk*.

[megwrites]

Unprofessional author is unprofessional. Or: there is a damn good reason that you don't respond to reviews and this is fucking well IT.

This is now the second professionally published author who has come to my journal and displayed their fail (the first being Lois McMaster Bujold who MammothFailed epically). Do I have a beacon out that says, "Welcome to the Fail Lounge. Feel free to take your pants off!"?

Let me just enumerate, for any one listening, the biggest reason that it is not a good idea to respond to reviews: you're not going to change their minds. Ms. Stein certainly did nothing to make me feel differently about her book.

Have you ever heard of an author going to a reviewer, arguing, and honestly changing someone's opinion? Has it ever helped that author look like a better person, improved their sales?

If it has, please throw me a link. Because all I can think of are the many authors (*coughcough* Alice Hoffman *coughcough*) who have done it to their detriment.

Comments

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

This entire reply? Is sort of why I love you so much and want to be you when I grow up. I pretty much think that you are right on and made of awesome after reading this. Because first, you actually bothered to read the review instead of making assumptions, and you also *didn't respond*. Which makes you very professional and very smart.

And the response that she deleted before reposting the other one that I linked to? Well, let's just say that it made her look even worse. I think she forgets that LJ notifies via email of any reply (unless you turn the option off), so I have a copy of it sitting in my inbox. Nothing is ever lost on the internet.

Very little positive can be gained by going onto a reviewer's site and publicly losing your mind. But a hell of a lot can be lost.

I believe this is now quote of the week material. Because YES YES YES. This. Right here.

[fashionista-35.livejournal.com]

Heh- love you too, babe.

And trust me, I'm no one's idea of a saint. I am very, very human with a nasty temper and I get angry and I want to vent and scream and decry the lack of intelligence of a reviewer who doesn't get it, but if I do it, I do it in a setting amongst friends (as you've seen in some of my closed posts) or in person, to my husband or a friend or even the dog.

And if I ever publicly act like a complete unreasonable ass, feel free to take me out back and smack me upside the head with a 2x4.