Then came my favorite tweet from Colleen Lindsey from April 6, 2011--"OMG would you people please STOP with the "indie" vs. "legacy" thing! These are meaningless buzz words that make you all sound ignorant."
Donald Maas stepped in the cow patty when he said writers needed to be culled. (Moo!)
Now, we had Amanda Luedeke fuck up last Thursday and call writers "schmucks". And fuck up bad she did. [Note: She has since changed the wording of her blog post, but the original paragraph wording can be seen at The Passive Voice.] But she apologized and tried to fix the problem.
Only to have her efforts torpedoed by her own boss, Chip MacGregor. Read the comments he left at TPV, and you'll see what I mean.
What is it about agents, who are supposed to understand PR, who berate writers for doing stupid things, who are supposed to be professionals, that makes them stick their foot in their collective mouths? They are doing all the things that they chide us writers for doing.
I've said it before.
Fear.
Fear of losing power in what is a really, really small industry. Fear of losing their livelihood. Fear of losing their prestige.
Maybe some agent somewhere will post the following list to their wall (and hopefully, some writers too):
1) DO NOT EVER insult the people you depend on for making a living. In the case of agents, that means writers. In the case of writers, that means readers.
2) If you do accidentally insult someone, say "I'm sorry." That's it. Nothing else. Anything else is an excuse to justify your actions.
3) If you screw up, fix the problem. It you can't fix it, own your screw-up and vow never to do it again.
4) DO NOT EVER post anything online while tired, angry, upset, drunk, etc.
5) Always remember Wheaton's Law, aka "Don't be a dick."
Angry Sheep doesn't like seeing people lose their jobs and is feeling very sad right now. But she doesn't feel sad about agents who call commenters from super popular blogs "dicks". That's not very professional, Mr. MacGregor.
