It’s Tuesday and I’m at a loss for what to write about. Part of the reason is that my body is sore, very sore, after moving furniture, breaking down furniture, etc., for a good part of yesterday. With my son about to move home for three months to do his internship prior to graduation and a need to rearrange my workspace (something I have to do periodically to keep the creative juices flowing), I decided it had to all be done yesterday. Yes, I temporarily lost my sanity and thought I was in my 20’s and able to do it all by myself and I’m paying for it today. But another reason why I’m at a loss for what to write about is that my head is fully occupied with my latest work in progress as well as some new goings on at Naked Reader Press (which will be announced tomorrow). So, I have been trolling the interwebs this morning looking for something to spark a blog post.

Like most of you, I have a number of blogs and sites I visit regularly. Some are pro writer, others are pro established publishers and still others try to walk the line and be unbiased reporters of industry news. The problem is that right now a lot of the industry is still recovering from RWA’s national conference or preparing for upcoming conferences. Others are holding their collective breath to see what happens in response to the Department of Justice’s motion to have the proposed settlement approved.

So, I went to the one location that almost always gives me fodder for a blog post. I went to the kindle boards over at Amazon. Sure enough, within five minutes, I found a couple of things. Both leave me shaking my head and wondering who let the inmates out. Both are cautionary tales of what NOT to do if you want to win over or keep readers.

For those of you not familiar with the discussion boards at Amazon, you can find the kindle discussion boards by going to any of the kindle links and simply clicking “Discussion” at the top of the page. It’s an active and vocal community. Like most online communities, there are the occasional flame wars. But, on the whole, the discussions are more than civil — especially compared with some I’ve seen.

Anyway….

I followed one of the links to the romance boards and a discussion about authors behaving badly. This isn’t a new topic. It’s one I’ve discussed here before. But it is something that bears repeating, in my opinion. But a little background. This discussion began in response to authors who either responded negatively to reviews of their books that they didn’t think were warranted, often attacking the reviewer, or who spammed the different discussion boards with promotions for their books. This became such a problem on the kindle boards some months ago that Amazon created a new forum, “Meet Our Authors”, where authors could promote their books and interact with their fans.

What happened with the romance community thread is that, as readers commented on the topic, several authors hijacked the thread, spamming it with everything from angry spews to jokes from joke books, anything to derail the comments. Amazon finally shut down that thread and a new thread was opened, with much the same vitriol occurring.

I’m the first to admit that it’s hard to accept negative words about books we write. But it doesn’t help anything to go flying off the handle and responding to the negative reviews with attacks. If you have to respond, simply do so with a thanks for reading, sorry you didn’t like it. Then look to see if there are others who had the same problem with the book. If they did, maybe it’s something to be considered in writing the next one. If not, then forget about it. Don’t obsess and don’t go looking for your metaphorical stick to beat the reviewer over the head with.

But what bothers me more are those authors, and they are too often self-published authors (and that gives all of us who do some indie publishing a bad name), who go on the attack on discussion boards or who think it is their right to take over a discussion thread by hijacking it to talk about our book. That’s not only bad form but it is a sure way to drive away readers. The truth of the matter is, those folks who take part in these discussion boards aren’t afraid of letting people know what they think. They will respond to your hijacking or spam not only on the board but in their reviews of your work. Even if they like your book, they will not in the review that you were an ass and that is why they won’t buy anything else from you.

But there is a more long-reaching response your spamming of the boards or hijacking of threads can have. Amazon — and the owners of other boards where this sort of behavior occurs — can and will suspend your accounts. This is not something you want to have happen. So, please, read what you write in response to a review or a comment on a thread and then read it again before you even think about hitting the “enter” button.

The next thing that got me going this morning was the title of one of the free books on Amazon. Again, this is something we’ve discussed before. You know I have issues with books that have titles like “X kills Y, a mystery”. I should be able to tell what the genre is by the description of the book, the meta tags associated with it and even by the cover. If you have to tell me what it is in the title, then you’re doing something wrong. It is, in my opinion, a flag that you are new to publishing and screams “amateur”.

So imagine my reaction when I came across a title this morning (and I’m not giving the full title because I won’t give the author any direct promotion) that included “WRITTEN BY THE MASTER OF THE ROMANTIC THRILLER”. Yes, the first thing that got to me was the fact the entire title was in caps. Then the self-proclaimed tag on the title that the author is the “master of the romantic thriller”. Oh, btw, I’d never heard of the author so I clicked on their author page and, gee, I could count the number of titles the author has out on one hand. Hmm….”master”?

Then I read the description. Or tried to. And found myself hoping that the author had a better editor for the book than they had for the blurb. While I admit that writing blurbs isn’t my strength, I know one that works. This one didn’t. At least not for me. It was confusing and, worse, didn’t show the level of writing I’d expect from a so-called master of any genre.

A blurb should tease the reader with just enough information about the plot to get them to buy the book. The genre should be clear in from what’s in the blurb. The main characters should be introduced. The voice of the book should be there as well. But, most of all, the blurb should be well-written, as well-written as the book itself. This is the reader’s’ first introduction to the book, just as it is quite often their first introduction to the author.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is this: if you want to call yourself a writer, you need to remember that writing is your profession. You have to act about writing like it is your job. If you work as a teacher or an accountant, or as anything else, you don’t go onto your boss’ blog or discussion board and act like an ass. At least not if you want to keep your job. If you turn in a report, you make sure it is well-written and accurate. You need to do the same as a writer. Take pride in your work but understand that not everyone is going to like it. Make sure you what you put out is well-edited and formatted. Most of all, remember that anything you say on the internet is there to be found, even if you take it down. Remember that before hitting “enter”.

Okay, stepping off the soap box now and pointing everyone over to Kris Rusch’s announcement of new workshops, including some online ones, for those who are interested. I’m off to see what I can juggle in my financial commitments so I can take at least one of the workshops.