Fiction Scribe

Otherwise known as acting like a complete ass.

Could it be? Could it truly be? Are pet peeves back? Is JM finally complaining again about each and every little literary thing that annoys her?

Not quite, but I was so entirely pissed off about something this morning (and not able to do anything about it) that I thought about my beloved pet peeves. While 55 is a nice number and I would have liked to leave it at that, this person’s actions annoyed me so much that I decided to bump it up. (I will send a book on technical writing, an Australian postcard, Australian chocolate, and whatever other goodies I can get on short notice to the first person who can tell me which of my pet peeves I committed in that sentence.) At least by one pet peeve.

So here we are.

I’ve sort of mentioned this before in Net Speak, but it’s apparent that it bears repeating.

Since becoming involved with online author/book promotions, I have started talking to many more people. Because of this, I get the chance to observe many of the positive and negative sides of human behavior.

Of course I won’t mention any names, but there was a certain author that a friend of mine organized some online promotion for. And this was no regular online promotion because the author made my friend reschedule everything not once, not twice, but three times. Perhaps even four or five, but I stopped counting.

This person had their promotion and that was that. Until yesterday, when my friend received an email from this author, requesting a certain piece of promotion. My friend directed the author to where the promotion could be found. The author responded that it was not the link but the original file that this person was after.

It had already gotten rude at that point, but my friend promised to get the original file. The response to that?

I WILL TAKE LEGAL ACTION ON YOU IF YOU DON’T GET ME WHAT I WANT. BLAH, BLAH. I’M INCREDIBLY UNPROFESSIONAL AND DEMANDING OF THINGS DESPITE YOU HAVE NO CONTRACTUAL OR LEGAL OBLIGATION TO GET ME WHAT I WANT.

Of course, that’s not a direct quote. The author would probably threaten to sue me next if I used a direct quote. But you see what I mean. My friend provided a service and was fine with contacting the third party to get the original promotion file, but this person reacted not only unprofessionally as a client, but as an author.

If you’re a writer and need to resort to all capitals to get your point across, then you need to take some classes. If you’re a writer (or anyone for that matter) and think treating people like this is okay, then you should seek professional counseling. If you think threats of legal action will get you everything you want as a writer, you are sorely mistaken.

It’s the friends that you make in this industry that will help you get places. Making enemies will simply get you ignored.