Hands up who forgot to put her new release on her own blog…

While I fully support the blogger blackout this poor, absent-minded author needs all the help she can get. 😉

KJ Charles

Look, it’s been busy, okay? In the last six weeks I have left my job, released a story in the Another Place in Time anthology, done a lot of freelance editing work, written a metric ton of blogs for Queer Romance Month including these on historical romance and happy ever afters, announced the sale of my Regency gay romance trilogy to Loveswept, and lined up another project TBA shortly. And it’s my birthday tomorrow. Frankly, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I forgot to put my own blog tour and new release on my own blog.

*abandons plans to launch social media promotional service company*

Right, well. Flight of Magpies is out (*cough*yesterday*cough*), the reviews are nice, and you can find the various bits as follows (the giveaway runs till 2 Nov so you may still have time to enter):

• A blog post about tattooed Victorian aristocracy…

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National Cat Day

O Canada

 “True patriot love in all thy sons command.” -lyric from O Canada

The funeral of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was held today.

Author Jenny Trout Lays Out The Blogger Blackout and Exposes Some A-Holes In the Process

Don’t Attack Reviewers

Thanks to Tez Miller for the link to this excellent blog.

In support of all bloggers and reviewers

Review policies, or How To Not Become A Stalking Author

K J Charles is definitely #YesAuthor and, once again, offers some good thoughts on a very bad situation.

KJ Charles

It hasn’t been an impressive time for the author community in the last few days. Kathleen Hale got a full page article in the Guardian (trigger warning for stalking, general warning for repellent disingenuousness and dishonesty) which allowed her to massively extend her stalking campaign against a reviewer. Another author one-upped Hale by travelling the length of Britain to hit a reviewer over the head with a wine bottle, leaving her needing stitches and pressing charges. What next? The British government selling arms to writing groups on the sly?

This behaviour, coming on top of far too many incidents of online and other harassment, has led to a lot of angry pushback, including a number of blogs holding review blackouts to make the point that authors need reviewers. I see reviewers saying things like, “I’m going to stop reviewing, it’s not worth the stress,” or “I’m only going to…

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Blythe Harris and the stalker

There You Have It

(Rough draft of what I’ve written for my own blog.  Comments?)

I read Laura Miller’s piece at Salon.com regarding the Harris/Hale incident and no, I don’t think it was balanced.  Far from it.

But since the only way to respond is to give Salon access to my friends list on Facebook, I guess I won’t be responding directly.  I’m too tired to figure out how to use my Google identity.

Identity is precisely the issue that Miller’s piece misses.

Miller gave Kathleen Hale specifically a distinct identity, mainly just by using her name and linking to the essay she got published in The Guardian.  Blythe Harris, regardless whether that’s her real name or not, was stripped of personhood by Miller.  She was just another nameless, dehumanized blogger instead of a reader and reviewer with a name and a style and fans.  She was lumped in with all the other bloggers…

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Dear Goodreads, who has to start bleeding?

Dear Goodreads,

So this week another author/stalker has come to light, this one publishing her misdeeds proudly for all the world to see. And predictably there were those that found her actions heroic and brave and that the blogger in question “had it coming to her” for blogging under an alias.

But I can’t talk about that when I review her book and I’m surprised you are leaving up all those comments on various reviews and ratings because you deleted mine and gave me a warning that I couldn’t discuss the actions of the author who called me at home. It will be interesting to see how long all those comments remain up after the weekend, unless because it was just mainly me commenting on getting a phone call from someone bent on intimidation it was easier to shut down and (try to) shut up because there wasn’t so many and the author wasn’t so stupid as to admit the real content and intent of her call/

I guess this one you might not be able to sweep under the rug, though I am sure you would like to.

Here’s my question, when are you going to wake up and realize this behavior isn’t going away? When are you going to realize that trying to silence those who are stalked isn’t going to work? And when will you realize that by your actions you are complicit with the authors/readers/bloggers/reviewers (it isn’t just one group that has the crazies) that stalk, harass, intimidate?

Being quiet isn’t working, telling us to only focus on the book isn’t working.  This only gives encouragement to those authors who are so entitled, so delusional, so far removed from the realm of reasonable behavior to actively go after reviewers.

Kathleen Hale has any number of supporters, including Anne Rice and now Margo Howard, she has the Guardian for a platform. She has a lot of people who believe that her actions were brave or heroic or justified. This just encourages her or the next out of control author to keep going, to do whatever they want to.

Somebody’s going to get physically hurt, then can we post a warning? Who has to start bleeding before we can talk about the actions of an author when reviewing a book?

Could you get back to me when you stop washing your hands?

Sincerely,

Mahala- who is not quite as silent as you want her to be

Dearest Writer: Nobody Owes You Shit

Good reading from Chuck Wendig.