I'm a member of a closed group for writers on Facebook. A few days ago, another member boasted that - after no sales on Amazon - he changed the title, author's name, and cover image of his e-book and it started selling.
I've just posted the following comment (I can't separate paragraphs in Facebook comments):
"So, you feel that it's perfectly alright to use a "sexy" image of a headless woman (like a piece of meat) to sell your book. +++ 380 members of Russia's parliament feel that it's perfectly alright for men to beat their wives. They've just decriminalised wife-beating (the vote was 380-3!!!) +++ Thousands of Spanish men feel that it's perfectly alright to kill women with whom they have personal problems. (There's a Spanish saying: "I killed her because she was mine.") So far this year (as of 20th Feb.), 11 of them have carried through. +++ Donald Trump feels that it's perfectly alright - FOR HIM - to make a grab at any woman's genitals. *** Just 4 points on the nasty, sleazy spectrum of misogyny. At least now I'll know to avoid any books by Scott Butcher / Tabitha Scott. But don't worry! You'll get the readers that you deserve."
What do the rest of you think? Is everything permissible to get people to buy your book?
Is 50 shades misogynistic? I just found it very dull, but then I only managed to read 2 pages.
In my few years on this forum, I have rarely seen a ‘thumbs down’. People seem too polite to use them. I have also – so far as I can remember – never seen a comment that harvested more than 3 ‘thumbs up’. Most users don’t seem to even consider the possibility. I have seen cases of OPs effusive in thanks for useful replies to their questions… but no ‘thumbs up’ for the person who gave that reply/help.
No problem. Some of us show our appreciation, others don’t. At least not by way of thumbs. After relatively long association with Victoria on THE Saga (https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/question/view/2644), I’m well aware that she enjoys the others’ comments… but doesn’t often award ‘thumbs up’.
‘Thumbs up’ can mean one of 2 things (perhaps both… and perhaps other possibilities which don’t occur to me just now):
‘I agree with what this writer has written’; and/or
‘Whether or not I agree, I am impressed with the writer’s skill in expressing their opinion’.
Ah yes! And – of course – ‘Thank you for your helpful advice/opinion/information.’
Anyway, I repeat: ‘Thumbs down’ are VERY rare. ‘Thumbs up’ are not all that common.
So step forward, Jonathan Hopkins and Victoria Fielding for your awards ‘for outstanding achievements in the harvesting of thumbs for a single comment’. Five down, five up on the SAME thread! Surely unprecedented?
Special mentions to Clare Williams and Jimmy Hollis i Dickson for 4 each.
[Wicked laugh while climbing back on my broomstick.]
I have a little story that happened just 2 days ago and illustrates Emilie’s point about 2 people getting 2 completely different readings about the same conversation. I’m going to start with a bit of background, because I feel it’s relevant to the male/female dynamic: in this case the feeling that many men seem to have that they have more right to disconnect from responsibilities and relax than their partners do.
11 days ago, I met a young mother, T, who works mornings in a shop where I had to pick up something for a friend of mine. I had a lot to do on one of my rare visits to the city and was planning just to dash in, buy the product and hurry off. But T and I got onto my favourite subject (children) and I left the shop 2 hours later, having made a new friend. T had told me about the last 2 in a series of talks by a psychologist on the subject of parent-child relationships. In 8 days time, at 6pm, the 2-hr talk was to be on “the sexuality of our children” and at 10am the next day, Saturday, a 4-hr talk on “rules and limits”.
T raved about the speaker (psychologist) and I decided to attend, returning to the city the next week. Since the talks were in a neighbouring town with troublesome transport connections, we arranged that she would drive me there.
On my return to the city, T informed me that we’d be able to attend the Friday evening talk (many people are still at work until 8pm in Spain), but that the Saturday session had been booked solid. Her partner, X, would be working on Friday afternoon, and her usual babysitters (her parents) were away for 2 weeks, “but I’ll find another”. X likes to take his motorbike for a spin on the weekends. T has a motorbike as well, but isn’t about to take 22-month-old L as a passenger. I told T that I knew how much she wanted to attend, so that – if she couldn’t find another – I’d be willing to babysit L. (Children over 6 months were not to be admitted to the talks. If they had been, there would have been chaos and much distraction.)
The talks included audience participation and (during one of my interventions) I mentioned that I’d have loved to attend the Saturday session as well, but…
At the end of the talk, one of the organisers came up to me and said: “There’s been a cancellation, so if you’d like to come tomorrow…”
I thanked her but explained that I was attending with another, and that if there weren’t 2 places free, I’d have to pass. Another woman piped up that she had a friend who hadn’t been able to sign up, so…
Shortly after that, the organiser came to me with the list and asked me for my name. T was going to be squeezed in as well. Trouble is, X had given his OK to her attending on Friday on the understanding that she’d look after L on Saturday morning, while he went off on his motorbike.
“But this is a rare opportunity,” I said. “Tell him that he can bike in the afternoon. And that if he wants to attend the talk with you, I’ll babysit L. They’re both welcome to attend the post-talk lunch and Free Hugs action announced for later.”
That’s the background. T and I attended both sessions, she picking me up and driving me back to the city both times. We were both enthusiastic about the talks. The post-talk lunch + Free Hugs action was cancelled due to lack of interest. (Most people [90% of the attendants were women] wanted to rush home to their children.)
In the car there was a phone conversation between T and X. L was hungry and X was considering lunch with his parents. (He had never been interested in the Free Hugs idea.) T told him that the lunch-FH plan had fallen through and that she was on her way home. Since L was hungry, “give him something to tide him over and when I get home we can go out to lunch: out into the country or to your parents, whatever you like.”
Last night I got a WhatsApp from T. (In response to my ‘Has X calmed down?’) It’s on my StupidPhone, so I can translate it directly:
‘X is mad at me because he says that I said that we weren’t going to eat together… when I said that the only thing that had been cancelled was the Hugs thing… but I know that I told him that we COULD eat together… end of story: he’s one sour man. And he wants to sour me, too, but he’s not going to succeed because I’m a happy person.’
I reassured her that her version was correct. Since she’d been using hands-free in the car, I’d HEARD both sides of the conversation.
I realise that X is jealous. Of T getting to do what she wanted to do on Saturday morning, while he had to give up being Easy Rider to look after his son FOR FIVE WHOLE HOURS!!! He might also be jealous of T’s having found a new friend. The fact that I’m old enough to be her father (in strictly biological terms: probably even her grandfather) makes no difference. And he heard what he wanted to hear: that he was being slighted.
Jonathan: as Emilie has said, at no point in your first comments on this page did you make your position clear. If people jumped to conclusions, they seemed perfectly obvious conclusions. ESPECIALLY when you attacked Victoria for not being capable of taking part in rational discussion… and me for being ignorant of the origins of a poem title (a conclusion that YOU jumped to in a frankly hard-to-understand way).
I perhaps wouldn’t have gone on about this at such length if it weren’t for a fundamental issue that should concern ALL writers:
DON’T assume that your readers understand you perfectly even if you DO explain yourself completely. And EXPECT them to get the wrong end of the stick if you only HINT obliquely at what’s going on in the privacy of your head.