Me and Pottery Barn: Jackbooted Thugs

So, it's been a fun week on the World Wide Web. It all started with Angie's memorable last article on author-manipulated reviews (good? bad? discuss.) found here: http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/?p=506

It seems a book had gotten a one star review, and the book's author found the review mean-spirited and had Amazon take it down. As a writer, I found the topic fascinating, but dismaying. On the one hand, although I am very fond of the writer in question, I read the review, and although the reviewer didn't pull any punches, neither was the review mean-spirited. It wasn't personal, he didn't call her mother fugly. He sure didn't like her book, though.

And that happens. Hey, I've gotten my nose bloodied a few times by less-than-warm reviews. (Mrs. Giggles, anybody?)

What I found disturbing is that the writer complained to Amazon and they took down the review. Which completely negates Amazon as a credible site where you can read all reviews: the good, the bad, the snarky.

But I've also read a bad review and thought, "If only I could take this woman out for coffee and explain myself. Then she'd like me. I mean, like my book."

So I weighed in on the subject. I suggested writers shouldn't live and die over reviews because anybody can post a review on Amazon and it wasn't worth getting sweaty over.

Interestingly, many, many, many people interpreted this to mean I had joined the Nazi party, lost my tiny little mind, and advocated that only PhD candidates be allowed to review romance novels.

I know. It sounds a little silly, doesn't it? Well. Asinine and absurd, to be blunt. But the really weird part (besides being called "spineless", and a "one note wonder" at Smart Bitches, and "immature" and "shitful" among other things on various other blogs) was that people all over the web took up the fake debate: SHOULD only PhD candidates be allowed to review romance novels?

A shocking number of people said yes. They were trying to defend me, to their credit, but it was still weird. Weirder than that was just this: anybody who knows my background knows I come from a long, proud line of redneck assholes. No college degree. Barely squeaked through high school, truth be told. My parents refused to pay for college because they didn't think I was smart enough to handle the workload. So the last thing I would ever demand is that only the literary elite be allowed to review books.

But all over the web, the debate raged. A few intrepid fans tried to point out that I had obviously been joking, obviously been sarcastic, and obviously didn't think only writers with doctorates in chemical engineering be allowed to review romance novels. To no avail: the debate over the fake question continued.

Dozens of people jumped on comment boards all over the web to mention how immature, stupid, asshole-esque, and generally insane I clearly was. Oh, and my books sucked, too. And even if they didn't suck (which they probably did), vowed never, ever to read one of my books. All because I wanted only PhD candidates to review my books. Which, no one seemed to notice, was not what I wanted, or even said.

I summed it up on Smart Bitches. I couldn't resist jumping in one last time. I posted this:

"MJD the one note wonder here. Someone on this string made a great point: how many blog pages and comments boxes have been used up by writers explaining they don’t pay attention to reviews? Gobs. Which in itself says something, whether we want it to or not. Assuming everyone reading the same posts can agree about what they’re saying, which is far from guaranteed.

"Heck, in various strings, people have read posts and decided: I’m hilarious. No, I’m a rabid foaming bitch who should be gagged, sedated, then shot, probably without a silencer. No, it’s all tongue in cheek. No, it’s mean.

"Or: poor innocent Karen Scott, minding her own business when MJD went off like a mad dog (who should be gagged, sedated, then shot). No, Karen was a jerk and MJD took her down a peg. No, she didn’t. Yes, she did. Shut up. YOU shut up.

"Or: MJD offended everyone in the world, forever. No, she explained herself. No, she didn’t explain; she’s spineless. No, we just didn’t get it. Yes, we did: she’s an arse.

"And: MJD is a jackbooted thug who thinks only PhD candidates should review her books. No, she doesn’t even have a college degree; proof she’s the last person who would think that. Well, maybe, but she’s still a spineless shifty-eyed loser dumbass whore. Well, okay, I’ll give you that one.

"My point, and I do have one (and let’s hope I make this one better than the first one, and whoops, there went my spine, I just slithered into a boneless pile right in front of my screen), is that it doesn’t matter how many posts there are on a topic, how many explanations, how much debate, how much name-calling...people are going to make up their own minds. If they didn’t before they even waded in. If you educate someone, awesome. If you change their mind, great. If you don’t, that’s okay too. Either way: I know a lot more about reviews, reviewers, and Amazon than I did on Monday. And that’s for sure."

That's pretty much my last word on the whole issue, except for this blog, of course. But it's amazing that people who read the same posts had such wildly divergant reactions to them. Whether I'm a literary snob, a jackbooted asshat, or misunderstood, the lesson is clear: be careful what you post, because the debate could rage. And who doesn't love a good argument?