I don’t know if you’ve been following all the talk about Amazon deranking books, but Dear Author and Smart Bitches have some interesting commentary up, as usual, and lots of links to other sites. So go forth and read, if you want.

Whenever I hear stories about something like this or even horror stories about authors behaving badly, I always wonder what people were thinking. Seriously. Did Amazon think no one was going to notice what they were doing? Did they think the authors and publishers affected wouldn’t complain?

The same thing goes for authors behaving badly. Yeah, we all get bad reviews and snarky comments. But posting your own snarky comments and arguing with reviewers or telling your fans to attack them or whatever isn’t going to help you any.

Because someone somewhere is going to find your comments and bad behavior on the World Wide Web and point them out. Other people will see this and blog about it. And then, it’s going to go viral and be everywhere. And then, you’re going to look like the dumbass you are.

And it’s not just Amazon or authors or folks on the Internet. I work at a newspaper, and you wouldn’t believe the calls we get just for reporting the news. Seriously. I’ve gotten calls about everything from my poor grammar skills (one guy told me I needed to take an English class) to those who wonder why we put so much bad news in the paper. Um, well, because the economy’s in the crapper right now, and it’s hurting a lot of people.

Sigh. Can’t we all just get along? :rolleyes: