I came across a thread about me on a blog this morning. I try to read as many of these as I find so I can thank the authors when they review my book or post one of my videos.
This one was different. It made me laugh because parts of it were funny (I dress up as a blonde pirate for Youtube — laughing at myself is one of my favorite pasttimes). But at the same time it made me feel remorse for the anonymity of the internet to further the spread of things-that-are-not-facts.
I’m no longer bothered much by critical posts against me. In the past year I’ve gotten Amazon reviews from people who never read my book but had issues with my publishers, and rated me 1 star because of that (quoting lines which never appear in the novel). I had multiple 1-star reviews on blogs before I had even finished the manuscript of the book they were supposedly reviewing. Youtube hate is another world of its own.
When I realized that the majority of people who criticize anonymously don’t even know what they’re criticizing, I truly stopped caring. You will never see a professional critic speak of another work without signing their name to it. I enjoy reading solid criticism of my writing because it makes me better. However, where there is anonymous and pointless hate, there is usually also lack of logic.
A blog saying that I am using my TwilightGuy blog to ride on Stephenie Meyer’s coattails to promote my book is laughably uninformed. If I was, I certainly would have written a novel with vampires, or at least aimed at that audience. Because of my blog’s success, I was approached to write a vampire book. It is not easy to turn down a book deal, especially when vampires are the craze. But that is not the story I wanted to write.
A blog saying that I’m riding on Harry Potter’s coattails is partly accurate, because most books now would not be read if not for JK Rowling making reading fun again. But I was one of those children who was not allowed to read Harry Potter. I finally cracked open the first this year, after I finished writing my sequel. If I had the chance to read and copy Harry Potter, I would have copied the magic school and flying brooms. But that is not the story I wanted to write.
As for getting where I am now — wherever that may be — my blogs and my Youtube channel became popular after I already had a book deal. They later helped readers find me, but neither helped me get there. I was published after spending nearly half my lifetime working hard. I wrote that story from in my childhood, through school and to college, from the city to the country and back to the city again, in the car, on planes and in hotels, and now I write it from my small apartment in Arizona.
There are hundreds of people who worked just as hard, and many who work even harder than I did, to get published. I researched this business, like everyone else. I queried agents. I got rejections. I waited for painful months for a publisher, like everyone else. I answer boxes of mail and eight inboxes of email by myself. I design, pay for, and manage four websites on my own. I do it because this is my dream. I want to be a writer, and all this work and sacrifice and time I spend when I’m 22 and could be out doing fun things with friends will be worth it in the end. I want to show all the other young writers who are like I was five years ago that it can and does happen if you want it badly enough.
To criticize authors who use Youtube and Twitter and the Internet to publicize their work is degrading to every writer who doesn’t get paid seven-figures on their first book. Even JK Rowling went on a school tour, and even she has stood in stores where only eight people showed. Every writer has to work hard in the beginning.
So maybe I don’t hire a publicist and get major media like JK Rowling does, yet. And maybe I don’t appear on Good Morning America like Stephenie Meyer does, yet. But I do my best to post a video every day, and I spread the word as far as I can from my apartment, until one day I might get the publicist and the giant tours and Good Morning America and I don’t have to stay up working until 3 AM on a Saturday night. Until then, haters gonna hate, and a whole lot of other people will go on believing I can do it.
This illustration by me is riding on the coattails of The Oatmeal
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Posted in About Me, Writing
