A Couple of Things

Thing One:
So, anyway, yesterday I got my undies in a wad over some stupid twit spouting nonsense.  (Like there aren't thousands of them just like that one.  Untwisting my undies could be an all-consuming pursuit if I let it.)  Then we lost internet, which gave me time to forget all about it for a while.  I'm calmer now.

Not that the person isn't still a silly bitch, but I no longer want to throttle her.

You see, she decided to make her opinions on self-publishing public.  And, shocker, she thinks self-publishing is awful.  It's killing the written word or some such twaddle.  And, of course, she should know because she's a travel writer and has a whole 3 books (memoirs or something) published traditionally. 

I haven't read her books, so I don't know if they're any good.  Which is why I'm not trashing her books publicly.  She admitted that she hadn't read a lot of self-published books, but didn't have the same presence of mind apparently.  Which is why I called her a stupid twit and a silly bitch. 

I wouldn't presume to cast aspersions on her livelihood, however, without confirmation of her writing's quality or lack thereof.  She could be a silly twit and still write good books.  I wouldn't know.  Others have, supposedly, gone around 1-starring her books without reading them.  That's just wrong.  And it's exactly what she was doing.  Trashing things without actually knowing anything about them.

Wrong.

Yeah, it pisses me off when people spout crap about self-publishing.  They're taking potshots at my only source of income.  And likely the only source of income I'm suited for anymore - even if there were employment opportunities for me out here in the back of beyond.  It's even more disconcerting when these unthinking twerps have a wide audience for their spewage - like a major paper or a large FB following.  So, I can totally understand the impetus to make her look like a hack.  It's just not right.

She has since apologized for what she said, I think more because she's now taking a heaping helping of crap about it than because she actually is sorry for writing what she wrote. Admitting she had been ignorant about self-publishing when she wrote it, which kind of only pissed me off more.  :shrug:

I'm not going to sit here and say that all self-published books are awesome covered in awesome sauce with awesome sprinkles.  There are good ones and bad ones - just like in traditionally published books.  I don't think the good ones and the bad ones are that hard to discern, even before you slap down your hard-earned money.  (And books with ideas I disagree with are not necessarily bad books, which is why I don't review them.)  As always, it's buyer beware. 

So, when you read something by someone - whether they're supposedly an expert or not - who's trashing self-publishing, try to read it with a grain of salt.  We aren't all bad.  We aren't ruining the written word or the publishing industry or what have you.  We're out here providing the best books we know how to provide at a reasonable price.  Give us a chance.  You might be surprised.

Thing Two:
Taking a break BEFORE you post about something that pisses you off is always a good idea.  If I hadn't lost internet yesterday, I would've still waited to post about this.  Sometimes I type out whole tirades, then walk away from the computer for a while.  When I return, the tirade usually ends up deleted. Sometimes it sits in draft form until I delete it weeks later.  Think before you post.   (Which is what she should've done.)  Thinking ahead of time is probably a hell of a lot easier than weathering a shitstorm afterwards.  And retractions really don't mean much. You can't unring that bell.