Adam-Troy Castro

Writer of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Stories About Yams.

 

One More Thing Not To Say To Writers

Posted on March 23rd, 2017 by Adam-Troy Castro

Originally published on Facebook 23 March 2016.

Because people don’t quite get this: if you liked my book and want to tell me so, fine. If you got it from the library, fine. If you borrowed a copy from a friend, fine. A used bookshop, fine.

However, it is not necessary to tell me, at length, how you obtained your copy if the upshot is that you didn’t buy it in a way that supports my efforts.

It is especially not necessary to explain, as so many of you have, that your entire local circle of friends have formed a cheapskate syndicate and all chipped in to buy one copy and that you passed it amongst yourselves, while asking me in the next sentence why the publisher didn’t spring for a third book in the trilogy.

I will take your compliments. Or your questions. Fine. Or even your criticisms. Fine. Your anecdotes about how something I wrote pulled you from the abyss…yes.

But don’t try to entertain me at a convention, as so many of you have, with stories of how the twelve of you got together before my novel came out and made plans to circumvent giving me any more than one sale.

I’ve heard that ten or twenty times. From grinning faces waiting for approval.

Don’t say this to me with a big grin on your face and expect me to compliment you on your inventiveness. Why do you think this will make any struggling author happy?

And by the way, this is not me telling you that I hate you for doing it. I’m a book reviewer. I know all about shnorring free copies.

Nor do you need to fill the comments thread with sad replies explaining why you live in sad poverty-afflicted circumstances going back to childhood and have a therapy pigeon and can’t afford books, blah blah blah. Usually including lots of tales of your Dickensian mistreatment…”so I didn’t want to pay for your book.” You don’t need to summarize that I’m an awful person for not understanding your special problems, before circling around to the same question: why did your publishing house drop the series? I want more!

I am just saying. If you’re going to talk to writers, it is perfectly reasonable to expect you to learn how to be a gushing fan without providing those writers with unwanted additional information that slaps them in their faces.

3 Responses to "One More Thing Not To Say To Writers"

  1. However, feel free to tell the author, “I bought your book and liked it so much I bought six more copies to give as gifts.”

  2. Seriously. Common…Sense.

  3. I think I’ll just stick with “Thank you for writing =insert book tile here=! I enjoyed it very much and have been recommending it to my friends. I look forward to reading more by your in the future!”

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