Authors/Readers Expectations and Etiquette- A Conversation

Hello all and happy Thursday! So, I was scrolling through Instagram and, since I follow many authors on there, I ended up seeing a lot of authors complaining about being trolled on their social media and being sent links to hateful articles or reviews and that’s just not okay. I decided that I wanted to talk about this issue a little bit with y’all so please feel free to join in the conversation and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Being an aspiring future author myself, I find the amount of trolling and hating on authors to be rather appalling. Yes, it is completely appropriate to voice whatever opinion you hold, regardless of whether or not it be positive or negative, but to actually message and link to an author and tell them straight up how much you hated their work is just disgraceful! The way I see it, if you didn’t like a book then tell everyone in your life: tell your family, your friends, your pets, a grocery store clerk, the mail-person at the post office, tell yourself while looking in the mirror, or (if you have a blog as most y’all who are reading this do) post a review or a rant about it for your readers. But, it is so not okay to go bashing an author to their face and tell them all about how you hated their work.

An author’s work is like a piece of their souls, they’re like children to them (us). How would you feel if someone walked up to you and told them that they hated some part of you, if someone were to look at a piece of your very essence and say, “I hate this.”, how would you feel? Pretty crappy, I’m sure. So then, why is it suddenly acceptable for some readers to go out of their to tag and message authors telling them how terrible their work was?

I think that this ties in with the way authors are portrayed nowadays in that they have become these kind of celebrities that are upheld to this impossible standard of perfection when, in actuality, they’re literally the most average and normal people ever (except in their minds of course because it’s their creativity that makes them all unique). They walk their dogs, they take out the trash, they shop for groceries, and, yes, a lot of them even have day jobs that aren’t writing because it is insanely difficult to live off of the money you get from writing alone. They write because they love it and they are kind enough, they are gracious enough to put out something so personal for all of the world to be able to read it. That’s a very special thing and lately, as I mentioned at the beginning of this little rant, a lot of people have been abusing this fact. Newsflash, it’s hard to be a writer and no, no one is perfect and there will no doubt be many mistakes or things that aren’t that great but, to call someone out for their shortcomings when their trying so hard just because they didn’t “satisfy you” is unacceptable.

Being a writer, I really really really want to get into this industry and share my stories and my creativity with the world but, it’s instances like these that scare me out of my wits every time I think about when I’m going to start sending in my work for publication. Will I be trolled next? Will people send me stuff about how much they hate me and my work? It’s a scary thought and it’s absolutely ridiculous that this is even a problem.

So, I ask y’all, what do you think should be some guidelines and unspoken rules of etiquette for relations between authors and readers? Have you come across things like this? If you’re an author, has this ever happened to you? Why do you think some folks think that this behavior is in any way acceptable?

Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below and let’s have a nice conversation about this issue. Love y’all, have a wonderful Thursday!

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