I was taken aback when I learned several years ago that a local romance writer has to have someone running physical interference when she does book signings. Most of the time, over-enthusiastic lady fans who offer a hug or something similar are the problem. They love the books, and want to pass that love back to the writer. Even with a large, book-laden table between them. The real risk comes from the people who think that the writer is the book, or vice versa, or who vehemently disagree with the writer’s genre or treatment of a subject. After one or two of those, the writer has a friend with her who keeps an eye on the folks in line, and is ready to intervene and call for more help if needed. Keep in mind, this writer does only sweet romance, very rarely slightly spicy romance. Nothing really spicy, no erotica, no details once the bedroom door closes.
Unfortunately, there are some people who think that the writer is his or her subject matter. John Ringo has had to deal with people who thought he shared the hobbies of some of his characters, especially the Kildar (Paladin of Shadows series). Ah, that would be a huge “Nope!” He’s not the only one. Recently, a paranormal romance writer had to block someone on-line when the gent became a wee bit too personally curious. From the bigger-name writers I’ve listened to and talked to, romance is the fiction genre with the highest likelihood of problems. Sweet romance, Amish romance (very, very clean sweet romance), PNR, doesn’t matter, someone latches onto the books and the author and makes an unfortunate assumption. It predates the internet, as Stephen King all-too-graphically showed in his every-writer’s-nightmare of Misery.
I’ve encountered similar, but in a different area. The behavior is the problem, not the genre or profession. So what’s a writer to do? Or a non-writer for that matter, alas. The world is rather different than it was ten, twenty years ago, or even four years ago.
Book signings are almost extinct, at least on the scale they used to be done. However, if you are not at something like LibertyCon, where people are on the watch for other people’s bad behavior, keeping a table between you and the public is a good idea, if possible. Granted, that doesn’t stop some people, well-meaning or otherwise, but it is a barrier. A friendly but firm individual who reads body language and can deflect trouble before it starts is also very good, or lacking that, a store employee who is able to call for back-up. Be ready to react, and have gamed-out “if this, then I would… If that, then …” That sort of planning is instinct in my by now, but it’s not bad to do. After all, what would you do if you were in the back of a book store, browsing, and the fire alarm went off? If an unpleasant commotion started up front? Where are the doors? Can you get out them?
Internet safety. Ah, where do I start? We all know the basics – don’t put personal information on-line if possible [glares at FaceBook]*. Use a pen-name and screen name that are not tied to your personal information [glares harder at FaceBook]. Pay attention to requests for chats and messages that start going to the edge of professional and beyond. Often they are easy to spot and block, as with the PNR writer I mentioned above. All the usual rules about phishing apply as well. I personally do not want my face on-line, because of Day Job among other things. You might not have a problem with that. I’m also careful about identifying information in photos that I post on my blog or social media. Yes, someone with good enough tools could pin down locations. But I don’t make it easy.
It’s sad that we have to be aware of possible trouble. Writers are not their books. And in some ways, most of us fiction writers are fortunate. We do write fiction. No one wants to kill us because of our political, theological, or social commentary. As far as I know, no one believes that they will get an eternal reward for removing from existence a writer who eschews the Oxford comma. [glances left and right] As far as I know.
Image Credit: Author Photo, Scottish National Museum, Edinburgh, June, 2022. You probably don’t need one of these at a signing, unless you write time-travel romances set in Scotland. Or on a pirate ship. Or yes.
*In the late 2010s, FB “outed” a writer who had her FB account under her pen name. It was a legal DBA (doing business as, in other words a business registered with her state and the IRS), but FB decided that it had to be linked with her personal information, per their Terms of Service at the time. To her horror, she found her private information freely available to anyone who looked at her author page. It took a lot of legal work and documentation to get FB to relent and accept her business name as a separate business, not an attempt to get around the TOS.
Mad Genius Club 
29 responses to “Safety and the Writer”
One of the reasons why I don’t promote my novels much these days is that I’ve received a number of very troubling communications from people who take the James/Catskinner relationship as autobiographical and wanted to tell me about their own “Catskinners”. Never to the point where I felt it necessary to involve law enforcement, but enough to make me determined never to cross paths with them.
“There is a word for people who confuse an author with their characters. That word is ‘idiot ‘.”
I read that in an essay by Larry Niven at least 20 years ago. It was right then, and it’s still right now.
I had forgotten exactly who said it.
Oops… I wanted to find out exactly where I saw it and did a websearch. It turns out I was mistaken; from the page I found:
“There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot.” – S.M. Stirling
Anecdotally, it seems like what draws the crazies is very primal stories: love, sexuality, or violence. Or, of course, ones they find politically offensive.
I adopted a pen identity (DBA) apart from my legal name from the very first. My daughter was still on active duty, my legal last name is fairly rare – and my family was in the phone book, such as it existed. So, no, I didn’t want anything that I posted or publish to excite the rancor of the unbalanced out there.
And, yes – because of my job in the military as a broadcaster, I or others had encountered the occasional unbalanced fan.
Someone once remarked that if you are in the public eye (even in a minor way) you have about a million good friends and three or four really sick enemies, none of whom really know you face to face at all.
I had to laugh… I have a pretty common name (there are several “Karen Myers” folks that show up in author searches — I was lucky to have gotten there first on Amazon and the other indie platforms for the simple (no initials) version. My husband (of Lithuanian descent) often points out to me that if I had actually changed my maiden name, the combo would have been unique in America, and probably the world (on the other hand, it would have been harder to fit onto book covers and puzzling to pronounce).
I don’t object to being findable. On the other hand, I’m the person who coeducated the first sport at Yale when it went co-ed, and that was the Rifle team, so I take a more, um, proactive approach to the possibility of sketchy situations. So far, so good.
This is a large part of why I’m not on facebook, have one of the internet’s most blandly impersonal blogs, and don’t do conventions.
In the late 2010s, FB “outed” a writer who had her FB account under her pen name.
I don’t use Facebook. It fits inside my criteria for “bad for human beings.”
I started to get onto it because a former music professor invited me to join an organists’ group on FB. I balked at all the personal information FB required. That was in the late 1990s. It only got worse from there.
Last time I looked into it, 5+ years back, there were stories of it requiring an image of your driver’s license or similar id. Big No.
It’s SO easy for a reader, even if they AREN’T unbalanced, to forget that there is a REAL PERSON writing those books.
At a 2002 conference I was the driver/guide for a very pleasant young woman who had written a profoundly influential work on the mechanisms of aggression in adolescent females. People were ECSTATIC about the presence of such a luminary at the conference!
She, on the other hand, was only concerned about getting a flight back home in time to make cupcakes for her daughter’s birthday.
WHAT? Are you saying that Great Prophets grow up from little boys and girls, and need bathroom breaks? Tell me it ain’t so!
Sounds like she had good priorities!
Then there are cons where readers and authors get to meet.
I believe that many readers forget that the author doesn’t know them from Adam.
Even if you have interacted with your favorite author on-line, he or she does not know what you look like.
I hate to imagine how many authors going through the con hallways are interrupted by idiots who want to talk with them.
I’m not an active con-goer, but I’d never get in the way of one of favorite writers as he/she is going elsewhere.
TBH, I’m not actually sure how many living authors I could identify by sight. Probably Cedar, because she does podcasts and has distinctive coloring, maybe Sarah, because I’ve noticed her blog portrait a few times. Maaaybe John C. Wright, if he was wearing a hat at the time. Possibly JK Rowling, although it might be more “how many older British women are there with vaguely aquiline features and screaming hordes of fans and haters swarming around them?” than actually having a clear idea of what she looks like.
Point
That’s … an odd one. If you are attending the con in a professional role, then you do have a bit of a duty to chat and wave, unless you are on your way to one of your specific events (it is 10:55, the panel you are on starts at 11:00 …) If you are attending just to attend? Nah. And several cons I’ve been to add ribbons to badges so people know who is there on business (so to speak) and who is just fanning around with everyone else.
True.
But “we” don’t know if the author is in a rush to be somewhere important.
Eh, it’s usually fairly obvious. You’ll see them trying to move quickly, intent on getting somewhere. Or the frequent glances at the watch tell you there’s a shrinking time window.
Seriously, authors don’t make money on cons unless they have a booth; they’re there for the fans, as well as the networking with each other. Is okay to come up and say hi. Is okay after a panel to ask a question or two, unless it’s clear they’re in a hurry (could be another panel, could be food, could be a meeting, could be desperate rush to the bathroom.)
…just please don’t follow authors into the bathroom, or stalk them outside the bathroom.
IMO Some fans are idiots who wouldn’t realize their author was in a rush to be somewhere. 😉
We do a lot of local book shows and arts & craft fairs.
It’s awkward when you meet someone obviously drunk who’s just got to tell you all about himself.
Having a script to disengage yourself is very helpful.
I also don’t do shows by myself. I’ve got my husband with me. I suspect having a man in the booth keeps some of the crazies from harassing 63-yearl-old female me.
If I was much younger and much hotter, I don’t know how difficult that would be.
On the other hand, there are plenty of young, attractive women working the craft show circuit, selling their art and such.
They must have techniques of their own.
Also, it is incumbent on the author to LET others know if they are not comfortable with someone or something. All of our perspectives are different for dealing with ‘issues’… Just sayin…
I wrote this in 2014, but it can still apply. Little did I know that yes, the badges with colors would appear. And now they include pronouns. SIGH. https://almatcboykin.wordpress.com/2014/07/29/look-dont-touch-and-dont-look-cosplay-and-objectification-at-cons/
You eschew the oxford comma? I’m not sure that we can be friends. I must go meditate.
My real name sounds completely fake so I have that going for me.
I occasionally “game out” what I would do at a con when I am a famous author. (Rotated with “when I win the lottery,” and some other amusing scenarios that I don’t think I’ll mention on a blog that the Feebs undoubtedly monitor.)
First, I’ll probably only ever be invited to sit on one panel. Combine a bluntness that could be evenly matched with Larry Correia, Tom Kratman, and our own Sarah Hoyt with a very irritating voice…
Second, even my family tells me that I have a perpetual look of “I’m just looking for someone to kill.” (Really, I’m not – you have to give me a good excuse to do so…)
Third, speaking of good excuses, at my age I am probably going to be rushing to the nearest restroom to offload the current batch of processed caffeine.
Should I ever get to be a famous author, I’ll try to keep a wall at my back and a fire escape in sight.
What I do already, but more of it. Because idiots exist, and look just like everybody else. 😡
Yep. I became paranoid during my teens, and it has served me in good stead since then. When everyone IS out to get you, you learn to be situationally aware.