Readers respond …
One of the things that has really awed and humbled me is how many reader e-mails that I’ve gotten for Spider’s Bite. I’m just estimating here, but I think I can safely say that I’ve already gotten more e-mails in the three weeks that Spider’s Bite has been out than I got for all of the Bigtime books — combined.
And you know what the truly awesome thing is? Almost all of the e-mails have been really, really positive. 😉
I thought that some folks might be disappointed with Spider’s Bite since it is so much darker and grittier than the Bigtime books, but everyone seems to be really enjoying the world of Gin Blanco. In fact, several folks have written to tell me that they like Spider’s Bite more than they do the Bigtime books. It really seems like people are responding more to the dark and gritty reads these days, especially in urban fantasy and paranormal romance.
Of course, it’s not all been wine and roses. One lady e-mailed me to say that she didn’t think that I should use giants and dwarves in Spider’s Bite because she had watched some reality TV shows where people had made fun of real-life dwarves. Um … okay.
I wrote her back and told her that giants/dwarves have long been popular characters in all kinds of fantasy books, that there are good and bad guy giants/dwarves in my books, and that I’m not making fun of real-life dwarves at all. She wrote me back and thanked me for explaining my position and said that she hadn’t read that many fantasy books — she was mostly going by what she had seen on TV.
She was very gracious and polite about the whole thing, but it still made me think — why do people e-mail authors in the first place?
Of course, I understand e-mailing and author to tell her how much you enjoyed her work. I do that myself, and I certainly appreciate it as an author. Writing is a hard, lonely business and getting a positive e-mail from a reader really does brighten my whole day.
But I wonder about other e-mails that authors get — the ones that aren’t so nice. I haven’t gotten any myself, but I’ve heard horror stories from other authors about people who e-mail them to complain about their books, their characters, or whatever. I’m not talking about bad reviews — I’m talking about personal e-mails where people are basically ripping an author up one side and down the other.
I’ve always wondered why people do that kind of thing in the first place. Why waste your time e-mailing someone to tell her how much you hated her latest book? Why not put the book aside and just go on about your life? Why not save your energy for the books/authors that you love?
I guess I just don’t understand why people use their precious free time to do that sort of thing. Maybe it’s because I work at a newspaper. You would not believe the calls that we get — every single day. And you know what? Half of them are people calling to complain about something. Why didn’t we do this story? Why was so-and-so on the front page? We’re Republicans, we’re Democrats, we don’t have the good sense that God gave a toothpick. And on and on and on … It’s like folks don’t understand that there are actual real-life people who work at the newspaper, people with feelings. Nobody likes to be yelled at — especially before 9 a.m. But I have been — plenty of times. The sad thing is that it’s happened so much that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.
And I’ve heard about authors being lambasted like that. There’s so much negativity in the world already, so many bad things that happen. I guess I don’t understand why people add to it this way.
Ah, well. Enough ruminating for one day. To all the folks out there who do take the time to contact authors and tell us that you like our books, you guys are the reason that we write in the first place. You rock! 😉
As for those other folks, maybe I don’t have the sense that God gave a toothpick — but at least I don’t go out of my way to be rude and mean to people like you do.