The World Is Mad I Tell You! Mad!

DH's dad is still in the hospital (complication from his surgery Wednesday) so this is a round-up of stuff y'all may be interested in.

First off, my self-editing post got a few comments yesterday. Just a reminder that there is no "right" way to edit. If you can proofread your own stuff, more power to you! Honestly, I proof my own short stories. However, it's the only area of where I think money can be wisely spent, just like it's overall cheaper and faster for me to hire out my formatting these days.

Ironically, Kris Rusch posted about the nightmares of dealing with trad publisher editors.

In that same blog, Kris also talked about the recent bloodbath at Penguin Random House. The layoffs included several editors.

And that led to this little bon mot my friend Angie e-mailed me this morning. Just how bad are things at PRH that la Nora jumps ship?

Are publishers in that much trouble? Yeah, they are. Data Guy's recent talk at the Digital Book World Conference shows trad publishers are sort of acknowledging that they sail in iceberg infested waters, but they still believe the icebergs pose no danger. *sigh*

On the other hand, anything that improves DG's scraping and analysis of book sales can help us indies in the long run.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Nora Roberts Is Right to Say "Bite Me"

Controversy. There's always controversy on the interwebs, the latest being a blog post by La Nora Herself.

First of all, I admire her incredible work ethic and her prolific career.

Secondly, the reason I have one of her trilogies is the books were a gift from one of my legal secretaries, who knew I loved paranormal romances. I won't ever get rid of them because I appreciated my secretary's thoughtfulness.

Finally, I did learn quite a bit as far as craft went by reading her books.

Unfortunately, the lovely gift books weren't my normal taste. But I would never DREAM of going to Ms. Roberts' Facebook page or her blog and tell her they suck. That's her space for her fans.

And I'd like to think I'd never be so rude as to go into someone else's space and tell them they suck.

Yet a few weeks ago, someone did exactly that on Ms. Roberts' Facebook page. She laid out her policy regarding comments, only to have someone do it again on Christmas Eve when she was trying to spend time with her family and not think about work. So she reiterated her policy more firmly in a blog post entitled, "Bite Me". The gist of the post was that her blog and FB page were for her fans, and that any criticism or critique of her work is appropriately made in reviews.

For some strange reason, Ms. Roberts' post is causing a shitstorm among writers more than readers. How dare she alienate readers! How dare she think she's above criticism! By the way, none of which she actually said. The whole thing scarily reminds me of the Fake Geek Girl controversy last year, where certain people thought they should be the ones to decide who was a true sf/f fan and who wasn't.

My personal view is that Ms. Roberts is totally correct. Not that she needs my approval by any stretch of the imagination. But fan places are exactly that--fan places. No one has a right to determine who's allowed on a webpage except the administrator of that page. If you misbehave, you'll get blocked.

As for the people who feel the need to express their negative opinions? They can have their opinions. No one is saying they can't. And there's plenty of places where they can express that opinion. But when you deliberately go to a fan site and diss the thing people are fans of, the only reason you're doing it is to cause trouble.

There's a phrase for people like that--DRAMA QUEENS.

Oh, and before you decide to comment here with some bullshit about your First Amendment rights, you'd better be prepared to cite the particular federal case you're using to support your argument. Otherwise, I WILL delete your comment.