Bitchin' Blog Posts
Where’s Your Never-Buy Line?
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | February 09, 2009 | Monday at 2:46 pm | 220 CommentsEvery now and again, readers will interact with authors online and kerfuffles ensue. I know, it’s so rare, but it happens. No, really.
And sometimes in the course of these festive occasions, you’ll see commentary from a reader who is so incensed, so horrified by what an author has written that there is Epic Flounce and a vow to never read or buy that author’s books again!
(Pretend there was a really impressive echo feature on that last sentence, kthx.)
I usually blink at these flounces because it takes a LOT for me to reach a point where I am unable to see past my impression of an author to the point where my reaction interferes with my reading that author’s book. And yet many, many readers online have vowed publicly to never spend another penny on an author whose opinion, even an opinion expressed thoughtfully, is too distasteful to them - though who knows if their actual purchase history follows through on that threat.
As a result, I know many authors struggle with how much of themselves to reveal on their websites, with many individuals refraining from discussing politics or news or favorite books or even television shows for fear of alienating their readership. I know more than one author who hesitated to mention whom she was voting for in the last election, because many readers see the romance community online as a politics-free zone.
Then there are authors like Suzanne Brockmann who not only wear their pride-colors proudly but donate proceeds to fund raise on behalf of her chosen causes by donating the proceeds from a recent novel - a novel featuring a gay protagonist pair. Some readers may be turned off, but there’s no mistaking Brockmann’s position. Even recently, she’s been most clear about her position on the subject, and how she feels people may react to her writing, and a whole lot of people were shocked and turned off by Brockmann’s reaction, particularly in that she assigned homophobic motivation to those who were upset at the plot of her latest book.
As I said earlier, it takes a hell of a lot for me to reach that line of Never-Buy, where I can’t see past the conviction of the author to lose myself in that author’s writing. So let’s visit the other end of that spectrum. I’ll be honest: this author’s website tripped right over my Never-Buy line.
However, let me be clear: it’s not a question of the fact that I disagree mightily with her opinion. I do, most holy shit heartily. But I know many people who do not see the same way I do when it comes to gay rights and homosexuality. I care for some people who see the idea of gayness in a diametric opposition to my own position, and when we discuss do discuss it, they try (I hope!) understand my opinion, and I try to understand theirs, even though I disagree so very very much. It’s not like disagreeing with me lands you on my shit list for life.
What I find most objectionable here is the manner in which the opinion is expressed in this particular instance. Or, more succinctly, the flying leap into the pool of WTF that this author has chosen to employ on her professional website.
On Dorchester author Autumn Dawn’s website, there’s a section called “Chatterbox” wherein she writes:
Naturally, my biblically based beliefs include “one man, one woman”
relationships. The bible states clearly that homosexuals will not enter the
kingdom of heaven. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is crystal clear about God’s
feelings about this. Contrary to the propaganda, I believe that
homosexuality is a choice, like stealing, like drinking, like drugs.
Addictive, sure, but a choice, one that can be overcome.Making gay marriage legal won’t overcome their guilt, depression and
confusion. It won’t take away the pain they live with. So many children
are raped and grow up thinking they are gay as a result. Many come from
broken or dysfunctional homes. It’s the unadvertised truth of
homosexuality. Take a poll some time and see if it’s true….I don’t share my personal beliefs with many as I’m a writer, and a romance one at that. This is what goes into my books, though. This is part of who I am.
Taking any extreme, whether you’re Brockmann or Dawn, yields some consequences, and the result depends on the reader.
But when the opinion is backed up by statements like “raped children are gay” and followed up with “take a poll…and see if it’s true,” the limit of my ability to see the narrative in spite of the author has been reached. Oh, how it has been reached.
It’s not even about royalties with me. Because Dawn says, “This is what goes into my books, though. This is part of who I am,” I don’t want to read her books, because I would be constantly wondering if any element of a book that rang oddly was a slight against homosexuality or if the subtext of any scene or thematic arc was a diatribe against gays.
The experience of reading this author’s website has tainted my ability to read beyond the author’s name to the story within the cover. I can agree or disagree with an author’s opinions and still read their books; I’ve done it before.
But when the manner in which the opinion is conveyed is so truly repulsive to me, I’m done. The line of Never-Buy has been crossed.
Where’s your line? What trips it? If you don’t want to be specific, that’s fine, but when dealing with efforts toward public branding of an author’s name online, where’s the line of Never-Buy for you as a reader?
Filed: But...that's not really about romance novels, General Bitching, Random Musings, Ranty McRant
Tagged: wtf, writing, the gheys, politics, make the burning stop, dorchester, authors, asshattery
Elizabeth Wadsworth said on 02.11.09 at 12:27 AM • [link]
Dumb question time: Could somebody please explain the “tent peg” reference? (I assume this is an anatomical euphemism, but am baffled as I don’t recall any explicit sex in the Pern series.)
DS said on 02.11.09 at 12:30 AM • [link]
I haven’t finished reading all the posts, but I was struck by someone mentioning Roman Polanski. I did not know anything about his legal problems when I saw his MacBeth but the movies struck me as creepy—and not in a good way.
Most of the authors who have been acting up on in public are not authors I purchased any way but their public statements may ensure that I won’t buy them. Orson Card for instance. There’s a couple of authors i won’t buy because their overzealous fans are such asshats and the author seems to encourage this type of behavior.
Anne Perry’s teenaged homicide does not bother me—in fact it is fascinating to wonder how this may inform her writing because she frequently deals with issues of punishment and those difficult cases where the murder was prompted by some intolerable behavior on the part of another person, but the murderer is not let off lightly. I was, however, a bit weirded out when I found out she was a Mormon—see Card above—but her writing has always been compassionate when she dealt with her “social problem of the novel” so this is a reaction that does me no credit.
As for Cassie Edwards—never bought her anyway.
And then there was the mystery writer who lost me in the first couple of pages. Don’t remember the name of the author or the title, but it sounded like a pretty good procedural until a character called the main character Ms and she corrected them to Mrs. This is so much a nonissue (Miss, Mrs, Ms, whatever you want to be called) I felt that if the author wanted to make a special point of Mrs. then I was going to be really annoyed later. So I didn’t buy the book.
GrowlyCub said on 02.11.09 at 12:34 AM • [link]
Elizabeth, just put in Anne McCaffrey and tent peg into google and read.
I had no idea as well, I own 3/4 of the Pern books, but haven’t read them, still not sure how all these books made it into my house…
The tent peg quote kind of left me with my mouth hanging open. Then I calculated that she was 78 years old when she said it and then I wondered whether I was trying to excuse her because of her age and when she grew up, but in today’s society there really is no excuse for such ignorance. Pretty much along the lines of what Dawn Autumn or whatever her name is said.
robinjn said on 02.11.09 at 01:45 AM • [link]
Boy did I miss a long thread! I’ve been trying to catch up. I will say that yes, some authors have crossed my DNB line based on their blogs or their actions online. LKH is definitely one for me; I *adored* her books. Then they started going downhill rapidly. Then I went online and tapped into her blog, and met the Ego that could Eat Manhattan. Now I can’t read her books, not even from the library. I’ve tried! And I just.cannot.do.it.
But here’s something we aren’t remembering. Some other authors have moved to my “yes, definitely buy!” pile for the exact same reasons.
I think that if authors want to get out there and make their opinions on controversial subjects known, more power to them. If someone feels strongly about something why shouldn’t they be up front about it? It will lose them some readers. It will GAIN them some readers. Being controversial is not necessarily a bad thing. The author simply has to understand that backlash always comes if you dare to speak out and to be resolved to stand his or her ground in the face of opposition. It’s likely there will also be support.
All that said, authors who are on huge ego trips, and/or who are condescending and dismissive to readers or who mock or make fun of people, well they aren’t going to be in my TBR pile.
John C. Bunnell said on 02.11.09 at 02:22 AM • [link]
O-kay, that’s…interesting. Assuming that the quotation is accurate*, I can definitely see why many readers would find it objectionable. However, I’m hard put to make the jump from that one quotation to the conclusion Ms Manna reaches above:
Is the statement as quoted scientifically questionable? Sure. Does it suggest that the speaker may be uninformed? Certainly. Might it indicate that the speaker’s mental capacity is uncertain? Possibly. But does the statement as quoted warrant a conclusion that the speaker is both clinically insane and dangerous (as “in the bad way” suggests to me)?
It manifestly does not.
Now we don’t actually know whether or not the “tent peg” quote forms all (or even part) of the rationale whereby Ms Manna reached her stated conclusion; she’s shared only the conclusion with us, omitting the grounds on which she reached it. My only point here is that the quote as presented seems to me wildly insufficient grounds for reaching such a conclusion.
As a side note, I’m a little puzzled by the tent-peg reference having been adopted as the quote’s Net-identifier; irrespective of the quote’s scientific wonkiness, if the quote is accurate, then presumably the incident involving said tent peg was a true story.
*Regarding the quote’s veracity: I admit to a degree of skepticism here, mostly because the details are so darned sketchy. There are legitimate reasons the interview could have vanished from the ‘Net—but none of the better sources give any verifiable details regarding its origins (name of interviewer, name of publication or Web site or convention, time/place of interview). That’s…peculiar.
Elizabeth Wadsworth said on 02.11.09 at 03:35 AM • [link]
That’s the problem I’m having with the “tent peg” story too: while Google came up with plenty of references to it, the original interview seems to have vanished, which makes the whole thing suspect in my estimation. It has the feel of an urban legend about it. I’m taking this one with a grain of salt.
Teddypig said on 02.11.09 at 03:36 AM • [link]
I was on several of the early Dragon Riders boards and can tell you about the Anne McCaffrey Tent Peg Quote…
YES that quote is valid.
NO there is absolutely no way to frame it in an acceptable manner or even vaguely make it look like a joke she was playing on someone.
Now, that is not the only reason she is thought of as an online whack job though given her overly litigious nature and the amount of cease and desist letter she had her attorney send out. In fact several people who have posted that quote on the Internet got letters from her lawyer about it.
Which may be the very reason the interview itself is no longer found on the Internet. It is not the first time.
Anyway, Anne McCaffrey receives my own personal prize for being the very first author I saw repeatedly show her ass online to various people who were her biggest fans. It still to this day amazes me how much damage she managed to do to her own damn fan base. Oh well, there had to be a first.
Teddypig said on 02.11.09 at 03:57 AM • [link]
The Kitchen Table (McCaffrey fan site) where that quote was dissected in full several times is long gone and they started a new one but I never really used it. The old discussion forums were never available in Google anyway. It actually dated back to the old Yahoo days and @Home etc etc.
Teddypig said on 02.11.09 at 05:51 AM • [link]
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/187049.html
Here is one my still working links about this McCaffrey fandom wank.
Just read the comments where someone shares a chunk of the interview.
Most of my older links with a copy of the interview are long gone from the net. I could probably wayback some of them instead of simple relying on my own copies of the pages but it’s hard to tell if I could get them and as I said some of the forums were php based and the original site is just not there anymore.
Ch said on 02.11.09 at 05:57 AM • [link]
I am kinda shocked by (a) what triggers a “never again” and (b) that so very few people personally tell the author why they’ve stopped reading their works.
So, my “never again” line was tripped in Oct 2001. I had been following the work of a sci-fi writer (no names here), who was getting a lot of press and has gone on to be wildly popular in a particular-subset of the genre. It was after 9-11 and in a forum, where the author was participating, the author advocated killing anyone who followed Islam. That tripped my line, and with the exception of one book that was co-written, I’ve never gone back.
Anyone who reads that author’s books can probably find that forum discussion. It got really, really ugly there, so I’m not posting the author name here or the forum name. I’m not one to let bygones be bygones, but in this case, we’re all better off not being angry or depressed by ancient assholery.
My point, and the reason I posted is this: I also told the author what I thought about that opinion, and let the author know that a reader was lost forever. I think if you’re going to say “never again”, you might as well tell the author why you were doing.
They may not care (this author didn’t) but at least you’re being clear about why your stopped reading. Maybe next time you say “never again” someone will listen.
(Full disclosure: I’m jewish)
job said on 02.11.09 at 06:47 AM • [link]
@ Courtney
What you said.
And said better than I ever could.
Art is processed through the gut. We judge it —and should judge it—on an emotional basis as well as an intellectual one. The intellect may or may not recognize a separation of creation and creator. The emotion probably won’t.
Rei said on 02.11.09 at 08:32 AM • [link]
For me the tipping point comes when, as some people have said, someone’s values are so interwoven with their characters/plotline that it’s impossible to get away from them. It turned me right off Stephenie Meyer (all the good guys want marriage and babies with their predestined true love!), although she’s not quite Do-Not-Buy because I love to hate her work.
Having said that, it was attitude that turned me off Anne Rice. Any author who tries to tell her readers that if they don’t like her books it’s because they’re reading it wrong does not deserve my money.
SonomaLass said on 02.11.09 at 08:41 AM • [link]
Teddypig,
Nice to know someone else old enough (ha!) to remember when the “tent peg” quote was new and still easily verifiable. Yeah, that was a real WTF experience. As was (but let’s face it, much worse) the scandal and nastiness surrounding Marion Zimmer Bradley. Whom I had met, and enjoyed talking to, but I had to quit singing her praises as a writer to people once I became aware of all the ugly stuff.
I re-read some of her books recently, though, and discovered that I wasn’t all that bothered by the disappointment I felt about the stuff in her personal life. Perhaps because she’s no longer living? Like I can read Lewis Carroll and not get all hung up about the dirty photography with little girls thing? Hmmm, I never realized that my “do not read” line stopped at death…. Dang. Now I’m thinking about this again!
Oh, and to add my .02 to the Jim Butcher discussion, I HAVE read the Codex Alera series. It is, like a lot of SF/F, set in a pretty sexist culture—but there are several female characters who consistently show how ridiculous that is. Using a sexist culture as a background to show that the sexes can and should be equal is a tried and true device—good thing, or I’d have to give up Regencies!!
Teddypig said on 02.11.09 at 03:26 PM • [link]
Well, see now you have me in a contradiction there. The MZB debacle to me was not as bad (for her fans at least) and it boiled down in my mind that she was in a marriage of convenience with a rather dishonest gay man who also turned out to be a pedophile.
So I think we can all agree she did not scam her fans or treat her readers badly and she was so supportive of all fan fiction regarding her work and any new writers that came her way. Despite the legal draw backs she ran into later she really was a dream writer to be a fanatic follower of.
Her private life issues on the other hand were a mess though and all I have to say was when you read everything it always seemed to be someone she cared for doing the rotten crap and she turning a blind eye. So MZB still comes off to me as a big softy that got taken advantage of again and again. I understand that may not be totally true but that is what pops out in my reading of the matters.
Teddypig said on 02.11.09 at 03:43 PM • [link]
Oh and last but not least… read THE CATCH TRAP by Marion Zimmer Bradley
It’s long out of print but one of the historic touch stones of Gay Romance.
Diana Peterfreund said on 02.12.09 at 06:58 PM • [link]
Teddypig’s point is an interesting one. How much does discovering something about an author’s personal life color your former feelings about the books?
I’m a huge fan of L.M. Montgomery, but it’s pretty much impossible to find a discussion of her work online that doesn’t focus on the issues surrounding her miserable marriage, her husband’s mental problems, her life long bouts with depression, the debate about her suicide, etc. and the strong juxtaposition between that and her work. I find myself wondering if Montgomery, who was such a private person and did not like her personal woes talked about during her life, would want the same respect afforded to her now. Let her work exist without dragging her personal troubles into it. She purposely chose to write hopeful, beautiful romantic stories that celebrated life—perhaps they were her therapy, perhaps they were her escape—they were certainly her bread and butter.
There is another author who suffered greatly when a relation of hers committed a violent crime and the people online were rather brutal. Even if you do not approve of a family member’s actions, even if you have cut them out of your life, that does not mean that the pain you feel stops or that you can be held responsible for them.
Rosa said on 02.14.09 at 12:58 AM • [link]
I don’t miss the pre-blog days at all. I used to just randomly read whatever I laid hands on, and the new romance and new SF racks of bookstores (esp. in my hometown, which had a B. Dalton, a Bible store, and a used book store that specialized in porn video) was spotty enough that I had to wade through a *lot* of dreck.
So, when I got older and busier I mostly just stopped reading genre fiction.
Then, in one of Crusie’s books, she thanked the Cherries in the flyleaf, and I started reading the yahoo site, and someone there recommended Bujold, and I started going to our (not-so) friendly local SF bookstore and the staff there pushed me towards crap I hated, but I could poke around on the internet and read reviews to find stuff I really like.
I’ve read more SF, fantasy, and romance in the last 3 years than in the previous 10, and more that I liked, passed on, and looked for similar than ever before in my life. I would have never found erotic romance without the many good recommendations from readers in various online groups.
I’m not a fan of stories where the romance is all “his manliness called out to her womanliness” instead of something specific about the characters as people, and I think that’s linked to feminism in the writer. But that comes out clearly in the books, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a writer I liked say stupid gender stuff.
I’ll put up with a lot of stuff I don’t like from a writer whose books I like. I did have to stop reading Crusie’s blog because of the fat-talk, but if I never read the work of authors who had issues about their weight I’d be stuck with, what? not even the back of the Cheerios box.
SonomaLass said on 02.14.09 at 02:14 AM • [link]
Teddypig, that “blind eye” thing is where the problem lies, when the “rotten crap” is pedophlia. Adults who ignore that sort of thing are helping to victimize the children involved, IMO and a lot of others’.
But you are exactly right that MZB was fabulous with her fans; she encouraged fanfic and even got it published, and she helped several other authors get started on big careers in fantasy. And she was smart, funny and talented. I thought she was terrific. That’s why it’s so hard for me to handle the bad stuff, and why I feel so conflicted about how much I love her writing. Still.
The Catch Trap is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ve owned, loaned, lost and given away more copies of that than anything in my library. Now that you mention it, I’m going to read it again. Thanks!
Liz said on 02.15.09 at 09:33 PM • [link]
I completely agree with you. My brother’s 6th grade homeroom teacher spent a period on why the students parents should vote for W. Bush in 2000. My brother came home and told my mom that she needed to vote Bush because “Gore is an idiot.” A few months after the 2nd election, her daughter told me that her mother forced her to vote for Bush because she didn’t want to vote. What the hell is the point of that?
I also haven’t seen anything that Tom Cruise has been in since his diatribe against Brooke Shields’s use of medication for her postpartum depression. I don’t care that he is a Scientologist; I can still watch John Travolta because he hasn’t gotten all up in my grill about why my beliefs are wrong.
As for books, my list is rather short: Janet Daily and Cassie Edwards. And now both Susanne Brockman and Autumn Dawn (where the hell did she come up with that name?)
I don’t go out of my way to find out dirt on authors, usually getting that stuff on here if it is big enough to hit the smart bitch radar.
Cait said on 02.19.09 at 06:37 PM • [link]
[
It’s not just gay rights, though. Seeing the way Jennifer Crusie acted in the wake of the CE debacle turned me right off of her. Haven’t (and won’t) purchase anything by her ever. And it’s not some form of “watch me punish you, you evil harpy!” so much as I like to feel good about the things I purchase and I couldn’t feel good about buying a book by Crusie or this Dawn woman.
.........
Link please. What is ‘CE’? and where can I find it?
Brockmann pretty much turned me off with ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. I respect her opinion, but I did read an interview that was really insulting, IMHO. I still borrow her books from the library, but to buy? Not so much, and only if they’re UBSs or the old TDD series.
Books are really expensive and there are so many. About Jennifer Crusie….I am sorry that she has only written ‘in collaboration with’ since BET ME. Has her inspiration dried up? OR HAS SHE ‘JUMPED THE SHARK’? One of my all time favs that I recommend and lend out all the time is WELCOME TO TEMPTATION.
Cait
Page 2 of 2 pages < 1 2
Care to comment?
Comments are now closed for this post.
Subscribe to These Comments