My Pledge

I wasted way too much time yesterday reading through another author meltdown in response to a bad review. I couldn't tear myself away, because he just kept responding, digging deeper and deeper.

It was horrible.

It had already gone viral, which is how I happened across it. The author has now been removed from GoodReads. Not only had he violated TOS by harassing and attacking a reviewer (and yes, nasty personal things were said), but then he put up a blog post saying he would send free copies to anyone who would give him a 5-star review.

Sigh.

I'm not going to re-link to it here, and I suspect most of you will have heard of it already, anyway. After all, there were at least three blog posts put up about it over the weekend. Those were just the ones someone linked to. Not only that, but they grabbed screen captures of stuff that has now been removed.

No, the point in posting this is to make a pledge to my future readers that I will not attack you if you give an honest review. I'll curl up in the fetal position, rock for awhile, sob, eat a lot of ice cream. But I will not attack you. I will likely take it personally, even though I know better, but I will still not attack you. I may write bad sad poetry about it, or journal about it, but I will not attack you. (Okay, just kidding about the bad sad poetry and journaling, but hey, it's an option.)

What's the point in reviews if they aren't honest? I realize I just have short works published in anthologies/magazines, so I haven't felt that pain yet, but I'm seeing over and over authors that flat out state that it is an attack if you give them a low rating on a book, and that you should not have left the review if you didn't like it. They insist that only good reviews should be posted. Well then, why post reviews? Why? If people can't depend upon them being honest (and I realize we already can't), why bother?

This guy went so far as to call the reviewer evil and immoral. And worse.

Mind = blown.

So why not join me in a pledge to your readers? Hell, if some creative human being out there wants to make a badge of the Author's Pledge, I'll happily post it.

Don't know the unspoken rule?

DO NOT ENGAGE.

Did you see the review I'm talking about? How many times have you seen an author go over the edge due to a bad review? What do you feel are the unspoken rules for authors reading their own reviews? Do you read your reviews or skip them?

May you find your Muse.

Car Over the Cliff by OCAL
Hand by Shannon