Just leave me be

You might be wondering how I got the title of this blog post. It’s not hard to figure out, really. It’s something I probably say a dozen times a day to myself under my breath or just internally in my head.

It’s also a decidedly southern phrase. You don’t hear this very much up north. Some northerners probably wouldn’t even know what I mean if I said that to them. So let me clarify first.

“Just leave me be” is exactly what it sounds like. It means to go away and not bother me. It means that I really don’t want to be interrupted. It means that you’re causing a distraction that I really don’t want or need.

And it seems I say that a lot these days.

Now you’re wondering to whom I say this phrase. So let me help you out with that.

Here’s the one I love: “You’re working too hard. You should take a day off. You’re going to get burned out.” I’ve got two words for that one.

Fuck off.

Let me ask you something: Do you see the guy who just opened the little mom and pop burger joint just closing up for a day because he might get “burned out?” Nope. And he doesn’t have enough money to hire a bunch of help, so he, his wife, and his two teenaged kids are working from ten in the morning until ten at night, trying to make a go of this business. If they don’t, it will fail, and with his job in the auto industry or coal mining industry gone, they’ll have even less of nothing than they already had. It’s like the nursery up the highway from me. They made a big production out of opening up, their custom holiday trees, their spring bedding plants, their rose bushes for Mother’s Day, all that stuff. But they’re never open. Go by there and they’re closed. They were only open about three days a week at best. Nobody wants to drive out to somewhere like that, only to find they’re closed. That’s a waste of time. The property’s up for sale – what a surprise.

Same thing here. This is a business. It’s not a hobby. It’s not a pastime. It’s a damn business, people. I have to be “open for business.” I need to answer email. I need to respond to PMs on Facebook. I need to order stuff, call people, send in applications for events, mail things out, all of that stuff. I need to confer with my promo person, my assistant, and my street team. Mostly, I need to WRITE. It’s hard to find time to do that with all of the other stuff I have to do, but I need to be doing that too. So yes, I’ve been working 18-20 hour days for over a year, and there’s no end in sight. But I haven’t turned a profit, so I’ve got to keep working. If I’d borrowed money, the bank would want it back, with interest. Just because I’m funding this privately doesn’t mean it’s any less expensive.

Here’s another time sucker: “Can you help me with something?” I just love these people. They see me out there hustling and they want to ask me a question, and they figure out quickly that I’m a kind, loving person and I’m willing to help just about anybody. Their request is usually something pretty involved. And then, when I tell them the answer, one of two things happens. I find out that a) they’re not willing to do whatever it is I’ve told them will work, and/or b) they treat me like I don’t know what I’m talking about. Nice, very nice. Take up my time, which, by the way, is the only damn thing I really own and have sacrificed for you, and basically thumb your nose at me.

So I have a new policy. I don’t mind helping anyone, and I’ll help you, but when it’s obvious to me that you won’t even help yourself, I’m done. Done. Don’t ask again. I’ve got one right now that’s put herself in that situation with me. She comes back and asks me to help her and I’ll have to tell her that she did something that makes her look flaky in the eyes of other authors and I can’t afford to be associated with that. Bottom line. She’s going to be upset. She won’t be any more upset than I was when I figured out how much effort I’d put into helping her and then discovered that she wasn’t serious about the craft, the business of the craft, or the community. Of course, if you asked her, she’d say I couldn’t have spent any more than thirty minutes with her. Actually, it was way more than thirty minutes, but do you know how many words I can write in thirty minutes? In excess of three thousand. Not kidding. I wrote 2,217 in a fifteen-minute span in February. Take up thirty minutes of my time and you’ve just cut my throat.

So piss off, I say.

Then there’s another one I just love. It’s people who announce to me what I’m going to do and what they’re going to do for me. Don’t misunderstand me: I appreciate help, any help I can get. I really do. Nobody appreciates it more than me. But have you ever had someone come to help you set up for a birthday party and it was obvious that they, for some reason, either thought it was an anniversary party, or they wanted it to be an anniversary party? Yeah, I’ve had that happen, maybe not literally, but you get the analogy. It’s like they couldn’t understand that my genre wasn’t auto mechanics or psychological self-help, and they either wanted to try to make it fit that pigeonhole or they insisted that I should so they could help me.

And before anyone says anything, understand, this does NOT apply to my street team. Those ladies get it and if they want to take the initiative to do something for me, I’ll bow at their feet and kiss their toes. Really. I’ll do anything they ask me to do. Some of them know a lot more about this business than I do. I’m depending on their expertise, and they know it. So thanks, Construction Crew. I owe you big time already.

Nope, I’m talking about the kind of people who come to me and let me know they’ve set me up with a five-day advertising stint with “Chicken Nuggets Are Us” or some equally unsuitable something. I had one insisting that I write poetry to include in their anthology. I tried to tell them twelve ways past Sunday that I don’t do poetry anymore. Oh, no, they weren’t having any of that. I should do this; it was going to be a best seller, and wouldn’t I be sorry if I wasn’t involved? No, I would not. I couldn’t convince this person of that, so I finally had to say something to the effect of, “Back off. Not gonna happen.” They took it hard, hard enough to stay away.

Mission accomplished.

And here’s another one I love: “We should work on a project together.”

Translation: “I have a project that I want to do but I have no earthly idea how to do it. So I want you to drop what you’re doing and come over here and do it for me, at least the bulk of it. I’ll put my name on it. Sound good? It should, because I’m brilliant and you’re lucky that I chose you to be the one to do this ‘joint project’ for me.”

Yeahhhhh, no. I’m done with that. I have my own damn joint projects to do with me, myself, and I. I don’t have time for that stuff, especially since it usually turns out to be a purely commercial venture for them, something that they plan to sell that will benefit them and them alone. Happens all the time. It’s usually something like, “I sell custom-built dog sleds. I have this great idea for a monthly tabloid for Iditarod racers and their dogs. It’ll have a subscription base of about thirty-seven racers and one hundred and fifty dogs. We’ll make a shit ton of money.”

Nope. Moving on.

These days I also get a lot of, “hello bb what are you doing? where ire you from? can we just be frends here? i have skype you wanna skype im a college student and I need to practice english it work best when i can see who i taking too so i see how word werk sond good?”

One of the most recent ones asked where I was. That’s on my profile. Then he wanted to know what I do for a living. Not only on my profile, but it’s on my damn Facebook banner, idiot. Then he wanted to know if I did my own research, to which I replied yes, of course. Then he wanted to know with whom I was open to doing research. I replied that I have my own research assistant who is not into sharing (damn it, but that’s another blog post entirely). The he asked if my profile pic was really me. Look, asshat, if I were going to use someone else’s picture, don’t you think I’d pick someone a whole lot more attractive than me? Really? Why would I go to the trouble to falsify a pic and then not at least go for Jessica Biel, or Cameron Diaz, or Jennifer Lopez, or someone like that. Catherine Zeta Jones, for god sake. But a pic of me? Good god. Not only have you creeped me out, you’ve insulted my intelligence. That will not get you research time with me, no it will not.

Unfriend. Block, block, block.

But here’s my absolute favorite. I’m in my office and my phone rings. There’s this familiar voice on the other end that says, “Hey, baby, take a break, wouldja? Come out back and sit on the swing with me? I made us a plate of cheese and crackers, and there’s a couple of beers out here too. Can’t you just spare me fifteen minutes? I miss your cute little face.” Think I’m about to say, “Just leave me be?”

Not a chance. See ya later. I’ve got some really, really important business to attend to.

My Reads: Suicide Ride: The Fix by Elizabeth Llewellyn

Today’s pick of the week is Elizabeth Llewellyn’s Suicide Ride: The Fix. It’s the follow-up to her Suicide Ride: The Platinum Man and what a follow-up it is.

We go back into the world of Norman Dimond, a man whose past fucked him over in more ways than one (literally). Sure, he looks like he owns the world, but he hurts, and he hurts in the worst possible way. But when Johnny Gellis enters his life, he thinks the panacea just may have arrived.

This book picks up exactly where The Platinum Man left off. Johnny is in the middle of a crisis, and it could be a fatal one. Norman takes care of that, and he begins to show Johnny his soft side, the side that’s crying out for someone to help him make the pain go away. Unfortunately, Johnny’s in the same predicament, but his idea of a salve is very different from Norman’s.

At the end of The Platinum Man, I had gotten some answers about some things I suspected, but I still had a lot of questions. I also had some darker suspicions, but they were too sordid for me to entertain. And guess what? My suspicions were correct. I found that horrifying and strangely satisfying (so what does that say about me?). And they explained everything, everything about Johnny that I hadn’t been able to figure out, everything about his parentage, and everything about his “condition,” if you will (I’m not into spoilers, so that’s all you’ll get from me on that subject). I was also treated to a confrontation that I’d been waiting to see, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Not to mention poor Drew. But that’s all I’m saying on that front.

But what I found, and what I absolutely adored, was that Elizabeth managed to weave all of this information in so seamlessly that I didn’t feel like it was information – I felt like I was privy to some deeply personal revelations that others weren’t allowed access to, like the characters had taken me aside and bared their souls. I was also was surprised that the one piece of information that had most informed Johnny’s person was the one thing about which he still had no clue. That just solidified all of my scattered angst toward the broken boy-man that he is.

So where am I now? Anxiously awaiting Suicide Ride: The Hit. If it’s anything like the previous two, it’ll be one helluva ride for sure. You had your chance in the first sentence: Pop back up there and hit the link to buy, buy, buy.

Hats off, Elizabeth. It was one sweet ride.

Bring it, Big 6 - we're ready and waiting

I’m pretty gullible, I’ll admit. You can pull a fast one on me pretty easily. Yes, often it's obvious that’s exactly what you’re doing, but I want to believe you wouldn’t do that to me. Stupid, I know, but there you have it.

So I had a very, very difficult time believing the crapola that I was fed by a recent article in the BookBub Bulletin (http://tinyurl.com/BigPubWoes). In case you haven’t heard about this, you should probably listen up. Why, you ask?

Because under the guise of “helping readers,” it appeared to me that big publishing had decided to take one of the few things we as indie authors have as a marketing tool and try to decimate us. So here it is.

They’ve started giving books away.

No shit. I never thought I’d see the day. Take, for instance, the one mentioned in the article, a huge giveaway of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code by mega-publisher Doubleday. They ran it right before the release of The Inferno. The free ebook even had the prologue and first chapter of The Inferno (sound familiar?). According to The New York Times, the giveaway is “part celebration and part marketing experiment.”

Sorry – I call bullshit. They prattle on about how ebooks are a full thirty percent more than hardbacks (exactly what planet is this taking place on?) because of formatting, etc. I’m not that stupid. I know exactly what it is.

They’ve been watching bestselling indie authors and they see what’s being done. And what’s being done is offering the first book in a series free to get the readers into the story line. I do it. You probably do it. We’ve been doing it for awhile. And up until now, big publishing would never, never even try that. To hear them tell it, giving away books would be the absolute wrong thing to do. So why the big change of, er, heart?

Because they’re feeling the squeeze. They’ve invested enormous amounts of money on hardback books and their business is failing. Their stables of bestselling authors are getting the rights to their catalogs back and republishing their older books themselves so they actually pocket some of the profit. They’ve almost fallen behind in marketing for ebooks. They’ve tried to charge so much for their ebooks that no one will buy them; readers will look for indie authors instead. So their idea to offset their losses in paper book sales is to give away some books, draw attention to new ones, and recoup their expenditures. Hey, it’s worked for us so why not take advantage?

So here are some predictions. I can’t wait to see what I’m right about.

First of all, brick and mortar stores are soon going to be no more. The ones that do survive will do so by offering service (a novel approach, pun intended), discounts on a wide assortment of in-stock and readily-available ereaders, and maybe even terminals/kiosks where readers can go to sample ebooks, then buy them immediately and have them downloaded to their ereaders. With the prices of their ebooks so high, they can’t hope to recoup the loss of the investment in the paper book trade. Besides, since they claim ebook production costs them thirty percent more than that of paperbacks (leaving me to assume they’re paying too much for their formatting and cover art), they’ll never recoup that loss anyway.

Second, we’re fast. We write our books over a course of months. (Unless we don’t give a shit, and then it takes about two weeks and we just slap it on a page. But that’s another post.) Once that book is written, it’s a very short time to publication. For them, it’s an agonizing process where the book passes numerous editors, many of whom have no idea what they’re doing and apparently barely speak English, a dozen or more cover concepts before one is chosen, and through probably two dozen departments, not to mention legal, before it finally, finally, hits the shelf. We can get more out there faster because we don’t have all the hoopla to put up with and hoops to jump through. And because of this slowness, well-known authors are choosing to become “hybrids,” taking a portion of their books straight into the self-publishing arena. There goes half of their talent. My message to them: Streamline or perish.

Third, our costs are comparatively minimal. The squeeze is being applied to them by indie self-publishing authors. We can now buy formatting just like the type they use, sometimes better. We can also hire cover artists to make personalized, specific covers, often for a series so it’s thematic. Our product is getting better (well, some of it anyway). And for the reduced prices at which we offer our ebooks, we’re getting a huge chunk of reading public and leaving them in the dust.

Fourth, putting us out of business would be a delight to them. They’re sick of us taking their sales and making them have to lower prices and work harder to sell product. They’re used to being the only game in town. Well, move over, big publishing. We can do what you do and do it even better, faster, and cheaper, so we can offer our work to a larger audience. Yeah, that’s what they think we’re doing when, in reality, we’re just trying to stay afloat like everyone else. It’s not personal against them for us. Okay, well, maybe it is for a few authors who’ve been screwed over by publishers, but for the majority, it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with trying to get the story out there.

I can't fault them, really. When his street team was accused of "spying" and "stealing ideas," one author on Facebook was very clear about it. In his mind, there was no thievery going on; they were simply doing what any prudent business does, watching what's working in the market and duplicating it. That's been going on forever. Otherwise, there'd only be one commercial on television and one ad in the newspaper. There'd only be one telemarketer (oh, I can dream, can't I?). It's not stealing. It's called learning and applying what you've learned. And big publishing is doing just that.

And so, indie authors, I’ve got one word for you: Work. Work like you’ve never worked before. Look at your prices and see where you can cut corners on publication. Get busy and write the rest of that series you’ve started so your readers don’t have to wait so long. Most of all, get to know your readers. Stop publishing a book and then just sitting back and waiting for the money to roll in. It won’t. You have to work at it. And if you’re not willing to, for the love of god, don’t publish your damn book. Keep it out of the market so the ones of us who are really trying to do a good job don’t get lost in your deluge of stagnating work. We’d really, really appreciate that.

Sorry, big publishing. We’re not going away. So here’s my warning to you, and you’d do well to heed it. It’s two simple words. Believe them when I say them.

Game on.

My Reads: A Deadly Waltz by Sophia Queen

Yes, I did it again. I decided a while back to try something in a genre that was completely new for me. It’s a Victorian gothic romance. I had no experience with these when I started this book, and for a minute I thought I’d made a grave mistake. But I’m glad I hung in there, because I thoroughly enjoyed the read. It’s called A Deadly Waltz, written by Sophia Queen.

After her parents died, Karina’s uncle promises her hand in marriage to a man she doesn’t love just so he can get his hands on her inheritance. But Karina has other plans. She slips away in the night after clopping her intended upside the head with a huge, heavy science book. My kinda girl.

Karina winds up at the Garrott Agency, where she trains rigorously for the position of an undercover investigator. Her first assignment? A position as governess at Westford Castle where the owner, Lord Sebastien Blackwell, has been accused of the murder of his wife, Isabel. And here’s where things get interesting.

But you know me – no spoilers. So let me tell you what I really, really liked about this book.

She has a knife in her glove. Her parasol is really a gun. I got really excited at this point because, with kids who grew up in the 80s, you know what I’m thinking . . . Inspector Gadget. Yeah. I always thought he was cool, and Karina is no exception. It’s like something right out of “Wild Wild West” with Will Smith and Kevin Kline, and I found the whole thing incredibly appealing. What I found most appealing was that the setting was a time when, as the greedy lothario to whom she was betrothed said, “Don’t think for a second I will allow any wife of mine to dabble in scientific experiments. They are much too complicated for the female mind. Dangerous, in fact.” In that time period, a young woman being trained as an undercover investigator would’ve been more than forbidden, it would’ve been scandalous. And that’s exactly why I loved this book.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, in the course of time Karina comes to know and appreciate Lord Blackwell, and she’s pretty sure someone else killed his wife, even though all the evidence points to him. She and Sebastien share the story with a great many characters, some of which are grand and some of which are gross. I’m not going to tell you how it ends – I’m sure you can probably guess – but I was surprised at the solving of the crime. I had some inkling, but I still wasn’t sure. So bravo to Sophia for making me wait right up until the end!

If you’ve never tried a Victorian gothic romance, this might be one to experience. Karina is smart and personable, and Sebastien is just angst-ridden enough to steal your heart. I’m waiting to see if there’s a sequel. I’m hoping so. She’ll draw me back to Victorian gothic romance, I just know it.

The Writing Life

Writing looks so romantic. A lot of people think it’s a cushy job and that we sit in front of a computer all day and just dream up stuff.

Yeah. I wish.

A member of my street team was visiting with me and we were talking about my books and the things I have to do every day. She watched me do promo – I was working on it when she walked in the door and I had to finish. Yes, I had a guest. And yes, I have to work.

Just as she was leaving, she made a suggestion: Tell people what you do. What your life is like. What it takes to be an author, especially an indie author. So here goes.

Three days a week I do promo. That consists of posting through Hootsuite to Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Then I have to go and post that post from my Facebook timeline to groups specifically for promo. That takes me about an hour.

I also do this blog post every Saturday and it goes to my street team page. From there, they take it and do their magic.

Speaking of which, I have a street team. They’re awesome. Really, really awesome. So shout out to Deanndra’s Construction Crew! I try to spend some time with them when I can.

I spent a good part of this last week designing swag. Then ordering swag. Then looking at the prices and having a stroke. Then getting a beer and trying to forget.

I do a blog post every Wednesday to feature a book that I’ve really liked. It’s not a review – it’s a chance for me to expose people who read my blog to books they might not otherwise know about. I don’t have to, but I usually talk to the author and tell them what I’m going to do so they can tell others to read it. I also ask them for a high-resolution cover shot I can put on the post so it’s really attractive.

I read a lot. I usually read in my genre, but sometimes I read other genres just to see how they’re constructed. That’s a real learning experience, especially if it’s paranormal or supernatural. That also gives me fodder for the Wednesday posts. Because of that, it’s important. I also believe that to write, you have to read, so I do, as often as possible.

I talk to my promo people. I have the best promo people in the world. We plot and strategize. It’s fun, but it’s time-consuming.

I have to design and buy a banner to use at signings. I design the banner. I redesign the banner. I order the banner, then have sticker shock, and then have another beer just because I can.

I write. I try to write. If I have time.

There is a lot of time spent looking for author events and sending out interest forms. Then I pray that I get in. Most of the time, I don’t get in. Maybe indie events, yeah, but others are populated by writers whose publishers bought blocks of tables, or they were there the previous year. You’d think they’d want new blood, but no. So there you have it.

I attend all kinds of things that will give me exposure or help me in the craft. I know some of you think your writing is so damn good that you don’t need that but, trust me, EVERYONE could use help in that arena. The ones of you who think your writing is so good that you don’t need a workshop or retreat are the exact ones who do. As I’m writing this, I’m rolling down the road with another writer, headed to my RWA chapter’s monthly meeting two and a half hours from my home. It’s the closest. That’s sad but true.

I do takeovers. For those of you who don’t know what that is, if someone is having a cover reveal, or a release, or any other type of event, they take a day or days or hours or whatever they want, divide it up, and give slots to authors or bloggers or anyone who will draw attention to them. During my slot, we play games like captioning a funny picture or finishing a sentence, and I award prizes. They’re not big prizes, but they’re good. And we have fun, so much fun, in fact, that I get asked to do them a lot. But it gets my name out there.

I talk to other authors. I actually try to help some of them. Some thank me. Some ask for help and never thank me. Some ask for help and it’s obvious they’re not listening; those don’t get any more of my time.

And there’s much, much more. Doesn’t sound particularly romantic, now does it? It’s not a lot of fun. But the research sure is fun!

P.S. My mobile hotspot isn't working, so I'm out in a library hallway, squatted down in front of a tiny little table because it was the only way I could get a signal to load this post. Ah, the things we do for the craft!

My Reads: One to Hold by Tia Louise

If you’re here, you probably already know what I write, but in case you don’t, well, let me just define it this way: There is no word too “dirty” for my work. No, I don’t write erotica and erotic romance all the time, and not all of it is raw and scary, but a good deal of it is. When I read, I usually read in that vein, not always as raw, but still along those lines. So I don’t know how I came across it, but I found this read last year and decided to give it a go. Even though the sex wasn't as crazy and hot as that to which I've grown accustomed, I’m glad I gave it a chance.

Tia Louise was an unknown name to me. I bought the book blind. I have no idea how I did that. Maybe it was one of those “customers who bought this also bought that” things. I find a lot of books that way. However I found it, there it was on my iPad while I was sitting at the garage waiting for a ton of stuff to be done to my SUV. I wondered if it would be interesting enough to keep my attention.

And I didn’t stop that day until I’d finished it.

One to Hold is a story about wrong assumptions, misunderstandings, and eventual resolution. The first thing that drew me in was the point of view: First person past tense. Editors and publishers will tell you not to write in first person, that readers won’t read it, that it won’t sell. To that I call bullshit. FSOG is first person. I’ve read a lot of really good first person over the last year. I wrote a book in first person; matter of fact, I wrote four, and I’ve got seven or more waiting for me, all of which will be written in first person, and a great many of them in present tense. (If you want to do something that will have your shoulders in knots, write in present tense. It’s not for the faint of heart.) Lots of books are being written that way, and I, quite frankly, like them much better than third person. That said, I was glad to see this one written in this voice, and Tia did it well. It wasn’t stiff or odd at all. It was very comfortable.

The second thing that cemented the read for me was the likability of the protagonists. I’ve read quite a few books over the last few years that had protagonists I could never really care about. To me, that is the epitome of poor writing. I can forgive a lot of things, but that I cannot. If you can’t pull together a couple of characters I can have some kind of emotion for, don’t bother. That said, I really liked both the male and female protagonists in this book. Tia did a very good job of character building, not as detailed as I usually prefer, but still good compared to others I’ve read (I like lots of detail on my characters). Besides, let's face it: It's first person. How many people are going to fill you in on their own details? Only narcissists. That said, I knew enough about the female protagonist, Melissa, to want to choke her when she got on that plane, even though I knew she had to. And I knew enough about the male protagonist, Derek, to know something was going on there that no one could guess.

And with that, I’m going to tell you my favorite aspect of this book. I’m not into spoilers. I just don’t do them. And I don’t think this will be one. But I have to say, the first time Derek told Melissa “thank you,” my heart melted into a puddle. There was something about the way Tia handled that scene that left me saying, “Oh, my god, that poor guy.” And those of you who read my work know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?

Derek? Yes - he’s Vic. He couldn’t be more like Vic. He’s the big, tough, strong guy who’s really soft and warm and cuddly. And you know he’s carrying a load of pain – it just smacks you in the face from the very first time you’re introduced to him. You know it, just know it, and you’re waiting to find out what it is, how bad it is, how deep it runs, how broken your heart will be when you find out. You’re hoping that she won’t just leave. You’re hoping he’s gambled soundly. And so you wait.

Let me just say, you won’t be disappointed. Even though this was a slightly softer read than I usually pick up (oh, yes, the word "cock" gets used more than a few times, so I'm good with it), I was so not disappointed that when I finished One to Hold, I immediately one-clicked One to Keep. More about that later. But first, jump into this sweet little read and let it work its magic on you. I guarantee that it will.


A huge thanks to Tia for sending over the high-resolution cover art to go with this piece.

Cyberbullying . . . or not

I decided that I just had to address this here. I couldn’t pass it up. It’s a hot-button topic, and I’ll probably get into trouble for this one, but what the hell. I stay in trouble with somebody all the time. Might as well go for broke.

And the topic is cyberbullying. Everyone’s talking about it and it’s happening all around us, all the time. Cyberbullying happens when someone decides to destroy someone else using the Internet as their primary weapon, and they set about undermining that person at every available turn.

One of the cyberbullying issues I’ve seen in the last few months involved reviewers and authors. It went something like this:

* Reviewer gets a book, either just picks it up or has it given to them by the author or the author’s agent.

* Reviewer reviews book and gives an honest review.

* Author decides they don’t like the review and sets about to destroy the reviewer.

Before we go any farther, I want to say that I do know there are some hinkey reviewers out there. I accidentally found one not too long ago. For all intents and purposes, this person took a belief system mentioned in one of my books and used it to belittle and degrade an entire community of believers, some of whom are the proud men and women of our armed forces. Despicable. My mention wasn’t an exposition on the belief system – it was merely mentioned in passing. Those kinds of reviewers? Yeah, I know. They’re why I make it a policy to never engage a reviewer or I’d be in big, big trouble.

But there are also a lot of hard-working bloggers and reviewers out there who truly try to do a good job. They try to be honest in their reviews. Some of them miss the mark. By that, I mean if you don’t like erotic romance and you pick one up and read it, don’t give it a bad review because you don’t like erotic romance. Just pass on it and do a review on fluffy bunny books or cookbooks or whatever it is that you like. But most of the reviewers do a pretty good job of it.

Conversely, there are a lot of crap authors out there today, throwing stuff together that’s barely legible, doing cover releases without books, releasing books they’re still writing, shit like that. There are authors who don’t know what the word “conjugate” means and get bent out of shape when you mention the Chicago Manual of Style because they’re so damn sloppy that they don’t want anyone telling them to use any kind of reference manual – they’re brilliant, their writing is brilliant, and they don’t need no stinkin’ thing or person telling them what to write. Be afraid – be very afraid. And when these same crap authors get a one- or two-star review (and a lot of times that’s generous), they attack the reviewer or blogger. Even more disturbing, I’ve seen authors who got a four-star review attack a reviewer because they just knew their book was worth five stars.

Yeah. Really.

Then there are the billions of guys out there who are throwing up fake profiles to troll for women. If you don’t know what I mean, congratulations and good luck, because you’ll find out soon enough.

Here’s a good example. I try very hard to look at all the friend requests I get. With women, I check to see who our friends in common are and what, if anything, they’re doing. If they’re selling Mary Kay or spending all their time talking about Jesus, then nope, not getting in. But I’m very wary of the guys. And sometimes they still slip past me. Here’s an example of a message I got recently from a guy I’ll call Jim Bob. Note that I've tried to preserve the idiosyncrasies of his side of the convo so you can tell that if he's from the UK, he obviously didn't go to schools like the other people I know from across the pond.

Jim Bob: Hi.

Me: Hello.

Jim Bob: How you doing, which country are you from?

Me: I’m in the USA.

This is very clear from my timeline.

Jim Bob: Ok, am from UK, what do you do for a living?

At this point, I’m already tipped off because if you’ve seen my Facebook timeline you know that the banner is huge, has an enormous fuchsia bra and panties, and says “Proud Weird Smut Writer.” And he asks what I do for a living? I fry pickles at the Dairyette. What the hell do you think I do for a living?

Me: I’m a writer.

Jim Bob: Okay  Am a business man, are you married?

This from a guy whose profile picture is a not-spectacularly-attractive man with what appears to be his wife. Yes, I know they do this all the time, but read on.

Me: Yes. 33 years. To a spectacular guy who treats me like a princess.

Jim Bob: Hmmm, that's nice, are you the one on your profile picture?

Now I’m laughing out loud. Am I the one in my profile picture? Well, let’s see . . . the pic is obviously not of a Hollywood actress or a model from a magazine so, no, I just went out and picked a random picture of a woman with her dog and put it on my profile. Yeah, that’s it. Of course, asshat, it’s me. And things just deteriorate from there.

Me: Yes.

Jim Bob: You are looking nice babe, i appreciate your beauty, keep it up....

Me: Thanks. I'll be sure to tell the hubs that you think so.

Jim Bob: Okay, can i be your friend?

Me: Only if you understand that if you don't respect my marriage, I'll block your ass and report you so fast that it'll make your head spin. Otherwise, yeah, sure.

Jim Bob: Just to be your friend only

Me: Exactly.

Jim Bob: Okay

I never heard another word. I’m sorry, but I consider this type of shit to be cyberbullying. It forces women to put up with come-ons that they wouldn’t have to tolerate in public. It’s usually a guy in a developing nation looking for a woman to snare to get him into the country. They try to pass themselves off as being from the UK or Japan or India. Insufferable.

Except for the Italian pervert who wanted to see my . . . never mind. That was interesting or something like it.

And then there’s the idiot who friends you and then starts PMing you while they’re drunk or high. They won’t stop. It’s pinging constantly. I just love those. I think that’s cyberbullying too.

Shamefully so.

And yes, there are just those people who decide they’ve taken a dislike to a particular person and try to make their lives hell. They follow the person around, make accusations against them, call them names, garden variety things like that. The worst of these find a way into the accounts of the object of their hatred and pretend to be that person, sending out vitriolic messages and generally fucking with the person’s life. Oddly, sometimes they don’t even know each other. The bully just picks them at random. Maybe they look like they’d fold easily and the bully wants someone to torment. Maybe they remind the bully of someone. Who knows.

But there’s a phenomenon that’s started recently, and it just rankles me to no end. I’ve heard about a few of these. I’m not going to call any names, because I know in some of the instances, there are two sides to the story. It still disturbs me, so I’ve got to say this.

If you have to stage your own cyberbullying to sell books, just cut it the fuck out. What a pathetic, lame-ass way of getting your name out there. You’re being persecuted by Person X, Person X is threatening you, Person X is threatening your children, Person X is breaking into your accounts, stealing your identity, badmouthing you all over the Internet.

Yeah, well, we’ve had a couple of instances recently where the person being persecuted got caught falsifying emails, messages, etc., and made it look like they were being cyberbullied when, in fact, they’d made the whole thing up to sell books. Drama draws in readers, who buy books for the drama in them anyway. People got hurt. The person being reported as the bully got hurt. The people who’d supported that writer got hurt. Promo people had their reputations tarnished. Readers felt foolish because they’d treated the supposed bully badly. Worse yet, the reported bully took the brunt of the nightmare, and all for who-knows-what reason.

In the end, the writer ended up looking like a lunatic and lost a huge number of their fans and friends. Was it worth it for a few sales? I'd like to hear the answer to that question.

If you’re having trouble selling books, work harder. Get some people to help you. Study some books on marketing. Go to some conferences and seminars. But for god’s sake, do not fake a bullying episode. That’s just juvenile and stupid.

And besides, I hate drama. Go back to junior high and get that mess out of your system before you come into the publishing world and make us all sick. All you cyberbullies out there, here’s your notice: A lot of us are onto you and when you cross over into our realm, we’re going to expose you and send you packing because we don’t want the drama. We’re over here actually trying to work at our jobs instead of letting a bunch of made-up hype get the attention of potential readers.

So here’s a novel idea to keep you busy. Why don’t you try writing a book? If you do it right, it’ll keep you busy for a long, long time.