Eyre posted today about nice authors and the one whose books she’ll never read. It reminded me of my own experience with an author, who shall remain nameless, a few years ago. I admit up front that it was my own mistake that led to this, but the author’s response to it left me feeling very alienated as a reader.
I read my first m/m romance somewhere in 2008. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though the story was rather a tragic one. I emailed the author and told her how much I’d liked the story. I didn’t realize at the time that her address was automatically added to my contacts.
A little time passed and my son was born. I emailed some photos to friends and family. I saw her email address in my contacts (no name attached) and assumed it belonged to my best friend’s mother. I sent out a few emails with photos and soon got a reply, though not the sort I was expecting. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was basically of the “Who’s sending me this shit? Fuck off!” variety. After a little research with my gmail account, I found that I’d been sending things to this author by mistake. I felt awful for apparently bothering her to such an extent that she would curse in an email, but I also felt her response was a bit over the top. I did apologize to her and explain my mistake.
I realize that she didn’t know who she was ranting at when she sent off that email – the same as I didn’t realize who I was unintentionally spamming. But the fact remains that I felt disturbed by the whole sorry business and have never tried to read anything by her since.
Now, my experience might seem pretty silly to some, but it was enough to turn me off the author completely. It was some time before I even read another m/m romance. Eventually, though, I made it back into the genre and have been reading my little heart out since.
Have any of you ever had a bad experience with an author? In any genre?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Anesthezea,
I don’t think what you’ve said is silly at all. I get emails from strangers all the time. Most of it is spam, but every now and then someone honestly sends me an email thinking that I’m someone else. Usually it’s one of my students or their parents. There’s nothing wrong with sending a polite message to the sender saying, “I’m not sure, but I think you’re sending these to the wrong address.” Why be rude? It’s not like you were selling viagra. They were baby pictures for goodness sake! Anyone who took a moment to think about that would have realized that it was probably just an honest mistake. Cursing was not an appropriate way for that person to respond. He/she could have just blocked you or marked all your emails as spam. Nastiness wasn’t called for. It all boils down to something simple that is often lacking in today’s society–common manners.
It always upsets me when people choose not to treat others with respect. I even responded politely to the woman who wrote and told me I was poisoning young people’s minds. Email is an incredible means of communication in may ways, but I think it can be too easy for some to forget that, with the exception offers to improve your credit score, and increase the size of your… personal fortune, there’s a real live person on the other end of those messages. Perhaps some people really don’t care, but I want to believe that most just forget.