This is my little pigeon friend, I think he’s quite handsome, don’t you? He made his first appearance for that now absent Snowflake Princess, Raani York. I wanted something to visually express my – distaste-, I guess you could say, for her all too obvious manipulation of people and situations to her advantage.
The pigeon sprang to mind because, well, of what springs to mind when you think of or see a pigeon. What has this to do with author Amy Spalding you ask? Wellllll, Spalding is just the latest author who has jumped on the “let me make a total ass of myself” promotion bandwagon.
Now let me be clear, Spalding has some excellent and some not so excellent company. I don’t fault her, in a way, for believing she has picked a winning strategy. In case you have been offline or on a deadline or just totally absorbed in a really good book, here’s what little Amy tweeted yesterday.
How- precious. Now, if you aren’t an author or if you aren’t an author with an intelligence deficit, you might be wondering whatever possessed her. Did she not consider what might happen when she blithely tweeted this? I think she not only considered it, she was counting on it.
OMG, dear readers, all seven of you, we took hours, hours to get mad at her. I feel like I should apologize, could someone tell me if being late for a reaction to a tweet by an author that none of my friends or myself recognize is worse than being late for a dinner at the White House? I feel positively guilty for not finding this little gem sooner. My only excuse has to be that my little feathered friend and his friends found it first.
Ye-ah, it’s hard to see it through all that, uh, pigeon poop. And it’s hard to separate her poop from the pigeons’, because poop (being polite here) is what this is. So I had to wonder why an author who had two books already on the market would resort to this poopy ploy (say it fast three times).
Look, she’s got a book coming out in April. Got to get her name out there somehow. I would say she’s a little on the early side but maybe she’s hoping to generate some sympathy buys for her two previous books.
Her first book has 47 reviews with an average of 4.0 and her second, oops, only 17 reviews with a 3.6 average on Amazon. Now over on GR
we see what really is Spalding’s problem. Her first book, TRML (initials, not giving her any more promotion than necessary to make my point), has 282 reviews with a 3.88 rating. Most of the complaints are about her lead character(s). Readers didn’t like her/them much. Her second book, ITTW, has 81 reviews, big drop there, and a 3.66 rating and readers are still not liking her main characters(s).
Something went wrong for Spalding, a significant drop in reviews between books and a lot of the same complaints about what readers didn’t like. Still, her books are above the midpoint and I know a lot of authors that would pay good money for, kill, appreciate having that many reviews.
Whatever her reasons Spalding has chosen the public, reviewer/blogger chastising, no-really it’s all in fun potential career killer approach. So many reviewers, so not amused. Spalding’s books go on our “not now, not ever” lists or shelves because there are so many authors who want and deserve reviews so why should we waste our time with the ones that feel our time is worth nothing more than being used for a cheap laugh and bonding moment between authors who feel we don’t appreciate them and if it makes the author/reviewer situation worse, or at least not any better, I’m sure that Spalding and her friends just don’t give a pigeon poop.
I’ve read the posters who can’t believe that any reviewer could be offended by Spalding’s tweet, the ones that agree with her bingo card, the ones that try to persuade me it was all in good fun.
You know what, I’ve had enough “fun” from authors in the past year, and I know I’m not the only one. How could any author, any author, look at the uncertain and at times downright hostile and sometimes (and sometimes is too many times) frightening relationships between themselves and bloggers/reviewers and believe that posting something like this anywhere public is just so damned cute?
I wish that authors who feel that this is the best way to generate buzz and sales would suffer from permanent writer’s block, they all seem to want the same things – good reviews for usually bad or indifferent writing, admiration and recognition for their slightest effort, veto power over critical reviews, reviewers as beta readers and editors.
You don’t want to read another review that criticizes your unlikeable or unbelievable characters, your weak plots, the Texas-sizes plot holes, the grammar and spelling? Then spend your lunch hours or your evenings improving your skills.
Some readers/reviewers/ bloggers are going to be thinking just like this
Until that time, here’s what I think of your “something great”.
I enjoy a new Esther Diamond book, she’s a more competent but still hilariously calamitous paranormal Stephanie Plum. In her 7th outing Esther’s career and bank account look promising as she is offered more television work as Jilly Cnote but her love life looks abysmal as the handsome but close-minded Lopez can’t see beyond the normal.
38 Caliber Reviews 