erastes

I was going to write a blog post today about authors not being capable of FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS (not all of them, obviously) (and I’m one of them, LOL) but I’ve just noticed that Keta Diablo has had a right paddy over at her blog about a not-favourable review she had on Speak Its Name. And the camel’s back just broke.

Normally this wouldn’t bother me one iota, but this does for two reasons. 1. She keeps insisting that I wrote the review and I did not, despite the fact that I have told her this and 2. brings up a larger point, which I’m going to hash out to myself here, because frankly I’m sick of sitting on my hands and being the better person when everyone and his dog is entitled to bitch—which is that of “authors who review.”

Notice I didn’t say that “should authors review?” because there’s no such thing as “should anyone do anything.”

Ms Diablo makes the most amazing statement right at the top of her blog, which flies in the face of everything I’ve ever known about writers, and the art of writing, and all the advice about writing I’ve ever read. She says:

Authors first and foremost are writers. Not readers and not reviewers.

My jaw dropped at that. All authors (ok, maybe not Dan Brown) (joke) are READERS and are readers first and foremost. Every single book/blog/author’s advice connected to writing says READ READ READ READ READ READ READ

Lets look at possibly one of the most famous review places– shall we? The New York Times? These reviewers may review more genres than I mention, but I simply went to the sites to have a quick look, so my info is based on one glance.

Walter Russell Mead - reviews non fiction. WRITES non-fiction

Dwight Garner reviews biographical books – writes ditto.

Joe Nocera – reviews financial books – surprise surprise – REVIEWS financial books.

I could probably go on and on, but I’m not going to labour the already made point. Writers read and writers review. A journal/blog/newspaper is more likely to take on a writer than someone who has no experience but simply a love of books because the journal is going to want someone who knows HOW TO WRITE.

And readers are – and I am quite sure of this because I’ve been told over and over again by the readers of Speak Its Name – more likely to trust someone who has knowledge in the field they are critiquing than someone who knows bugger all about it. I would take—for example—Alex Beecroft’s views on an Age of Sail novel or something set in the 18th century because she’s researched the hell out of it, and she’s a damned good writer. If she tells me it’s good, I’ll risk my pennies on it, even if I’ve never read any of her reviews before, because I’ve read her books and know what standards she holds books up to.

Of course authors are a good choice to review the genre they write. If PD James reviewed a book (and you loved PD James) wouldn’t you automatically then buy what she recommended?

As to the “authors shouldn’t endorse books” thing. Well, that’s just silly. Who does get to put an endorsement on your book? Joe Bloggs of Maine? or Jamie O’Neill if you can get him?

Now – as to the “politics” and “conflict of interest” Ms Diablo refers to so often. I only ever see this complaint from disgruntled authors, to be honest.

Firstly: other authors aren’t my “colleagues.” That implies we are all working at the same company—at the same cliff face and we aren’t.

That being said—I don’t consider other authors to be my “rivals” either. This is something author-reviewers are constantly accused of thinking (only, of COURSE only after they’ve delivered a less-than-favourable-review, you never hear it after a glowing review do ya?) and there is NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST. There’s actually more of a conflict of interest if I was to give a glowing five star-highly recommended-do not miss this book-review to an author. You might say “Blimey, Erastes, that’s a bit stupid. Now everyone will go and buy THEIR book and not yours.” But strangely, no ones ever said that! Odd, that. The only time Conflict of Interest is mooted is after a three star and less review when the author-reviewer is OBVIOUSLY dunning down other authors simply to increase their own sales.

Writers, you can’t have it unilaterally.

Seriously though. If ever I wrote a hack and slash review of a book (which I don’t think I ever have, I dislike the vicious but “funny” approach because all that does is give the reviewer cachet, which is not the point of it all) would I expect that MY sales would go up?

No! Of course not! That’s errant bilge. Why would someone go and buy books from a person who has trashed another person?

Ms Diablo says she made a cardinal sin of commenting on the review. I don’t know why she thought that. OK, I often advise author never to comment publically because it stops them looking like arses—oh, right—but I would never delete or block a comment from an author if they wish to view their opinion. The “sin” she made and one I dealt with with a terse reply was simply to correct her erroneous statement that I had written the review. It seems she still doesn’t believe me. Perhaps she thinks that Bruin Fisher (and the other brave reviewers I have over at Speak Its Name) are all me under sock puppet names. Not so, obviously and a quick Google would put anyone right on that matter.

Mr Fisher is—admittedly—a writer, and he has written historical fiction, but he’s still emerging from the chrysalis and his wings are a tad damp. His wingbeats are not going to cause a tornado which will stop all readers reading Diablo’s books and rushing to buy Mr Fisher’s writing. Surely someone sees how silly this assertion is?

I take exception—also, to the fact that Speak Its Name is nothing but a shopfront for my own books. "Ms Diablo says:

authors who hang a shingle out and call their blog a "review site" are performing a horrendous disservice to readers.

Speak Its Name has been reviewing for four years now. It is not my blog. We’ve reviewed nearly 500 titles and have pulled together a genre which simply did not exist in 2007. Granted it would have happened anyway, but I like to think that it helped to give the genre a cohesion—to help authors find each other. Yes, we are honest about our reviews and I will never apologise for that. If you write 1. gay 2. historical 3. fiction we will take all three factors in consideration. I know that there are some sites which refuse to give less than three stars—that’s their choice. But I feel that, if everything is praised, how can you know what is actually good and what is phoned in Hollywood un-researched crud?

It would be easier, let’s be honest, to give everything a glowing review. And it would (temporarily) lead to more Amazon referral fees for me. But once people had read one or two books that I’d said was GRRRRREAT! and were actually “meh” they wouldn’t come back to Speak Its Name again, the trust would be gone.

This attitude that disgruntled authors have—this “you are dissing my books because you is jealous” attitude—is putting people off from doing reviews. And that’s not good.