# Is everyone ok on kboards?



## C. George (Apr 2, 2015)

Whats going on with this place? It seems like there are more and more locked threads as of late. In fact, I can't remember seeing them as frequently. Is it everyone's frustration with trying to just get some more books out in time for the holidays or is it just something in the air?


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

I don't know . . .   

But I'm happy enough. I write (not as much as I want to). I publish, reasonably intelligently (I think!). And I wish all the writers on these boards mega happiness in the pursuit of their dream to get a book or two out there--if that's what they want--or a zillion bucks in sales--if that's what they're aiming for. 

Me? I'm in the game for its possibilities. I wake up to them everyday and I'm grateful. Every damn day!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Aww, man. I miss all the drama. That's the price I pay for living under a rock.


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

I've noticed a political atmosphere moving in, most recently the poor people opening a new business and announcing it here, only to have pc warriors descend on them because they weren't running their business the way others felt they should.

The nastiness of the outside world seems to be moving in here and it is sad. Sad that people can't open their mouths without others jumping down their throats.

Rather than locking certain threads, I'd like to see the trouble makers given a time out.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Slight increase in locked threads, I guess. I hate that. I get why they do it; it's a lot of work to mediate and warn as opposed to blanket shut downs, but I do think the fact that people get riled and can't work it out or discuss the issues and just get locked, leads to festering feelings.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

JeanneM said:


> I've noticed a political atmosphere moving in, most recently the poor people opening a new business and announcing it here, only to have pc warriors descend on them because they weren't running their business the way others felt they should.
> 
> The nastiness of the outside world seems to be moving in here and it is sad. Sad that people can't open their mouths without others jumping down their throats.
> 
> Rather than locking certain threads, I'd like to see the trouble makers given a time out.


It's posts like this that get threads locked. I don't give this one long now.


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

Gee, I finally feel like somebody.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

JeanneM said:


> Gee, I finally feel like somebody.


Congratulations?


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

A new Star Wars trailer just dropped AND the new SWtOR expansion is now available for subscribers.

I AM IN MY GLORY!


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

JeanneM said:


> I've noticed a political atmosphere moving in, most recently the poor people opening a new business and announcing it here, only to have pc warriors descend on them because they weren't running their business the way others felt they should.
> 
> The nastiness of the outside world seems to be moving in here and it is sad. Sad that people can't open their mouths without others jumping down their throats.
> 
> Rather than locking certain threads, I'd like to see the trouble makers given a time out.


I agree wholeheartedly.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Threads get locked because people get upset when people challenge them/don't agree with them and report stuff. We're adults. We should be able to discuss stuff without running off crying to a mod about little things.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> A new Star Wars trailer


I thought the new trailer was ... okay. Cool to see, but still no idea what's going on aside from people with lightsabers (some good, some not) and lots of spaceships blowing each other up.

Mind you, there's no way I'm missing it either.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> I thought the new trailer was ... okay. Cool to see, but still no idea what's going on aside from people with lightsabers (some good, some not) and lots of spaceships blowing each other up.
> 
> Mind you, there's no way I'm missing it either.


Have you seen the new fan mashup trailer? It's pretty awesome.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

Monique said:


> Threads get locked because people get upset when people challenge them/don't agree with them and report stuff. We're adults. We should be able to discuss stuff without running off crying to a mod about little things.


I agree for the most part. However, the mods have explicitly stated that they would rather people report things than get into verbal fisticuffs.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> A new Star Wars trailer just dropped AND the new SWtOR expansion is now available for subscribers.
> 
> I AM IN MY GLORY!


And Fallout 4 comes out November 10th.


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

I'm okay.  And my virtual door is open for anyone who isn't okay and wants to talk, or just someone to listen.  

We used to have hugs and jelly beans around here, and while I don't want to steal anyone's gig, I think we should bring that sentiment back.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

windsong said:


> I agree for the most part. However, the mods have explicitly stated that they would rather people report things than get into verbal fisticuffs.


Yes, but most of the time there is no reason for fisticuffs nor do I think we often get there even when left alone. Instead of reporting, try expressing yourself (reporting people) in the thread. Better to talk things out, imho.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Monique said:


> Have you seen the new fan mashup trailer? It's pretty awesome.


I love fan trailers. Some of them are mind-blowingly well done.


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## Talbot (Jul 14, 2015)

Star Wars: I'm skipping it. I find my lack of faith...disturbing.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

I like the locked threads, they are usually interesting. 

As for why it's quiet, people are busy preparing for christmas and new year releases to try and entice all those people who just received a lovely new kindle or tablet. 

And... as mentioned, Star Wars is out soon. (Wish I hadn't become bored with the online game of it.) Fallout 4 soon enough, Ash vs the Evil dead starts at the end of the month.... lots of things to keep peoples interests.


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## AlexisR (Apr 3, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> And Fallout 4 comes out November 10th.


That is not going to be good for my productivity. -_-


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, we're still discussing recent locked threads...in the mean time, be nice to each other.

AND I'm trying to organize my thread drawer.









Betsy


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## Pearson Moore (Mar 14, 2011)

Hi C. George,

I rarely check in anymore. Every few weeks I'll take a glance at threads and maybe read one or two. This is probably the first time in a year or so that I actually logged in. I'm surprised my login still works!

I don't participate much anymore because of Kindleboards' at times harsh inconsistency, at least in 2014 and before. Perhaps the administrators have become more democratic. But last year and in previous years, I saw a bias in allowing certain well-known, self-published authors to disobey posted rules, while minor infractions from the rest of us, like me, were immediately pounced on. When I saw the well-known authors breaking rules and emulated them, and then suffered the consequences (censure), I came to dislike the administrators. Perhaps I was being unfair to them. Rules are made to be broken, and those of great notoriety perhaps have words of wisdom for the rest of us that make breaking the rules acceptable in some instances. Well, we'll see. I'll continue to pop in from time to time, but I probably won't be participating for many months or years to come. I'm still picking thorns out of my flesh.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Monique said:


> Threads get locked because people get upset when people challenge them/don't agree with them and report stuff. We're adults. We should be able to discuss stuff without running off crying to a mod about little things.


To add to this, as an example, you have person A make a comment. Person B disagrees or says something contrary. Person A then goes back and edits their post, making it look like Person B is being mean about something else. More people join the thread and persons C, D, and E think person B is unreasonable and person A is the victim, when in fact person A is editing their version of events to give a different story. It's frustrating. Reminds me of high school. I'm trying to be more selective about the threads I read. I'm here looking for advice, tips, hints and others on a similar journey. If I want juvenile drama, name calling and taking sides I'll hang out on Facebook more...

And to combine two other themes in this thread... we have bought our Star Wars tickets, I need to make an appropriate outfit to wear


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Monique said:


> Threads get locked because people get upset when people challenge them/don't agree with them and report stuff. We're adults. We should be able to discuss stuff without running off crying to a mod about little things.


I agree 100%. It really hampers discussion of writing and publishing when threads get locked. I do feel like it would make this place a lot more productive for us all if perpetual troublemakers could be put on a warning system instead, and banned when they push too many buttons. That way threads could evolve for longer. Sometimes the best information comes from those threads where people are very passionate about the subject, or where we get to see several points of view at once, even if the conversation gets a little heated at times.

I've noticed it's usually a handful of folks who start trotting out the really crummy attitudes that get threads locked. If they were given a chance to change their approach and continue to participate, or face a ban, I think we could all get even more out of this community.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> And Fallout 4 comes out November 10th.


Oh I know. I know. There is so much awesome coming in the next few months that I might explode.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

AlexisRadcliff said:


> That is not going to be good for my productivity. -_-


Ditto. Between that, Transformers Devastation, and my birthday coming a few days after, I expect to have many "waste of life" days in November.


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## WordSaladTongs (Oct 14, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> And Fallout 4 comes out November 10th.


This is the only thing that matters in the world. Only this.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

Fallout 4... the next WIP may take a little longer than originally planned.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

Sam Kates said:


> Fallout 4... the next WIP may take a little longer than originally planned.


I have until 10th Nov to write the next 60k words or so otherwise it won't happen... Fallout 4 will just take up so much of my Nov/Dec


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

Monique said:


> Yes, but most of the time there is no reason for fisticuffs nor do I think we often get there even when left alone. Instead of reporting, try expressing yourself (reporting people) in the thread. Better to talk things out, imho.


I agree. Adults should be able to talk and even disagree vehemently without getting personal, using shaming tactics, name calling, or devolving into moral lecturing. Talking things out is the best solution--but the parties involved all have to be willing--because then it releases that pressure that's building in good, constructive ways. Some of my favorite threads have been those where people have very strong opinions, but present their cases in with facts or real life experience. Where the object seems to be sharing information, not trying to ensure that everyone hold the same opinion, which is how some threads definitely come off. (Square peg meet round hole and hammer.)


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## C. George (Apr 2, 2015)

EC Sheedy said:


> I don't know . . .
> 
> But I'm happy enough. I write (not as much as I want to). I publish, reasonably intelligently (I think!). And I wish all the writers on these boards mega happiness in the pursuit of their dream to get a book or two out there--if that's what they want--or a zillion bucks in sales--if that's what they're aiming for.
> 
> *Me? I'm in the game for its possibilities. I wake up to them everyday and I'm grateful. Every damn day!*


Wow... this is probably the best thing I have heard all week. I love your outlook.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

I'm noticing that people on the board are becoming even more money-minded than before, and it seems like almost every thread is about earnings, ads, or promotions.  Casual talk has almost disappeared.  KU2 seems to have sunk a lot of writers' careers, and I see a lot of emotional strain and worry about finances by the way authors are behaving on KB.  The weird thing is, is that some of the writers who are the most successful seem to behave like they are the most pressured, and you'd think they'd be sheltered from anxiety by their income.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> Mind you, there's no way I'm missing it either.


THIS.  Can. Not. Wait!

~~~

I don't get my panties in a twist much, OP. (That is, when I bother to wear them.) I say what I need to say, and I move on.

I'm writing about vampires. I'm happy, and it's all good.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Folks, we're still discussing recent locked threads...in the mean time, be nice to each other.
> 
> AND I'm trying to organize my thread drawer.
> 
> ...


So, I'm the only one who wants to play in Betsy's drawers.

Wait, that came out wrong.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

stoney said:


> Wait, that came out wrong.


Ha Ha! It sure did.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Monique said:


> Threads get locked because people get upset when people challenge them/don't agree with them and report stuff. We're adults. We should be able to discuss stuff without running off crying to a mod about little things.


People are emotional. They get their jimmies rustled too easily.

Every family has them. KBoards is no exception.

The solution, as distasteful as it sounds, is to walk on eggshells around them. That's true for any topic on which people are easily offended.

That said, moderating a forum is a thankless job. So thanks to Betsy and Ann for doing it.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

So, much as I enjoy a good critique of my work (and who doesn't enjoy a good critique), I did just want to step in to say that many of the things y'all are saying are things we do--or strive to do. (Being human, sometimes we miss the mark.) Usually I don't say anything and let the venting go on--it's good for the membership to share about things they see and I do appreciate the feedback on what's working and what's not. But it's been a stressful few weeks here.

We do try to leave threads alone and let you work things out. And when we do, sometimes they do work out, which makes us happy. And sometimes they don't, in which case people are linking to the thread all over the internet as an example of that crazy KBoards. And I get multiple requests for account deletions, as I have this week. Frankly, there was a period when we locked fewer threads and tried to let them work themselves out about eight months ago, and it was ugly. We lost some people then, too.

We do ban people. I've banned two people already this week and anticipate more to come. But we don't advertise who is banned. Do y'all want scarlet letters? Announcements? A list? Our philosophy has been that sometimes bans are temporary or we give people a second chance, and we want them to be able to come back _without_ the scarlet letter attached. We put people on post moderation. We don't announce that, either. A lot of moderation goes unnoticed because it has already happened by the time people start reading a thread.

I can say definitely that most of our most active members have been reported by others. I've had suggestions to ban some of the people who others would say are the most valued members of KBoards. We don't ban people lightly. Perhaps we should. Perhaps I should be like some other forums and ban people because I don't like the color of their avatar. We _are_ banning and using post moderation more often than we used to, but, like Harvey, I believe it should be a last resort and used sparingly.

One problem is that some seem to think they have the right not to be offended. That's never going to happen--KBoards is never going to be an offense free zone. People take offense at things when none is meant. Sometimes people say things carelessly without thinking them through. That's different than a clear personal attack. I have a rule. "How would I respond to this if it were said by someone I liked?" It's stood me in good stead through the years.

People are allowed to disagree here. Vehemently. What they are not allowed to do is attack the person they are disagreeing with. Attacks can come in many forms. Someone's book sales or the quality of their product can be used as a weapon, and has been. I would say that when we intervene in a thread, or lock it (which really doesn't happen that often, at least not permalocks, despite the comments here), it's because there have been personal attacks NOT just disagreement. You (generic you, or some of generic you) apparently disagree. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

Anyway, just thought I'd share some of my thoughts...carry on. EDIT: Just wanted to let you know we are reading this and absorbing your thoughts.

Betsy


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## Susanne123 (Jan 9, 2014)

If this comes through twice, my apologies. I had a lovely response but lost it when I went to page one.

Anyway, I've noticed that things were quiet here, and thought perhaps people are preparing for NaNo. I haven't noticed an increase in locked threads. I do read them, but most of the time I don't get what's going on. And that's probably good  

I enjoy the posts with robust discussions. I've learned so much about the indie business here.

This place is such a treasure trove! This morning I spent time reading the Vellum posts and what an eye opener that was. Thanks to all who posted there.

Anyway, as the OP wrote, I hope everyone is okay on KBoards. The sharing that goes on here is phenomenal.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

stoney said:


> So, I'm the only one who wants to play in Betsy's drawers.
> 
> Wait, that came out wrong.


 

I love this place.


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## Susanne123 (Jan 9, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> So, much as I enjoy a good critique of my work (and who doesn't enjoy a good critique), I did just want to step in to say that many of the things y'all are saying are things we do--or strive to do. (Being human, sometimes we miss the mark.) Usually I don't say anything and let the venting go on--it's good for the membership to share about things they see and I do appreciate the feedback on what's working and what's not. But it's been a stressful few weeks here.
> 
> We do try to leave threads alone and let you work things out. And when we do, sometimes they do work out, which makes us happy. And sometimes they don't, in which case people are linking to the thread all over the internet as an example of that crazy KBoards. And I get multiple requests for account deletions, as I have this week. Frankly, there was a period when we locked fewer threads and tried to let them work themselves out about eight months ago, and it was ugly. We lost some people then, too.
> 
> ...


Wow. Betsy, I had no idea. This is all about perception and which posts one reads.

It really sounds like a stressful time for you, and with Harvey's death, it must be even worse. Big hug for all you do here. I appreciate it so much.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Susanne123 said:


> Wow. Betsy, I had no idea. This is all about perception and which posts one reads.
> 
> It really sounds like a stressful time for you, and with Harvey's death, it must be even worse. Big hug for all you do here. I appreciate it so much.


I think it's been a stressful period for the forum as a whole. KU2, Harvey... I just wanted to share a bit of what moderating looks like from our side of the divide. We're always trying to do it better... We have lots of discussions and after action reports. 

I really do appreciate hearing what people think.  Mostly. Kind of.  And I think it's important that people feel free to voice those opinions, so my intent was not to shut off the discussion. But there are five moderators and two admin that read posts here, and I wanted to make sure everyone knows that the admin/moderator staff here care about doing a good job. This IS a family, as someone said, and it was Harvey's baby. We want to keep on nurturing it.

Betsy


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> *snip*
> People are allowed to disagree here. Vehemently. What they are not allowed to do is attack the person they are disagreeing with. Attacks can come in many forms. Someone's book sales or the quality of their product can be used as a weapon, and has been.
> *snip*
> Betsy


The above is one reason why many people no longer show their books in signatures: no productive reason to do so.


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

I haven't been around here that much this year, but Lord, I had no idea about Harvey!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Avis Black said:


> The weird thing is, is that some of the writers who are the most successful seem to behave like they are the most pressured, and you'd think they'd be sheltered from anxiety by their income.


I think it's often the case that people feel more pressure to succeed as their success increases. I've certainly seen people feeling that same "success squeeze" effect in other professions. I don't think it's unique to writers! 

Several years back I read some article that said Americans' happiness tended to increase as their income got closer to $75K per year, but as soon as it went over $75K, their overall happiness tended to decrease. In this society we put a lot of value on financial success, and I think once you attain it you can feel a lot of anxiety over losing it again--or over not continuing to grow your finances at the same rate as the year/month/week before.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

K.B. said:


> I haven't been around here that much this year, but Lord, I had no idea about Harvey!


 

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,221297.0.html


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> We do ban people.


That's great to know! On other forums you can see when a user has been banned, so I think (because it's not visible here) the assumption was that bannings don't really happen in this place.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> That's great to know! On other forums you can see when a user has been banned, so I think (because it's not visible here) the assumption was that bannings don't really happen in this place.


I never got that impression. I mean, we see people disappear all the time from these boards. However, in at least a few cases I think it was pretty obvious that they didn't leave of their own volition.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

jessie_talbot said:


> Star Wars: I'm skipping it. I find my lack of faith...disturbing.


I'm (sadly) with you.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

Avis Black said:


> The weird thing is, is that some of the writers who are the most successful seem to behave like they are the most pressured, and you'd think they'd be sheltered from anxiety by their income.


Those are ones I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around. If you say something "wrong," they threatened to leave or whatever. I know that when, not if, but when I hit my sales again, nobody needs to kiss my butt. I'm not kissing yours. Don't kiss mine.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

ElHawk said:


> I think it's often the case that people feel more pressure to succeed as their success increases. I've certainly seen people feeling that same "success squeeze" effect in other professions.


That's interesting, because at the other end of the scale, there seems to be a certain sense of entitlement amongst some newbies that they should be making $X from day one. In my short time I have seen a number of people turn up here lamenting poor sales or reviews and they are flooded with amazing offers from generous k-boarders of new covers, promos, beta readers, editors... all sorts of things to help them up and sometimes it (appears) that it's never enough. And there are other newbies who keep plodding along, doing the miles, learning, applying various tips and advice to get themselves ahead. At times it feels like if I want to get ahead I should stick my hand out and complain, rather than roll up my sleeves and do the work. That does create feelings of frustration.

Maybe it's better to be somewhere in the middle, between newb entitlement and the success squeeze?


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> So, much as I enjoy a good critique of my work (and who doesn't enjoy a good critique), I did just want to step in to say that many of the things y'all are saying are things we do--or strive to do. (Being human, sometimes we miss the mark.) Usually I don't say anything and let the venting go on--it's good for the membership to share about things they see and I do appreciate the feedback on what's working and what's not. But it's been a stressful few weeks here.
> 
> We do try to leave threads alone and let you work things out. And when we do, sometimes they do work out, which makes us happy. And sometimes they don't, in which case people are linking to the thread all over the internet as an example of that crazy KBoards. And I get multiple requests for account deletions, as I have this week. Frankly, there was a period when we locked fewer threads and tried to let them work themselves out about eight months ago, and it was ugly. We lost some people then, too.
> 
> ...


Brilliant work. And much appreciated.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Those are ones I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around. If you say something "wrong," they threatened to leave or whatever. I know that when, not if, but when I hit my sales again, nobody needs to kiss my butt. I'm not kissing yours. Don't kiss mine.


While certainly some people can be overly sensitive, I think at least some of the big names leaving have been for better reasons than people failing to suck up to them. Whether lurkers or active posters, there's been reports of people taking their disagreements outside the boards and going on sprees of 1-starring other's books. It's one thing to have someone disagree with you, it's another for someone to be so immature as to attempt petty sabotage on another's career.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> People are emotional. They get their jimmies rustled too easily.
> 
> Every family has them. KBoards is no exception.
> 
> ...


I second that motion. I think creative folks are a tad bit more emotional than the the general population.

But, really, I thought it's been pretty tame around here. I was gonna say I never even get a chance to post in the wicked threads before they get locked.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I'm trying to organize my thread drawer.


Is that a lockable drawer or is it protected by a Quilt of Unseeing?


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> I think it's often the case that people feel more pressure to succeed as their success increases. I've certainly seen people feeling that same "success squeeze" effect in other professions. I don't think it's unique to writers!
> . . .
> ... and I think once you attain it you can feel a lot of anxiety over losing it again--or over not continuing to grow your finances at the same rate as the year/month/week before.


So true, and those who have success (mostly in the monetary sense) and are struggling to maintain or grow that success, seldom receive much in the way of support or understanding. More like "Humph, what have they got to worry about?" Sometimes "hanging on" produces as much anxiety as "starting out." It's just a lonelier place . . .

*And noisy cheers and clapping from this writer for all the Mods work on these boards. Herding cats. Straightening snakes. Pick your metaphor. It's hard work by any standard. Thank you. *

"The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness." ~Alain de Botton


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2015)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> While certainly some people can be overly sensitive, I think at least some of the big names leaving have been for better reasons than people failing to suck up to them. Whether lurkers or active posters, there's been reports of people taking their disagreements outside the boards and going on sprees of 1-starring other's books. It's one thing to have someone disagree with you, it's another for someone to be so immature as to attempt petty sabotage on another's career.


Agreed.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

In answer to the original question, I'm fine, thanks, how are you?


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Lydniz said:


> In answer to the original question, I'm fine, thanks, how are you?


Swedish meatballs tonight for dinner - so, needless to say, I am far more than okay.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> Swedish meatballs tonight for dinner - so, needless to say, I am far more than okay.


Excellent.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

I feel like 99% percent of the locked threads come from expectations held by new members who think that Kboards should be more (fill in the blank) and longer-term members telling them that they should stop foisting their expectations onto a community they just joined.

(Generally, I side with the longer-term members on that score.)

What is that "fill in the blank"? Why isn't KBoards WC ...


...a place to talk about the craft of writing not marketing/ins & outs of self-publishing?
... a place where Hugh Howey will volunteer to read my book and tweet about it?
... a place where I can get thousands of customers for my sketchy business without proof I have any skills whatsoever?

Many kboards members have been here for years. They have built relationships over time. They help more often than they ask for help.

I'm sure it's hard to be new, but from what I've seen, Kboards is generally a lot more friendly to new people than a lot of forums like this. Especially new people who are actively writing, publishing, sharing their experience, and treating the forum like any other social interaction where you're meeting new people.


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## NoBlackHats (Oct 17, 2012)

Monique said:


> Threads get locked because people get upset when people challenge them/don't agree with them and report stuff. We're adults. We should be able to discuss stuff without running off crying to a mod about little things.


What a radical and excellent concept.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Is that a lockable drawer or is it protected by a Quilt of Unseeing?












Quiltspell of Unseeing. Especially when my quilting partner comes over. She takes things. 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Boyd said:


> ...a lot of folks try to nurture the new folks until they are on board.


That does happen here, I'm glad to say, but I'd love to see it happen even more.

And I'm proud to say that I haven't had to use the cattle prod on Boyd in quite a while....

Betsy


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I love y'all!

The only thing I really hate is people who barge in with some sort of bombastic post about the declining value of LICHERATURE or some such (or some highly political thing), that's just meant to stir and upset on their first post to the forum.

Also the shady dudes spruiking their shady business deals who obviously didn't read the KB manual.

I guess those are the prime candidates for banning.

Other than that... people disagree. That's life.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

erikhanberg said:


> ... a place where Hugh Howey will volunteer to read my book and tweet about it?


It's not? That's it, I quit.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> That does happen here, I'm glad to say, but I'd love to see it happen even more.
> 
> And I'm proud to say that I haven't had to use the cattle prod on Boyd in quite a while....
> 
> Betsy


In all seriousness, yes, those of us who have been around for awhile try to help newbies when possible. Sometimes you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, but whatever. I do it because I appreciate that others took time to help me when I was new.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

I think the mods do an excellent job in often difficult circumstances. There are occasions whan I feel that threads are locked prematurely, but I would never criticise the mods for doing so - it makes more sense to shut down early than wait until a situation has grown completely out of hand and possibly irreparable. 

As for long-time members disappearing, I think there may be another contributing factor that I've not seen mentioned: repetitive threads. This isn't intended in any way as a criticism of anyone here, but the same types of threads are begun over and over. (This is, IMO, perfectly natural - new members come along, can't immediately see the answer to their burning question and so, naturally, start their own thread. Without searching through pages and pages of old posts or using the precise required term in the search box, they won't know that there have already been umpteen threads on the exact same subject.) 

I've been coming here for just over three years and tend to spend less and less time here now simply because as I have grown more experienced so the new and useful information to be found here has diminished. I still have an awful lot to learn and still pop in here regularly to see what's occurring (as we say in Wales), but my visits tend to be shorter because there isn't as much new stuff to peruse. Again, that seems perfectly natural to me and part of the development of a successful forum like this one must surely be that some longer-term members drift away as the board becomes less useful to them. We should be thankful that so many successful members stick around for as long as they do or pop back from time to time to share their wisdom.


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## bendanarama (Jul 25, 2015)

OK is a subjective term, I suppose. Personally I'm currently struggling with a bout of depression that's taken me out of work for a month and is making it difficult to write. I don't really pay much attention to internet drama, but Kboards is generally a pretty cool place. Generally, trying to resist the urge to self-harm is taking precedence over people griping at each over online.

Still trying to keep myself going and push promos and book sales. I'm on an 11-day dry spell of sales at the moment, so that's not improving my mood. Hoping for things to pick up on the 30th.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

I don't think I use the report feature all that often, but yes, I use it, and I really am glad it's here. If something is p*ss ing me off and seems unreasonable, unfair, and terrible, I'd much rather take a breath, leave a note about it to the mods, and move on, than spend the next hour having some kind of stupid internet debate and just getting myself fussed up.

If it's just my perspective, and the poster isn't out of line, the mods don't have to do anything. If they are out of line...I'm not getting myself into a state over it. It makes KBoards much more bearable, when I remember the report button. Because I like coming here to discuss business things and writing things and learn from others, not to see people throw hissy fits (or throw any myself, I should hope).

Not everything that gets moderated is about hissy fits, of course. Some things we're just not supposed to be dragging into the writing space, I guess. Whatever. I'm very glad there's a report button.



Avis Black said:


> I'm noticing that people on the board are becoming even more money-minded than before, and it seems like almost every thread is about earnings, ads, or promotions. Casual talk has almost disappeared. KU2 seems to have sunk a lot of writers' careers, and I see a lot of emotional strain and worry about finances by the way authors are behaving on KB. The weird thing is, is that some of the writers who are the most successful seem to behave like they are the most pressured, and you'd think they'd be sheltered from anxiety by their income.


I know there's a lot more stress involved in my writing and publishing now that it's not a hobby, but a job. Also, I loved your story about Nigel and Julian. 



ElHawk said:


> I think it's often the case that people feel more pressure to succeed as their success increases. I've certainly seen people feeling that same "success squeeze" effect in other professions. I don't think it's unique to writers!
> 
> Several years back I read some article that said Americans' happiness tended to increase as their income got closer to $75K per year, but as soon as it went over $75K, their overall happiness tended to decrease. In this society we put a lot of value on financial success, and I think once you attain it you can feel a lot of anxiety over losing it again--or over not continuing to grow your finances at the same rate as the year/month/week before.


In that case I definitely can take some more happiness from filthy lucre. 



Rick Gualtieri said:


> Swedish meatballs tonight for dinner - so, needless to say, I am far more than okay.


Great. Now I'm hungry for Swedish meatballs! It's been too long.

I tried to make a turkey meatloaf the other day and I just don't know what went wrong. It tasted like it was oatmeal.  



> Is everyone ok on kboards?


To answer the original question, No, not really. But I've been worse.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

_ Is everyone ok on kboards?_ No - now you come to ask. I just had an x-ray at dentist and they called to say I had large abscess and need to go in tomorrow for an extraction. 

Oh - that's not what you were askiing about....

Been around KBs since early 2010 and still look in most days. Still love the place.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

bendanarama said:


> OK is a subjective term, I suppose. Personally I'm currently struggling with a bout of depression that's taken me out of work for a month and is making it difficult to write.


That sucks, Ben. I hope you're feeling better soon.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Quiltspell of Unseeing. Especially when my quilting partner comes over. She takes things.


Darn it! I'm a quilter too, and that picture just made me drool all over my keyboard . . .

As a relative newbie here, I have to say that I've been really impressed with everything I've seen here at KBoards so far. Yes, I've seen some sniping and a few comments that were kind of ugly, but overall this seems to be a surprisingly helpful and tolerant group.

I came here from another forum where things get REALLY ugly and the nastiness can get downright vindictive. With their report/delete feature over there, anyone who wants to be petty can go on a deleting rampage and remove comments made by anyone they dislike. There is so much name-calling and insulting going on that I'm amazed any of those people ever manage to do any actual writing. It was demoralizing and depressing, and my productivity has more than doubled since I left there.

I guess I'm just trying to say that I find the locked threads and moderation here quite refreshing, if maybe a bit overzealous at times. This feels like a safe place for me to be as a writer with a lot to learn. I'm sure I'm going to cross somebody eventually or say something that gets moderated, and then my opinion might change; for now, though, I'm impressed with KBoards.


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## Nicki Leigh (Aug 25, 2011)

I try to check in when I can, but life seems to keep me rather busy between outside work, writing and art.

Funnily enough, instead of toning back my to-do list, I just keep adding onto it. like learning vectors. I really want to learn, but in order to do so, I can't hang here nearly as much as I'd like.

This place (for me) is almost as bad as checking KDP for sales. I HAVE to check new threads. Then I refresh, check again...the cycle goes on.

Turning off the internet sounds good but, think of everything I'd miss!


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Folks, we're still discussing recent locked threads...in the mean time, be nice to each other.
> 
> AND I'm trying to organize my thread drawer.
> 
> ...


Are you really trying to organize your thread drawer?

I have 2 wooden 60 spool thread racks (with legs). I don't use the legs. Had my husband mount them to the wall near to my sewing machine. I have embroidery thread on one rack and regular thread on the other.


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## bendanarama (Jul 25, 2015)

Carol (was Dara) said:


> That sucks, Ben. I hope you're feeling better soon.


Cheers Carol - feel like I made a minor hijack here though: Back tot he topic - Kboards is Awesome!


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Avis Black said:


> I'm noticing that people on the board are becoming even more money-minded than before, and it seems like almost every thread is about earnings, ads, or promotions. Casual talk has almost disappeared. KU2 seems to have sunk a lot of writers' careers, and I see a lot of emotional strain and worry about finances by the way authors are behaving on KB. The weird thing is, is that some of the writers who are the most successful seem to behave like they are the most pressured, and you'd think they'd be sheltered from anxiety by their income.


You'd think that, but... the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. I hate to bust any illusions, but success breeds its own problems and anxiety about losing what you have worked so hard to achieve doesn't magically disappear in a wave of cash. Nobody who wants to be successful long term, in my experience, stops working harder and harder. And this biz is a lot like a treadmill that speeds up the faster you run.

However, it's become pretty clear to me that Kboards is not a place for sharing that stuff.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Annie B said:


> You'd think that, but... the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. I hate to bust any illusions, but success breeds its own problems and anxiety about losing what you have worked so hard to achieve doesn't magically disappear in a wave of cash. Nobody who wants to be successful long term, in my experience, stops working harder and harder. And this biz is a lot like a treadmill that speeds up the faster you run.
> 
> However, it's become pretty clear to me that Kboards is not a place for sharing that stuff.


A public forum is not the place to share *any* kind of personal issue, financial or otherwise. That applies to the KBs and all open forums. That's what IRL friends and family are for. Or secret groups, or email with author friends.

People do occasionally post things like the above "it doesn't suddenly get easy", and truly, that's all you need to say in public.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

HSh said:


> I'm very glad there's a report button.


I'll never use the report button.

There are thousands of us, each with our own opinions and unique ways of expressing them. Most of us are going to say things others dislike at some point. Most of us won't intend to offend, but will manage to do so. And of course, a few of us are just jerks who want to see the world burn.

It's like discussing politics at Thanksgiving dinner. But multiplied by 10,000.

Personally, if I say something that makes everyone gasp in horror, I'd much rather have someone say "stop being a douche" than report me. After all, that's valuable feedback. I'm not a sociopath. I want to get along with folks. Being reported prevents me from receiving that feedback.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> A public forum is not the place to share *any* kind of personal issue, financial or otherwise.


It seems unfair for some members to place those types of constraints on other members.

If a moderator or admin does so, that's one thing. They're the bouncers. But I wouldn't feel right telling others how to behave in a place I didn't own or run.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> I'll never use the report button.
> 
> There are thousands of us, each with our own opinions and unique ways of expressing them. Most of us are going to say things others dislike at some point. Most of us won't intend to offend, but will manage to do so. And of course, a few of us are just jerks who want to see the world burn.
> 
> ...


I don't feel comfortable calling someone a douche, and not everyone does appreciate feedback like that. If I did call names, I'd be in violation of KBoard rules, too.

Like I said, for me personally, if I think someone crossed the line, it's a better plan to report and let the mods decide than to try to call them on it. Then it's not up to me.

I really don't think the mods are going to heavily censor most people. Sometimes there's a light warning, and that's usually the end of it. I know there is more that goes on behind the scenes.

But frankly, calling someone a douche online never produces good results that I've seen. And I try to avoid the too political discussions because yes, Thanksgiving dinner...


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Anarchist said:


> It seems unfair for some members to place those types of constraints on other members.
> 
> If a moderator or admin does so, that's one thing. They're the bouncers. But I wouldn't feel right telling others how to behave in a place I didn't own or run.


And see, I take that as Patty's guideline for her own posts. Obviously, everyone will have their own feelings about how much they want to share.

Betsy


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> It seems unfair for some members to place those types of constraints on other members.
> 
> If a moderator or admin does so, that's one thing. They're the bouncers. But I wouldn't feel right telling others how to behave in a place I didn't own or run.


Well, maybe, but if you poke about on the boards, those are the types of threads that end in grief.

Also, the forum is searchable, so a prospective employer can find them.

I prefer to call it internet smarts.

OK if someone prefers to bleed all over the internet when they're down, but I wouldn't call it a smart thing to do. Not because people are nasty, because mostly they're not, but because these threads are here for eternity. Identity theft etc. is a real thing. You don't want to hand it to people who shouldn't have this type of info about you on platter.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

HSh said:


> But frankly, calling someone a douche online never produces good results that I've seen.


You bring up a very good point, HSh.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Well, Patty has her opinions, and I have mine. I'm very thankful that Kboards used to be a place where people would share details and numbers, because it helped me when I was starting out (and rebooting later). Real data is real data.  Alas, that era seems to have passed. I guess in today's environment, Patty is probably smart.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Here's the thing about calling someone a douche here....


Don't.


But seriously...some people will be okay with it.  Especially if you have both been here a while and have made a connection.  Others, if you (non-moderator) try to call them on their behavior, will attack you  for "trying to act like a moderator."  I've seen it happen.  Sometimes it's better to let us actually BE moderators.

I mean, the cattle prod doesn't hurt THAT much.

Betsy


EDIT:  And, Anarchist, we'll be happy to give you feedback.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> Well, maybe, but if you poke about on the boards, those are the types of threads that end in grief.
> 
> Also, the forum is searchable, so a prospective employer can find them.
> 
> ...


Oh I definitely see your point Patty, and am inclined to agree with you.

I just cringe when some folks tell others how to behave. It's the anarchist in me. 

Having said that, I'm getting the feeling that I inferred the wrong meaning from your previous post. To wit, you're not saying "don't you dare share financial stuff on this forum," but rather "do whatever you want, but realize sharing the financial stuff is a knucklehead move."


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Here's the thing about calling someone a douche here....
> 
> Don't.
> 
> ...


To clarify, I was only saying *I'm* okay with being called names, not that everyone should go around calling everyone else a douche.

Though that would be kind of funny for a few seconds before the wailing and gnashing of teeth began.



Betsy the Quilter said:


> EDIT: And, Anarchist, we'll be happy to give you feedback.


If Boyd can take it, I can take it. 

On a serious note, I think most of us want to get along. The challenge is that we have strong opinions on things and want to win arguments. That's why we can't have nice things.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

dianapersaud said:


> Are you really trying to organize your thread drawer?
> 
> I have 2 wooden 60 spool thread racks (with legs). I don't use the legs. Had my husband mount them to the wall near to my sewing machine. I have embroidery thread on one rack and regular thread on the other.


Well, the new drawer thingy that's now mostly full of thread isn't ALL my thread. I also have:















Left, solid color rayon thread used for machine quilting; variegated and other specialty rayon/metallic thread used for machine quilting.
















Left, cotton sewing thread used for hand & machine piecing; right, hand quilting thread
















Left, more rayon thread for machine quilting on my spool rack; right, a few assorted spools on my "project" spool rack.









Various specialty threads used for decorative stitching or machine quilting.

And THEN there's the stuff I just put in the new drawer thingy. 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

In the spirit of the day, Great Scott!


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Re:reporting. I'd rather not waste the mod's time or risk a good thread getting shut down because some looked at someone funny. You don't have call someone a douche to tell them that they're wrong about something. There's no need to be a hall monitor among adults. Sometimes things do go way over the line and moderation is necessary, but I'm a less is more sort on that front.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

HSh said:


> In the spirit of the day, Great Scott!


I'm a professional...don't try this at home.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> I love fan trailers. Some of them are mind-blowingly well done.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> A public forum is not the place to share *any* kind of personal issue, financial or otherwise. That applies to the KBs and all open forums. That's what IRL friends and family are for. Or secret groups, or email with author friends.
> 
> People do occasionally post things like the above "it doesn't suddenly get easy", and truly, that's all you need to say in public.


I disagree of course. 

I think it's important to post numbers and $$ so that the cloak of silence and the stigma is lifted off of the business side of things. How can authors know what is and is not possible if no one talks about money? I know it is considered gauche to speak of money in public, but this is a brave new world of indie publishing. Where legacy publishers used to keep their herd of authors quiet about contract details and money matters, we are free agents. I was inspired by JA Konrath's willingness to post numbers and $$. If I can do the same for others, and show that even someone who is NOT a big name can make a decent to great living as a self-published author, I will do so. I know some will think I'm bragging, gauche or impolite, but that's the risk you run when you post information on the internet. You can't be everyone's best friend. To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. *shrug*

As to being mean and nasty on the internet, it is a fact of life, sadly. Some people are resentful and let their resentment seep into their interactions. It says more about them than the person they are targeting but they will never realize that. I'm far from perfect, but I do try to avoid drama on the inter tubes when I can. Life is short. Be nice. Kindness costs nothing.

"Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now." - Kerouac

I gave a 5$ bill to a homeless man tonight when I saw him sitting in a dark doorway of a closed shop downtown, nestled amidst a pile of garbage bags and broken cardboard boxes. He was peeling a big head of garlic to eat for a meal while I was going into an establishment next door to eat one prepared and served for me. He was surprised when I went up to him -- he thought I was a shop owner going to kick him out of his doorway but instead I handed him the money and said I hope it helped. He was so surprised and God blessed me and everything, sweetheart, dear, angel. Yeah, maybe he went out and bought a cheap bottle of wine with it instead of food, but that's his prerogative.

It's amazing how selfish people are who are nice to others instead of mean. It makes them feel wonderful.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Sela said:


> How can authors know what is and is not possible if no one talks about money? I know it is considered gauche to speak of money in public, but this is a brave new world of indie publishing. Where legacy publishers used to keep their herd of authors quiet about contract details and money matters, we are free agents. I was inspired by JA Konrath's willingness to post numbers and $$. If I can do the same for others, and show that even someone who is NOT a big name can make a decent to great living as a self-published author, I will do so.


I will be eternally grateful to all the authors who were sharing numbers when I lost my job last fall. Without those numbers to aim for (and I'm still not there, for sure!) I wouldn't have dared to stay "unemployed" and make a go of this.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

PermaStudent said:


> I'm okay. And my virtual door is open for anyone who isn't okay and wants to talk, or just someone to listen.
> 
> We used to have *hugs and jelly beans* around here, and while I don't want to steal anyone's gig, I think we should bring that sentiment back.


Speaking of jelly beans, I miss Cinisajoy. (sp?)


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## Eva Chase (Aug 8, 2015)

I haven't been here long enough to judge whether the atmosphere has changed, but I do want to say that as a newbie both here and to self publishing in general, I've found this forum to be as welcoming and supportive and tolerant as I could hope for from any large group of people with vastly varying perspectives and attitudes. I've been very glad to be here and hope to stick around and someday get to the point where I'm contributing more than I'm learning.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

I've been very critical of the moderators here, and although I know they work hard and do their best, I stand by that criticism.

I don't say it to be insulting.  And I'm not saying that others must agree with me, I'm simply stating that I don't feel the kind of forum moderation I see here has been very effective at keeping the more accomplished and successful authors comfortable in the WC environment.

They haven't adequately addressed the culture problem that has allowed a very vocal minority of posters to run off the very best contributors over the years.

When Selena Kitt comes into a thread recently and says "THIS is why I don't hang out here. (Yeah, I know, like you care?) KB is a cesspool and a viper pit - and you wonder why so many big names leave this place?" 

I don't think she says that lightly.  Selena Kitt is no wilting flower.  

In any case, I'm not saying this place IS a viper pit.  But I do believe that the numbers of highly successful authors who've left for greener pastures, after being treated poorly in threads here, is above what would be considered normal turnover.  These folks are STILL engaging and talking and giving and receiving advice, only they've chosen to go elsewhere.  

Some do still come here, albeit much more rarely and engage in a much more limited fashion.

Some don't want to burn bridges and are much more tactful than I, so they won't ever say anything negative publicly about the atmosphere here.

I think there are multi-layered issues at work within the problem.

First of all, newer authors will still find a lot of value at the cafe, since there are plenty of old advice threads still popping up, and also the kinds of information a newbie needs is far different than what someone looks for who's been in the game a year or two.  So yes, you get a lot of newer folks talking about how helpful kboards is as a resource, because it is--for them.  To a point.

But as you learn more, you'll start hitting a ceiling because certain things are no longer being openly discussed.  You'll either need to go out and find those other groups, loops, or network privately--or you may struggle to find the info.  You will no longer find it here at the WC.

The kinds of information that a Selena Kitt, Hugh Howey, Russell Blake, Annie B, Michael Wallace, etc can bring to the table is much more nuanced and advanced.  There are conversations that used to happen regularly here among the really sharp folks, that happen now almost never--or with such rarity that its like watching a comet go by.

I used to find a useful thread here nearly every single day, whereas now sometimes weeks will go by.  And it's not just an old man saying "kids these days!" because I've been around too long.  The conversations have MOVED to other places because of the way this place has been run.

Sending erotica and romance authors out the door because they've been told this place is "family friendly."  Fine, that's certainly your prerogative, but it was, in my opinion, another poor decision.  Many of the most successful authors in indie publishing, and some of the most sophisticated, are erotica and romance authors.

So, so many of those folks took off for the hills because of the way things were handled here when it came to their genre.  Not being able to post links to their work in their sigs, etc.  Again, totally the owners prerogative--but imo, a terrible maneuver.

And then again, when it comes to allowing members to "have a go" at folks in a very insulting and personal manner, without the use of temp bans or full bans to those who create an atmosphere of nastiness.  I'm literally talking about personal attacks and nasty, nasty snark that's been allowed by members who seem to have axes to grind on various issues.

Some of those members are longtime posters, but they seem to have been given a long leash to make really rude comments on a continual basis.  

And I do think that because the moderators have little inside publishing knowledge--they lack the overall understanding of this business and the players--so they let things slide that drive out some of the biggest names in our industry.  They let stuff slide because they have trouble differentiating between folks who are valuable contributing members and those who are just ACTIVE members.

Some of the very active members here, imo, are not VALUABLE CONTRIBUTORS.  It's a difference the mods rarely have seemed able to comprehend, which is why so, so many of the most successful indie publishers fled this place starting a long time ago and continuing even now.  I can almost time it to my watch, at what point someone will leave this space as they grow more successful.

And if you think it has to be that way--well we definitely disagree.

You might not notice it if you've only been here a year--but its actually quite a large number of people who left and either never came back or rarely engage, and I would argue its been avoidable to a large extent.

I realize I'm barking up the wrong tree here.  The mods have heard these complaints for a long, long time and not changed much.  And since I can be a curmudgeon, I suppose I continue to flog this dead horse even though I know it won't likely change.

This place still has value to me, although its of much more limited value than it was previously, and grows less and less with each passing day and as the old, super successful crops of authors have not really been replaced.

For a newbie, the WC is awesome.  And if you want to find out about a technical issue or something buggy is happening somewhere and you want to find out if others are experiencing it too--kboards aint a bad place to go and check the temperature.

But if you want really insightful, incisive discussion around cutting edge publishing strategies, the best marketing advice, the best discussion around the issues that we indies deal with every single day--this is no longer the place to go.  Passive Voice or Konrath's blog usually have much more thoughtful, fruitful discussion around those sorts of points, and I'm aware that some of the brightest lights also congregate more on Facebook and in more private spaces.

But they've been driven to do that, imo, by poor decision making in the place where most of them used to be.

If its too difficult for two mods to handle the load here--why, I ask, can't more mods be added?  Couldn't some members do some modding part-time?  Could a vote be held to choose mods from within our own group?  Aren't there any other strategies that could have been attempted as people left and left and left??

I just don't think any of this has been handled particularly well.  I don't expect the mods to be able to do it with just 2 people, let alone two people who aren't engaged inside this industry themselves.  They don't honestly understand the issues, and it shows.  Again, I know people want to protect them and feel that its mean for me to say this--but I'm NOT commenting on them personally at all.

Once again, its a distinction that rarely seems to be understood around here.

If I was a moderator, I would probably have temp banned ME at some point.  Just for others' edification, I've never so much as received a PM that dealt with my behavior here.  Not a word, not once been moderated or banned in any way shape or form.  And I do feel like, yeah--there probably have been a few times I could have been brought into line.  Maybe not as many as some would think, but still...

I am not proclaiming myself as some amazing example to follow.  Far from it.  But I do think, as someone who does this full-time, who's been here for five years, who's seen people come and go--I feel I hold a very educated opinion.

And that's my piece.

EDITED BY ME FOR CLARITY


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

It depends on what you believe a moderator's job is. Is it to moderate to ensure that no rules are broken or uncivilized behavior takes place?  Or is it to be involved, guide discussions, engage participants, etc?  Both are valid definitions; some online forums have the first kind of moderator, others have the second.  Seems to me the KB moderators fall under the first definition of the word, and as such, it's 'not their job' to get actively involved in discussions except for contributing as any other member/reader would.  That's fine by me, but if I preferred a more guided discussion board, I would probably go elsewhere.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Jena H said:


> It depends on what you believe a moderator's job is. Is it to moderate to ensure that no rules are broken or uncivilized behavior takes place? Or is it to be involved, guide discussions, engage participants, etc? Both are valid definitions; some online forums have the first kind of moderator, others have the second. Seems to me the KB moderators fall under the first definition of the word, and as such, it's 'not their job' to get actively involved in discussions except for contributing as any other member/reader would. That's fine by me, but if I preferred a more guided discussion board, I would probably go elsewhere.


It isn't for them to guide the discussion.

It's for them to handle troublemakers that intentionally drive out the very best posters. So no, I don't think the mods need to guide the board. In actuality, they can be far too active and involved, pruning discussions and locking threads--seems like a lot of wasted effort, imo.

Rather than wasting effort on things that haven't helped matters, I believe they should be much more clear in stating when people are close to the line, and then there are ways to make folks aware who has been warned, who has been temp banned, and who has been permabanned because of bad behavior.

Make it clear what types of comments should be avoided, wield a big stick and use it with precision and insight.

There are LOTS of ways to deal with modding an active forum like this one, and I would argue that the way its been done here has not worked very well in terms of retaining the very most successful, helpful and valuable contributors.

In any case, my point really is that this place really dropped the ball--it sort of killed the goose that laid the golden egg. What made it great was its members, and the very members that made this place wonderful and super useful--are mostly gone. Acting as if everyone is replaceable is a pretty sad and unfortunate (also untrue) way to view things...imo, of course.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

I was a moderator for a busy fan fiction message board for a while with thousands of members. UGH. I would never wish the job on anyone LOL! So Kudos to anyone who does it.

As to all the drama and nastiness, I think of Carly Simon's song when I read some of the threads on this board:



> All those crazy nights when I cried myself to sleep
> Now melodrama never makes me weep anymore
> 'cause I haven't got time for the pain


Oh and ETA the Desiderata lines:



> Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
> and remember what peace there may be in silence.
> As far as possible, without surrender,
> be on good terms with all persons.
> ...


It was made into a song that was played on the radio back when i was a kid.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> It isn't for them to guide the discussion.
> 
> It's for them to handle troublemakers that intentionally drive out the very best posters. So no, I don't think the mods need to guide the board. In actuality, they can be far too active and involved, pruning discussions and locking threads--seems like a lot of wasted effort, imo.
> 
> ...


Your earlier comment mentioned a moderators lack of "keeping more successful authors engaged," which I took to mean having the moderators be involved in doing the engaging. Mea culpa if I misinterpreted.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Also, my final point--there is selection bias at work here when this sort of thing is discussed.

By its very nature, the folks who have stuck around or are new to the place, are the ones giving opinions.  So those who left aren't here to say why they left.

Thus, my opinion comes across as a minority opinion, due to the fact that most who speak here will by default be those who have stuck around or those who are newer and haven't yet formed a very educated opinion.

But there ARE indeed many, many longtime posters and members who've left, some of them having made clear statements as to why--some not.

Don't be fooled by that selection bias.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Jena H said:


> Your earlier comment mentioned a moderators lack of "keeping more successful authors engaged," which I took to mean having the moderators be involved in doing the engaging. Mea culpa if I misinterpreted.


Thanks, I went back and edited to make it clearer...


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

i'd like to take this opportunity to remind people of some things.
1.  KB was started as a board for kindle OWNERS.  people who wanted to meet other people who had e-reader and wanted to talk about reading and books and other things.
2. the WC is NOT the whole of kb, even now.  come out of here and you will see all kinds of fun things to talk about.
3. Fora change.  Fora ebb and flow and people come and go and come back.
4.  Everyone has an opinion.  Everyone's opinion is correct.  But not everyone's opinion is correct for everyone else.
5.  Our (late) administrator set up a forum that was family friendly.  When you come here, you agree to those rules.  if you don't want to follow them, there are plenty of other places to post.
6.  No one will like everything said on a forum, but someone has to be in charge of moderating, and i think as posters we either support the mods, or we move on.
7.  No matter what you do, someone, somewhere will find a way to be unhappy.  That's their choice.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

telracs said:


> 6. No one will like everything said on a forum, but someone has to be in charge of moderating, and i think as posters we either support the mods, or we move on.


I think this is where I've arrived at. And I'm taking my chance to state publicly why I'm moving on. After full-time publishing for five years, engaging here consistently, and attempting to be a valuable and honest contributor--I am done here. I don't say it to give a public flounce and get attention.

I say it because so often people claim "so and so" must have just gotten busy and moved on--and often that hasn't been the case. But it sounds nice to believe that.

I'm leaving because of the way this board has been handled, the way the best members have been allowed to be run out by a vocal minority of active posters that don't actually contribute beneficial information. And so I also will no longer contribute my thoughts here.

I made and continue to make a good living in this industry, and I always tried to give real advice, even when it ticked some people off--because its what allowed me to achieve my dreams. And so I tried to say things that might tip off some folks and help them get there, too.

I haven't always been the nicest most PC poster, but I actively tried and cared.

Best of luck to everyone.

See ya when I see ya...


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

1. KB was started as a board for kindle OWNERS. people who wanted to meet other people who had e-reader and wanted to talk about reading and books and other things. *This is often trotted out in threads like this, but I'm never sure why. It's true, KB was started as a board for Kindle owners, but that's not what the WC (which is the most popular/vibrant board) is about. Is it meant to be an admonishment? If so, I don't get it.*

2. the WC is NOT the whole of kb, even now. come out of here and you will see all kinds of fun things to talk about. *What if we don't want to? Many of us are here for the WC and there's nothing wrong with that. I post v occasionally on other boards, but no one should be made to feel they *should*. The WC is KB for many and that's fine.*

3. Fora change. Fora ebb and flow and people come and go and come back. *See above. KB has grown so much because of the WC. To many they are synonymous. *

4. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone's opinion is correct. But not everyone's opinion is correct for everyone else. *True.*

5. Our (late) administrator set up a forum that was family friendly. When you come here, you agree to those rules. if you don't want to follow them, there are plenty of other places to post. *Yes, and people do abide by it. The poster above was citing why they thought it wasn't best for the community. An opinion, politely expressed, should always be welcome here.*

6. No one will like everything said on a forum, but someone has to be in charge of moderating, and i think as posters we either support the mods, or we move on. *So, never question? Never challenge? Never suggest? That seems a bad route to follow.*

7. No matter what you do, someone, somewhere will find a way to be unhappy. That's their choice. *True, but that should never put the kibosh on discussion.*


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

gorvnice said:


> I think this is where I've arrived at. And I'm taking my chance to state publicly why I'm moving on. After full-time publishing for five years, engaging here consistently, and attempting to be a valuable and honest contributor--I am done here. I don't say it to give a public flounce and get attention.
> 
> I say it because so often people claim "so and so" must have just gotten busy and moved on--and often that hasn't been the case. But it sounds nice to believe that.
> 
> ...


Well, I for one would be sad to see you go, since you tend to write stuff that I agree with. 

I am on Facebook as Sela Lyons if you have a profile. I would be interested in your thoughts on publishing so don't lose touch.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

Maybe I hang out in all the wrong corners of the WC.

I post drafts of covers and get good, honest (if a little blunt) feedback.

I share screenshots from when I try out PPC ads and even when it doesn't work very well, no one calls me an idiot for it (though many say they aren't going to try it themselves).

I post my milestones (still low—in the tens of thousands) and get kudos.

I guess I do avoid the 20 pagers on whether KU is a good idea or a bad idea. Is that where all this goes down?


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

C. George said:


> Whats going on with this place? It seems like there are more and more locked threads as of late. In fact, I can't remember seeing them as frequently. Is it everyone's frustration with trying to just get some more books out in time for the holidays or is it just something in the air?


A lot of crazy people on the boards, busy replying to threads and flamming people. So they get locked. End of story.


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## Gone Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

We miss you, Harvey Chute.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Since we seem to be airing frustrations in this thread, here are a couple of mine:

I start very few threads, and those I do start generally have info and/or data that I've not seen mentioned elsewhere. My threads are generally data-driven, and often contain business intelligence -- some of it proprietary and original. My thread-starts can be pure data, nothing controversial, nothing to even controvert because they contain no analysis or recommendations, yet there will always be folk who go out of their way to post something negative. Now, I've got ultra-thick skin and that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when I hand someone solid business data and they spit on it. 

I'm in a couple of private groups with some of the refugees from KB. Successful folk who used to visit and post here regularly. Do you know where most of the business intelligence gets discussed these days? In those private groups scattered all across FB. Our "collected wisdom" isn't so collected any longer.

Which brings me to my other frustration with KB... folk who are here it seems simply to pick up all the business intelligence others are giving out for free who then turn around and snark at the very folk supplying that intelligence while they themselves provide very little value in the way of contributions to the indie collective as a whole. That sense of entitlement seems to be becoming more pervasive. It's all gimme, gimme, gimme with both hands out, while badmouthing anything put into those hands that isn't to their taste. 

KB used to be the place to come for cutting-edge business discussions. To find out what was possible in this business and to figure out collectively how to achieve it. 

There is so, so much more to this business now than what we were discussing here 2 or 3 years ago. So much more even than what I see being discussed here on KB today. In some ways, KB hasn't matured along with the business. Some of the reason is that when someone hits a certain level, they want to discuss how new business possibilities might affect them with other folk at their same level of sales. And trying to hold those levels of discussion here amid the snark and the thread derailments and the folk not understanding how the discussion can make THEM money so why are we talking about this again just becomes too burdensome. 

So where does that leave people who are talking real business elsewhere and who don't want to keep answering the same newbie questions here over and over again? We either enter into more esoteric and controversial discussions here, which get modded, or we leave KB altogether, or we come here to check mundane things like whether the Kobo dashboard is down for everyone else, or we simply come by because someone in a FB group spots a trainwreck and directs us here. As a business board, it's no longer the central point of our business discussions


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Sela said:


> Well, I for one would be sad to see you go


Same. I'm on FB as well.


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Since we seem to be airing frustrations in this thread, here are a couple of mine:
> 
> I start very few threads, and those I do start generally have info and/or data that I've not seen mentioned elsewhere. My threads are generally data-driven, and often contain business intelligence -- some of it proprietary and original. My thread-starts can be pure data, nothing controversial, nothing to even controvert because they contain no analysis or recommendations, yet there will always be folk who go out of their way to post something negative. Now, I've got ultra-thick skin and that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when I hand someone solid business data and they spit on it.
> 
> ...


I've seen the things you're talking about, specifically in reference to your posts. I, for one, am incredibly grateful for your input here. Thank you


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2015)

I'm back from dance class. (Wish I was still there.)

It appears the tea and crumpets set would like Kboards to return to an exclusive club where only certain opinions and voices should be heard. The undesirables can shoo off.

Therefore, I'll help them out.

Newbies, this is the link for the Newbie Launch Support Thread:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,220808.0.html

This is the only thread I'm posting in from now on, *even after I hit my goals*. It's a drama free thread where every voice is respected.

I look forward to seeing you there.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

What irks me personally is that there are a great many people who, as soon as someone posts something that questions or disagrees with a post, no matter how mildly (or often, how tangentially), this gets interpreted as "hating" and "negativity". Seriously, this is a discussion board. Anyone can discuss. If you post something, people *will* disagree, no matter how "wrong" they are (or how much of an idiot you privately think they are).

Feel free to disagree with me however violently (or rudely, although Betsy wouldn't have that) you want. I'll probably just walk away from a discussion where that happens. Yano, I got books to write. I post questions and threads about promos. I've spent too much time on the internet to even attempt to argue someone into agreeing with me.

Overall, I think this is an awesome place. I'm not in any secret groups. I find I can only devote myself to one group at a time. I left another forum for the KB.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Jolie du Pre said:


> It appears the tea and crumpets set would like Kboards to return to an exclusive club where only certain opinions and voices should be heard. The undesirables can shoo off.


If anyone is looking for tea and crumpets here, they can find them at the tea shop on the far side of the pool. Ask a cabana boy.

I certainly don't see anyone asking for an exclusive club.

Betsy


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Jolie du Pre said:


> I'm back from dance class. (Wish I was still there.)
> 
> It appears the tea and crumpets set would like Kboards to return to an exclusive club where only certain opinions and voices should be heard.


I don't think that's really what people are saying. I think they are saying that differing opinions can be put forward in a polite and respectful manner or a mean-spirited and disrespectful manner. The tone of the post can really make the difference between a useful thread and one that gets derailed and then locked. People can disagree without putting down the person they disagree with. They can disagree and still respect another persons right to their opinion. But the post that started _this_ post had some very mean spirited comments that were hurtful and disrespectful and unnecessary. Sometimes, all of us make a comment that is thoughtless and that we might come to regret later. It's always a sign of a big person to apologize for making a mistake.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

RE: Phoenix's post

I'll just give an example of why I don't post on KB much these days and never think to come here to talk about business. On KB if someone comes here and asks a business question about how to sell a certain kind of book, let's say shifter books, the convo goes something like this:

"Hey, KB, I see those shifter books all over Amazon. Can someone tell me what's up with the bear shifters?"

The thread will then devolve into making fun of the genre and a lot of people dismissing the genre in general. There might be someone who comes in and answers the question, someone who is making 5 figures a month, but people will still snark all about how awful bear shifters are and turn the thread into a joke.

If someone asks the same question in one of my private Facebook groups, that thread usually turns into best practices, breakdowns of how to get started, real numbers, and often help in promoting. Those threads can take on a life of their own and end up launching a brand new pen name (or names) into bestseller status. 

And to add to that, in my groups that are not romance-centric, if the same question is asked, members are engaged and interested in different tactics and try their best to see how romance authors are marketing to see if it will work for them. There is a level of respect and real interest in learning. 

And that is largely why *I* am not here. I get a lot more out of those private groups where people are more interested in learning than being right or feeling superior.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

PhoenixS said:


> I'm in a couple of private groups with some of the refugees from KB. Successful folk who used to visit and post here regularly. Do you know where most of the business intelligence gets discussed these days? In those private groups scattered all across FB. Our "collected wisdom" isn't so collected any longer.


I just want to say that I am one of the newbies who appreciates the data you share. I find your posts insightful and they give me something to chew over as I consider my way forward.

As a newbie though, how does one find these FB groups? I plan to make this my full time job in the next 12-24 months, as I grow my romance catalogue. I am actively looking for groups to share tactics and ideas to market and promote. Do you have to wait to be shoulder tapped for these groups? Or are there starter ones, for those who want something more in-depth than what is being offered here and without the attacks and drama?


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Richard Murray said:


> I like the locked threads, they are usually interesting.
> 
> As for why it's quiet, people are busy preparing for christmas and new year releases to try and entice all those people who just received a lovely new kindle or tablet.
> 
> And... as mentioned, Star Wars is out soon. (Wish I hadn't become bored with the online game of it.) Fallout 4 soon enough, Ash vs the Evil dead starts at the end of the month.... lots of things to keep peoples interests.


Please can we not mention the C word (or even the X word) just yet? It is still only October!


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## barbie888 (Aug 26, 2013)

I'll miss your posts govrnice. Hope to see you at TPV


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I think envisioning the Writers' Cafe as being "for" the purpose of sharing high-level knowledge about self-publishing is misguided. The WC is a privately owned but public space. That means it's "for" whatever the people here want to use it for, within the limits set by the owner. Yes, people have used it to share high-level knowledge about self-publishing, but not everyone who comes here wants that. Some people just want to interact with other authors -- because writing is lonely. Some people want to argue -- because they're cantankerous and enjoy a good exchange. Some people want to get a specific and fairly simple question answered. Some people desperately need emotional support because they're going through a terrible time. Some people want to network. Some people really need to find a cover artist. Maybe a few people want to browse sigs and find books to read. The WC is "for" all these things and a million others, and the larger and more diverse the self-publishing movement becomes, the "noisier" the WC will get, because there'll be an ever widening array of personalities, cultural backgrounds, goals, needs, and experience levels among the forum's users. Those who use the forum have to live with this noisiness.

Some big sellers who enjoy or choose to put up with this noisier environment will continue to come here. We do still have such people -- Annie and Rosalind and Amanda and others. But big sellers who want to focus very strictly on questions that pertain to their own professional situation -- those who want to filter out the noise -- probably won't keep coming. Blaming the forum itself for those folks' decision doesn't make sense, IMO. "We're trying have a high-level discussion, but all you people keep _acting like people_" -- meaning, having a hundred different reactions, from the constructive and appreciative to the obnoxious and idiotic -- "and it's distracting, so we can't discuss here!" I mean, people are going to be people. Not all of them will be nice; not all of them will appreciate help as much as they should; not all of them will stay focused on the matter at hand; not all of them can distinguish their [expletive] from their eyesocket. If big sellers value the idea of having all the best knowledge about self-publishing collected in one place, then they'll stick it out here, even if some people annoy them, even if threads get derailed, even if they sometimes aren't shown the respect or appreciation they deserve. If they don't stick it out -- and most do not -- that means the idea of having all self-publishing knowledge gathered in one place is not important enough to them to put up with the noise, and there's not much the forum can do about that, because the noise is mostly just _people being people_.

Yes, there are some folks here who are Not Nice. The fact that threads get locked quickly probably delays bannings by giving the Not Nice a chance to cool off and step away from whatever not-niceness they were engaging in. Nevertheless, they'll get banned in the end. Those types always do because they're incapable of reining in their arrogance and meanness in a lasting way. If it has to come out in six small ways before they get banned rather than in one gigantic, vomitous mass, so be it. I don't know that allowing the latter would be better for the board in the long run, as there will always be new Not Nice people, so we'd constantly be getting new vomitous masses lobbed at us, and those highly toxic posts are horrible.

And yes, it sucks that erotica and romance authors can't show their covers. On the other hand, any number of us could've sent the Chutes $1,000 to help cover the expense of running the forum, so that it could dispense with Google ads. No one seems to have made this gesture. What was Harvey supposed to do, exactly? Maybe if enough of us chip in $1,000, we can make 2016 Google-ad free, and those sexy covers can come back. Fact is, I've never heard anyone offer to help the Chutes bear the forum's costs. It occurs to me that I've been here three and a half years, and I've never so much as sent Ann or Betsy a holiday gift card to thank them for their 365 days of 24-7 volunteering.

My larger point, I guess, is that the forum is the way it is because the forum _is us_. If the forum's value is withering, that's not just because "bad people" are showing up and not being squashed by the mods or other members; it's also because "good people" aren't sticking it out. Good people leave because the forum is, in the end, not considered worth sacrificing something for, be it money or time or annoyance-free-ness or whatever else community-maintenance might demand of us.



Deanna Chase said:


> I'll just give an example of why I don't post on KB much these days and never think to come here to talk about business. On KB if someone comes here and asks a business question about how to sell a certain kind of book, let's say shifter books, the convo goes something like this:
> 
> "Hey, KB, I see those shifter books all over Amazon. Can someone tell me what's up with the bear shifters?"
> 
> ...


This is a chicken-or-egg thing, I think. Y'all aren't here because the sort of discussion you want to have doesn't happen here, and the sort of discussion you want to have doesn't happen here because y'all aren't here. If all the folks in those private groups came here en masse, their voices would drown out the let's-make-fun-of-bear-shifter-books people, and the discussion would unfold productively. But those fun-makers would still be here, as a minority, and it's more pleasant to have the discussion without their intrusion. I get it. But the result is a snowballing series of departures.

If people want this forum to be valuable, they have to stick it out despite the noise. I can't think of any other possible solution. Any large, diverse group of people will have "noise" when they get together and talk. Betsy and Ann couldn't possibly moderate at a fine-grained enough level to weed out every joke, every bit of snark, every derailment. It's just not possible, and the attempt would be extremely intrusive. Nor can they let members take care of it. We've all seen unmoderated forums. The only people left in them are those who enjoy going ten rounds and coming out with a pair of shiners. And besides, like I said above, one person's "noise" is another's raison d'etre. The forum has to be allowed to be about different things for different people.

We can choose to talk only to people who are like us, and have an easier conversation, or we can talk to a wider range of people and have the conversation be more of a struggle. Right now, a lot of people are not seeing value in the latter approach, so they're leaving. I can't say I blame them, but neither does the blame lie with the forum itself.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

I think we have all suffered from asking a specific question and getting replies which contain everything except the answer! I asked an opinion about the design and look of something and got told to change the wording, to put less description, to put links in, to do all sorts of things, which I didn't ask for and didn't need. You have to take the rough with the smooth. I asked on another group about using Shutterstock videos in ads and got told where I could get them cheaper, not whether they were suitable which was the question.

Unfortunately, if you have a joke about something on these types of forums, there is always someone who takes the hump and reports you. If you state a flaw in something to warn others, because you have experience of that flaw, there is always someone who tells you that you don't know what you are talking about.


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2015)

Everything Becca said. The pros have gradually left over time, and there's newbies arriving while they're on their way out. I wasn't here in the golden age of this forum but I suspect the ratio between bestselling author and amateur was on the opposite end of the see-saw that it is now. So blame the newbies, or blame the moderators, or blame the authors leaving, it doesn't really make much difference. A locked thread should only upset you if it's a topic you really want to discuss but can't anymore (publicly on this board). And as for threads you wish were locked or people you wish banned, seriously, grow up.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

I'm one of the ones who has vanished. I think this is only my second post since July, and the other was on the occasion of Harvey's passing. I do occasionally come here when friends send me a link, but only to lurk.

Why have I left? Some of it is the stuff mentioned above by Phoenix, Deanna, and others, but I need to take some responsibility for my own actions. There were a couple of threads where I felt like I was pointing out why some strategy or other wasn't effective, and ended up getting into a stupid fight with someone. It usually went like this:

Author A (bestselling author): This is what I've found works in this situation.
Author B (does not sell well): That's limiting, that's short term, that's giving into Amazon's whims, etc.
Me: I would suggest looking at the sales of the two authors when determining which advice to follow.
Author B: How _dare_ you!

And this is where I would get into a long, drawn out, and entirely pointless argument, mostly with self-inflicted wounds and things that I said and later regretted. It wasn't healthy for me. The last straw was when someone I was arguing with said he was going to block me, sent me an unpleasant private message, and _then_ blocked me. I thought, screw you, I'm out of here.

Of course, as time has gone by, I realize that my behavior wasn't exemplary, either. I could avoid the arguments, quietly block people who persistently annoy me, and go on posting my thoughts. People are either going to agree with me, or not. I'm not going to change anyone's mind unless they're already sympathetic to my point of view.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

The bottom line is that higher selling authors usually have limited time and need quick answers to a current business problem. Open forums have no requirements for entry so hobbyiests, the unprofessional, and outright trolls will always be there to clog up threads and make people wade through pages of text to attempt to find something useful. In curated groups, the members have been screened based on genre, sales, knowledge, attitude, _______, in order to be the most useful to the other members. 

That is the main reason people leave open forums - it's simply too hard to get a quick viable answer when in a curated groups, you can often have one in seconds from multiple bestsellers.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

MichaelWallace said:


> Of course, as time has gone by, I realize that my behavior wasn't exemplary, either. I could avoid the arguments, quietly block people who persistently annoy me, and go on posting my thoughts. People are either going to agree with me, or not. I'm not going to change anyone's mind unless they're already sympathetic to my point of view.


I'm on another forum where discussions range from marketing to morality. They are fierce and not for the timid.

I learned early on that arguing with people yields a terrible ROI. So I state my opinion, respond to questions and move on. Life is better that way. 

Otherwise, it's too easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole where the majority of your time is spent convincing someone of something rather than shipping product...


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Oh, man, I'm too late... I tried to message you, gorvnice, but you're already gone. 

I'll miss you.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Jana DeLeon said:


> The bottom line is that higher selling authors usually have limited time and need quick answers to a current business problem. Open forums have no requirements for entry so hobbyiests, the unprofessional, and outright trolls will always be there to clog up threads and make people wade through pages of text to attempt to find something useful. In curated groups, the members have been screened based on genre, sales, knowledge, attitude, _______, in order to be the most useful to the other members.
> 
> That is the main reason people leave open forums - it's simply too hard to get a quick viable answer when in a curated groups, you can often have one in seconds from multiple bestsellers.


That's a really good point.

I imagine it's like arriving at a client's house hoping to discuss business only to find he's having a huge party open to the whole neighborhood.

The signal-to-noise ratio is bound to be high.

To Becca's point, that may be fine and dandy for the partygoers. But it's probably frustrating to the few who are there to discuss business.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

My take on it is that there was a strong ethical element of pay-it-forward among those here who found success. I remember one early instance when Elle tried, tried and tried again to help one poster on the 'why is my story not selling?' quest. It proved a thankless task.

No matter how determined Elle, Michael, Hugh, Russell et al were at the outset to pay-it-forward, they're only human. Among the battalions who appreciated their advice dwelt a sprinkling of snipers. There were no killshots, at least not enough for the mods to act on, but the wounds must steadily have built up and weakened that group of contributors to the point that leaving the battlefield was the only sensible option.

Some diehards are hanging in, but everyone has a tipping point. As for the mods, sheep herding and snake-straightening would, I suspect, be a welcome and easy diversion.

I mostly lurk these days. If KBWC lurkers could be spotted like fireflies in the dark, I think there'd be quite a show.


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## mica (Jun 19, 2015)

I lurked on here for a long time and I have watched big names leave. I have also gone back and looked at old threads. Some are filled with so much valuable information. I agree with a lot of what Gorvnice has said. I also agree with what PhoenixS wrote.

I was a moderator on a pop stars forum for a year and it was hard. I was careful to only prune and lock threads where members were posting really crude language or where two members (or more) were personally attacking each other. When threads went way off topic we just asked the members to get on topic or start a new thread. I tried to treat the members with respect and treat them like grown women (mainly female members)

I have said this in my PM to a moderator on this board, I am a grown woman and I don't like being treated and spoken to like a naughty child. I don't think the moderation on this board is working effectively to be honest. Some of the best threads are the locked ones.

I agree with Gorvnice that some members are trying to cover over the reason why some members have left, some have been vocal about leaving KB. I have said before I miss some of the big name romance authors, they write in my genre and I feel like I can learn a lot from them. I can also learn from authors like Hugh Howey. I look for posts by authors like Sela and Rosalind James now, I love seeing stats, seeing an authors journey, what they did wrong and how they took a right turn, what resources they are using, what new tools they are using, hearing about being a hybrid author, learning from those who went trad and came back to self-publishing etc..... 
I am reading two of Tess Olivers series and I wish she posted more on here.

Lately, I pop on here very quickly and I find dozens of threads that don't interest me. I don't comment and I leave. Some members seem to comment on every thread and sometimes I don't think their comment is helpful or they post a picture/video which is a bit snarky.

As others have said there are authors on here who are not new to this self-publishing industry and I would love to see more threads about more advanced topics. As Phoenix said 'discuss how new business possibilities' within indie publishing, rather than numerous threads about 1 star reviews, new authors talking about low sales with just 1 book out (_the same advice is given, write more books_), threads from authors who have not published yet who think this is a get-rich-quick-scheme and don't like the answers they get back. Numerous threads complaining about KU2 and miscategorizing. I said in one thread, this has been talked about to death.

I feel like this board is not evolving, I have learnt quite a lot from the authors on here but when authors come on here asking the same questions over and over again or the same topics are discussed in mutilple threads, when a member never searches past threads, I don't see the point in visiting this board sometimes.

Anyway, I am grateful for all the info I have collected, maybe I will put a thank you message to some of the members who have helped me and provided me with valuble information in my next book.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

thesmallprint said:


> My take on it is that there was a strong ethical element of pay-it-forward among those here who found success. I remember one early instance when Elle tried, tried and tried again to help one poster on the 'why is my story not selling?' quest. It proved a thankless task.
> 
> No matter how determined Elle, Michael, Hugh, Russell et al were at the outset to pay-it-forward, they're only human. Among the battalions who appreciated their advice dwelt a sprinkling of snipers. There were no killshots, at least not enough for the mods to act on, but the wounds must steadily have built up and weakened that group of contributors to the point that leaving the battlefield was the only sensible option.
> 
> ...


Paying it forward can definitely be a thankless job in the present. But I'll wager the thanks will come later from folks who take advantage of the advice.

The veteran indie publishers who help newbies find their footing are helping to raise the next generation of top-sellers. Next year, there will be a number of new 6-figure earners who'll say things like "Russell Blake's business advice was instrumental to my success" or "Amanda's output spurred me to write and publish 12 books last year."

By the way, great metaphors!


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I wasn't around three years ago. I arrived shortly before Russell Blake left and since then Hugh Howey pops in to start a thread linked to a big concern of his that's cropped up in one of his private Facebook loops (and others like Russell, Holly, Jack do on occasion as well). Mark those words "private Facebook loops" and think about what has changed in the industry since 2012. That was the end of the first year of Select out of which a lot of authors here made a lot of money. Gold rushes always occur after most of the gold has been made and so discoverability is now a big issue for those not already big sellers. A public forum is not the best place to discuss business ideas and cutting out the noise of others is indeed why the best selling prefer private Facebook groups of the bestselling. It is still good that those of us who are not bestselling and don't get invited into private Facebook loops get to hear about what has worked for those who do sell well. However we have no right to insists on the bestsellers hanging out here regularly and blaming moderators for something you have no right to is a donkey in the number preceding ten. 

As to family friendly that was forced on Harvey by Adwords. He held a chat session here explaining how he had tried every other method to fund the site that would not involve Adwords restrictive policies, but they failed to bring in the reddies (or greenbacks). That was also the first that I heard that he was poorly. This is too soon after the late great Harvey's death to be rewriting the history of the site he created. Oh and those private Facebook groups - they don't rely on Adwords for funding, funny that.

Snarking about someone's ability to comment on the basis of author rank on Amazon.com is perfect proof of Kris Rusch's contention that American writers have a tendency to not be able to see further than Seattle. Snark all you like about me. There's no need to look it up around the retailers and around the globe - I don't sell anywhere. That is why I enjoy hearing how others succeeded, but also the comments from those trying to succeed now in the post-2012 dispensation.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> If people want this forum to be valuable, they have to stick it out despite the noise. I can't think of any other possible solution.


I agree with you for the most part but I think this quote is precisely why the question is being discussed now.

For many, that's not a hill they want to die on. They have other things they'd rather be doing.

I do think that the members themselves could all do with a bit of kindness every so often, even in the heat of a contentious discussion. There's only so many disagreements I can walk away from where I've been beaten rudely for having a position/opinion someone disagrees with vehemently before I just keep walking.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Well, the new drawer thingy that's now mostly full of thread isn't ALL my thread. I also have:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


WOW. Drooling....


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

dianapersaud said:


> WOW. Drooling....


IKR? And I don't even sew.


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## dalyamoon2 (Oct 22, 2015)

I used to post a lot, then I shifted away. I'm not going to blame the board or members for any of that.

Here's what happened:

As I learned more about the business, disillusionment set in, along with cynicism, etc. The truth can be ugly, and I like to tell the truth, usually with a joke or two to soften the blow. But I found I was being mean sometimes in posts, and I didn't like that in myself.

Also, I'm an oversharer. I would frequently post from the heart and bare my soul. But I'm a public figure (sort of). It's embarrassing to have a "brand" as an author and try to build a career while you've got hundreds of posts from when you had a bad day and were doing the equivalent of crying in the bathroom at work.

I don't blame the board or the culture here. It is what it is. But I prefer private venues, where my readers can't see me crying or being cynical or crazy.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

dianapersaud said:


> WOW. Drooling....


I try not to do that...it makes the thread hard to use. I do sometimes sit down there stroking and rearranging the thread muttering "My precious...."


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

stoney said:


> I agree with you for the most part but I think this quote is precisely why the question is being discussed now.
> 
> For many, that's not a hill they want to die on. They have other things they'd rather be doing.
> 
> I do think that the members themselves could all do with a bit of kindness every so often, even in the heat of a contentious discussion. There's only so many disagreements I can walk away from where I've been beaten rudely for having a position/opinion someone disagrees with vehemently before I just keep walking.


Yeah, like I said, I understand the decision. But understanding doesn't make the answer to "how to fix the WC" any different. There is no other possible answer, so far as I can see. Picking up Jana's term, any non-"curated" group of people is going to produce at least __% annoyingness/obnoxiousness. I think the moderation here keeps that percentage reasonably low, compared to a lot of other places, but it's never going to be zero. So either people see value here despite the __% and stay, or they don't.

Speaking personally, sure, it saddens me to see people leave, and NOT because all the departees are big sellers, and I miss being able to get their advice, but because I like a lot of the people who've left, and I enjoyed having their posts be part of my day <waves at dalya>. But I think it makes sense to look at the cup as half-full. How many other businesses are there where there's even a _possibility _that a bunch of direct competitors might get together and pool their knowledge? Not many, I bet. If that's still happening in more private spaces, good. If it happens to some extent here also, that's good too. "Imperfect" does not mean "bad." Hopefully enough connections will remain between the private spaces and the more public ones for information and advice to move out to the whole community, albeit more slowly.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

The answer to the question as to why the top selling authors left is simple - one-star reviews.

I published in 2010, have some 40 books and sales this year are over 27,000. I've been hit so many times with bogus reviews and people who "yes" vote those reviews, they can't do me much more damage. Did I lose sales because of it? You bet. Even a Bookbub ad for a free book brings them down on me. 

Thing is, when I am not here often and people don't know me, I feel like I have to boast of my credentials to be taken seriously - and that makes me look like a braggart. I have answers, but those answers are shot down repeatedly because I am unknown, so I just shrug and crawl back into my hole.

I don't know, maybe we need a little avatar that ranks us according to success rather than, or in addition to, the number of posts.

My name is Marti as in "what's a party without Marti?"


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Martitalbott said:


> The answer to the question as to why the top selling authors left is simple - one-star reviews.
> 
> I published in 2010, have some 40 books and sales this year are over 27,000. I've been hit so many times with bogus reviews and people who "yes" vote those reviews, they can't do me much more damage. Did I lose sales because of it? You bet. Even a Bookbub ad for a free book brings them down on me.


That sucks.

Leaving one-star reviews because of a disagreement is cowardly and low class. Some people are crappy to the core.



Martitalbott said:


> Thing is, when I am not here often and people don't know me, I feel like I have to boast of my credentials to be taken seriously - and that makes me look like a braggart. I have answers, but those answers are shot down repeatedly because I am unknown, so I just shrug and crawl back into my hole.


I understand. Skepticism is healthy, but some folks have turned it into an art form.

Personally, I don't need to see credentials. I've been a business owner and marketer for more than 20 years. I know when someone is speaking from experience.

Case in point: scribblr. The man knows his stuff. But he's anonymous on the board, so there's no way to check his sales rank, etc. to validate his advice. As a result, some folks dismiss him. Others, like me, hold him in high regard. We don't need to see his credentials.



Martitalbott said:


> My name is Marti as in "what's a party without Marti?"


lol That's awesome.


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## dalyamoon2 (Oct 22, 2015)

When I did post on here regularly, my rule of thumb was to avoid threads after they reached 3 pages and began to devolve. And there were a few people who loved to quote me and then disagree with me point by point. As soon as I saw that wall of excitable-puppy text (people who get off on conflict because it makes them feel alive), I just didn't read those posts or respond. I viewed it as the love and secret adoration it surely was.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> This is a chicken-or-egg thing, I think. Y'all aren't here because the sort of discussion you want to have doesn't happen here, and the sort of discussion you want to have doesn't happen here because y'all aren't here. If all the folks in those private groups came here en masse, their voices would drown out the let's-make-fun-of-bear-shifter-books people, and the discussion would unfold productively. But those fun-makers would still be here, as a minority, and it's more pleasant to have the discussion without their intrusion. I get it. But the result is a snowballing series of departures.
> 
> If people want this forum to be valuable, they have to stick it out despite the noise. I can't think of any other possible solution. Any large, diverse group of people will have "noise" when they get together and talk. Betsy and Ann couldn't possibly moderate at a fine-grained enough level to weed out every joke, every bit of snark, every derailment. It's just not possible, and the attempt would be extremely intrusive. Nor can they let members take care of it. We've all seen unmoderated forums. The only people left in them are those who enjoy going ten rounds and coming out with a pair of shiners. And besides, like I said above, one person's "noise" is another's raison d'etre. The forum has to be allowed to be about different things for different people.
> 
> We can choose to talk only to people who are like us, and have an easier conversation, or we can talk to a wider range of people and have the conversation be more of a struggle. Right now, a lot of people are not seeing value in the latter approach, so they're leaving. I can't say I blame them, but neither does the blame lie with the forum itself.


Well no, it's not the case that the doesn't happen because the people aren't here. The people are here. The conversation I referenced above actually happened a few months ago. A couple of indies who are successful in that genre came in and answered some questions, but left fairly quickly because who wants to read a long thread about what a joke their genre is? I'll also point out that there are a fair number of people I talk with outside of KB who I met on KB, but have since left because of this same situation.

Also, I'm not blaming the forum moderators or owners. Open forums have their limitations. I'm just stating why I don't have business conversations here. It's more productive elsewhere. People want to know why people leave. This is one of those reasons.

Listen, I like sharing information. I've got a thick skin. I do panels at conferences, let my sessions be recorded, and have participated in pod casts. It's not a matter of keeping all my secrets close to the vest. I'm always happy to talk shop. I'd just rather do it in an environment where people aren't snarking on each other or insisting other author's tactics are wrong or there is only One True Way (TM).


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> Personally, I don't need to see credentials. I've been a business owner and marketer for more than 20 years. I know when someone is speaking from experience.


I so agree! There are a lot of anonymous posters here who I love to read. I don't need to see their bank statements or links to their books to know when someone is sharing something of value.

Unfortunately, there are a number of people who seem to feel members must prove their value in sales rank and earnings. Sadly, it is the reason i rarely post anything with regard to marketing anymore. After reading numerous posts from people flat out saying that they have no reason to read the posts of those who don't link to their books or disclose their income, followed by numerous others agreeing with them, I thought, why bother?

KB has become more of a social outlet for me, now, and there is nothing wrong with that. I have friends here and I enjoy visiting with people, and offering virtual high fives when people hit new milestones, and hugs when they're having a bad day. So far, no one has demanded proof of my compassion before accepting one of those.


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## Talbot (Jul 14, 2015)

The comm isn't what it was? You're not what you were either.

People change and move on, that's a fact of life not an indication of something deeply wrong with a comm. In a couple of years (sooner if I'm hit by a bus) I'll be gone, too. The cafe will be nuked within three, I bet you, and replaced by a 'more streamlined and topical' version. 

It's the internet! It's life! Nothing lasts. Enjoy what you've got.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

MichaelWallace said:


> People are either going to agree with me, or not. I'm not going to change anyone's mind unless they're already sympathetic to my point of view.


I so agree with this, although it took me many years to come to realise its truth. I used to be an argumentative bugger (in real life, not on here), which could cause friction with my friends and family. (I put it down to my legal background - heck, I used to be paid to take a contrary position.) Since coming to an accommodation with myself whereby I state my opinion, back it up where I can with reasons and then back out before an argument has chance to escalate, I've found life to be far less filled with confrontations. Not trying to change the entrenched opinions of others leads to contentment. Going to stop now as I'm beginning to sound like I'm trying to be the wise old Buddhist monk in _Kung Fu_.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> there are a number of people who seem to feel members must prove their value in sales rank and earnings


Let me say this. Having someone 'splaining to me like I'm an idiot what it takes to succeed in a genre when I've been #1 in category and they're at 500k+ sales ranks is frustrating.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Ditto the third 

It's cool though. When people leave (Sorry to see you go, Gorvnice!), it'll be written off as they got too busy or whatever within a week or two. It's much easier to pretend something like that I guess than to look at the reality, even though plenty of successful indies who have left explained in their own words why they did.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Deanna Chase said:


> Well no, it's not the case that the doesn't happen because the people aren't here. The people are here. The conversation I referenced above actually happened a few months ago. A couple of indies who are successful in that genre came in and answered some questions, but left fairly quickly because who wants to read a long thread about what a joke their genre is? I'll also point out that there are a fair number of people I talk with outside of KB who I met on KB, but have since left because of this same situation.
> 
> Also, I'm not blaming the forum moderators or owners. Open forums have their limitations. I'm just stating why I don't have business conversations here. It's more productive elsewhere. People want to know why people leave. This is one of those reasons.
> 
> Listen, I like sharing information. I've got a thick skin. I do panels at conferences, let my sessions be recorded, and have participated in pod casts. It's not a matter of keeping all my secrets close to the vest. I'm always happy to talk shop. I'd just rather do it in an environment where people aren't snarking on each other or insisting other author's tactics are wrong or there is only One True Way (TM).


I wasn't trying to contradict anything you've said here, Deanna. Just pointing out that the more serious people there are populating these threads, the smaller the percentage of annoying people who pull the shenanigans you describe.

If three or four people are trying to have a serious conversation about making a go at bear-shifter books, and three or four other people are popping into the thread and making fun of them, serious conversation quickly becomes impossible. But if _thirty _people are having a serious conversation about making a go at bear-shifter books, and three or four people are popping in to make fun of them, the fun-makers at worst become an annoying side-conversation and, at best, start feeling out of place and leave the thread. It's a question of where the weight of the forum's membership lies.

As more serious professionals leave KB, specific, high-level conversation becomes more difficult, leading more serious professionals to leave, making those conversations even harder to come by, leading more people to leave, etc., etc. That's the situation we seem to be in now. It's a snowballing thing.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Becca - it would be nice if it worked that way, but I don't think it does. Posting in an open forum where a bunch of people who are unhappy or have a chip on their shoulder hang out, is like trying to conduct a board of directors meeting on "bring your toddler to work day." 

+5 (or whatever) on disliking people telling me I have zero idea what I'm doing but then crying foul when I question their sales. If you're going to call people out, then expect them to ask for proof. That's just smart business.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Just to clarify, I wasn't referring to people who post questionable things or who presume to tell best sellers they're wrong. I was referring to those whose posts are well thought out and you can tell they know what they're talking about.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Becca - it would be nice if it worked that way, but I don't think it does. Posting in an open forum where a bunch of people who are unhappy or have a chip on their shoulder hang out, is like trying to conduct a board of directors meeting on "bring your toddler to work day."


Having just put (I hope) two little people to bed for the night, I find your simile especially evocative. 

But there did used to be more in the way of detailed, high-achiever analysis, here, and it's not like the WC has ever been without its share of naysayers, chip-carriers, and rapscallions. I don't know that those folks are more numerous now. Maybe, maybe not. But there are pretty clearly fewer big-earners, and I suspect that change in the forum's make-up has largely driven the change in the complexion of the threads.

Again, I'm not blaming folks for leaving. I think it's a logical choice.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> If three or four people are trying to have a serious conversation about making a go at bear-shifter books, and three or four other people are popping into the thread and making fun of them, serious conversation quickly becomes impossible. But if _thirty _people are having a serious conversation about making a go at bear-shifter books, and three or four people are popping in to make fun of them, the fun-makers at worst become an annoying side-conversation and, at best, start feeling out of place and leave the thread. It's a question of where the weight of the forum's membership lies.


True. But 30 people having a serious conversation about bear-shifter books and NO people popping in to make fun of them seems even more efficient.

When people feel unwelcome, they leave. When people feel it's not a good use of their time, they leave.

Someone asked what the answer is to needing ad revenue so badly you have to kick off the erotica and erotic romance writers, and then pointed out that closed Facebook groups don't need that ad revenue.

Well, exactly. You can pretty easily make a closed Facebook group out of only the people you invite, whatever level of experience that may be. You want newbies? Then you invite newbies. You want only experienced people? You invite just them. You want a mix? You pick a mix. You want a limited number of people? You set a cap. If people are happy posting here, then by all means, they should stay here! But if it's not meeting their needs, there are other ways to form groups that would fill that gap.

Annie is right in saying that plenty of people explained exactly why they left; others just quietly left. But it's not really the case that "everyone is too busy to post," and a bit disingenuous to keep saying so. They're posting--just in other places. I wanted a place where books I'm connected to don't get one-starred if I voice my opinion. I don't care if people disagree; I just don't appreciate the retaliation. For me, it's also not helpful to post in a place where every piece of advice is considered equally valid. If everybody's opinion is right and yet nobody's opinion is worth anything to anyone other than him/herself, then why discuss? I wanted a place where I could ask a question and get solid answers from people who had reason to know, and who could explain how it was that they knew (and who expected the same from me).

A final straw for me was people here constantly urging those with really, really, really weak books to keep writing, because they had a unique voice and a story to tell and to never give up and just publish more, etc. I mean people who were borderline illiterate. Someone would hesitantly say, oh, uh, looks like every other word is misspelled and your sentences make no sense, perhaps that's an issue? And there would be a pile-on of "Just because it's not YOUR cup of tea doesn't mean you can say the writing's not good" etc. I found it unbelievably cruel, not to mention perplexing. Russell Blake's writing got ripped to shreds because he used adjectives to describe a sunset. Someone who posted a book with a practically pedophilic cover image, explaining how much to pay Asian prostitutes and how they were easier to get if they were drug addicts--that got a GoFundMe. The only thing I could think was that people somehow thought propping up really bad books would make their own look better in comparison, or something. Every forum has its flavor, and this was clearly not mine. Even though I was "not family friendly." Or maybe because.

I made some good contacts here, and I'm glad of that; but I'm happier interacting with them in a safer place. Did the forum change? Oh, I don't know. Sometimes it feels like online environments or groups change when really, it's just yourself who has shifted. Perhaps those same problems were already there when I came, and I just never noticed them.

As I said--if people are happy here, they shouldn't let people who have left for more compatible places make them feel bad about that, not at all! If it's meeting your needs, there's no need to justify that. But if people are not happy, I would recommend looking for or setting up another sort of group. Think about what you want, and what it would take to attract the kinds of people you want, and set about that. And you can be in other groups and still post here, if you want both.


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## dmaxwell (Jan 2, 2015)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> Let me say this. Having someone 'splaining to me like I'm an idiot what it takes to succeed in a genre when I've been #1 in category and they're at 500k+ sales ranks is frustrating.


Unfortunately this is one of the unintended consequences of forum anonymity. Picture an online forum for quarterbacks. Aaron Rogers hangs out there because he likes to talk shop and give advice to the younger QB generation. But he posts as Homer Simpson. Inevitably Aaron Rogers will find himself in a passionate argument with a hotshot high school QB. Why? Not because the high school QB disrespects Aaron Rogers. Far from it -- he'd back off in a second if he knew it were Aaron Rogers. But lacking that crucial piece of information the high school QB is bound to think his opinion is as valid as Homer Simpson's.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

dmaxwell said:


> Unfortunately this is one of the unintended consequences of forum anonymity. Picture an online forum for quarterbacks. Aaron Rogers hangs out there because he likes to talk shop and give advice to the younger QB generation. But he posts as Homer Simpson. Inevitably Aaron Rogers will find himself in a passionate argument with a hotshot high school QB. Why? Not because the high school QB disrespects Aaron Rogers. Far from it -- he'd back off in a second if he knew it were Aaron Rogers. But lacking that crucial piece of information the high school QB is bound to think his opinion is as valid as Homer Simpson's.


Perhaps we need George Roy Hill directing some threads.

For those too young to recall Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969), there's an early scene where anonymous men play cards. The blond stranger wins. The dark gunslinger accuses him of cheating and invites him to draw. Butch tries to ease everyone out of the situation but the 'slinger won't back down. Butch moves away saying, 'Can't help you, Sundance.'

The dark gunslinger suddenly turns very pale . . .


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## TwillyJune (May 25, 2012)

I think this is an amazing forum, with amazingly kind, compassionate people who moderate it, and with amazingly generous, empathetic writers and authors who try their best to be supportive; but when words in a text box can either be so easily misinterpreted, or when the intent to hurt is very clear, the fallout is often a one-star review. And how many times can one put their hand to a hot stove and not get burnt? Well, I can testify to each and everyone of you that it's exactly one time. Furthermore, I'm the type of person who keeps putting her hand to the hot stove. lol  You probably wonder how I can write anymore. With an oven mitt. 

There are many reasons why I wear oven mitts when going to any forum. And here's the one for this particular forum. I not only received amazingly supportive messages for Michael Buckley, (and still today I get asked how he is doing), but I read so many optimistic and caring comments for others, that it's truly inspiring. So, for me, an excellent forum is like a really good Irish stew. But sometimes, a few little flakes of so much excellent spice doesn't get stirred in properly and the results are not so good. What do I do? Finish the stew, or throw the whole thing away? Maybe I never use those spices again, ja? Well, I won't eat them out of the bottle or straight from the garden, that's for sure.

The only time I actually stayed away from this forum for any length of time was when Harvey went into hospice care. I found out pretty quick that it's really hard to read when your eyes are blurry from the constant flow of tears. Harvey was an amazing human being, but the interesting thing is, so are every one of you! Or this forum wouldn't even exist, much less continue to sustain itself.


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## dalyamoon2 (Oct 22, 2015)

Just be the kind of poster you want to see more of. Blaming is pointless.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Just Browsing said:


> True. But 30 people having a serious conversation about bear-shifter books and NO people popping in to make fun of them seems even more efficient.
> 
> When people feel unwelcome, they leave. When people feel it's not a good use of their time, they leave.
> 
> ...


I don't feel bad about helping Michael Buckley get back to the U.S., despite his prostitute book. But other than that, I agree with what you're saying, Dalya. I think KBers should feel perfectly free to leave, and that leaving makes a great deal of sense. I'm sort of surprised that some big-sellers choose not to leave, actually, given all the factors you mention. Yes, people do get retaliatory reviews after posting here. Yes, sometimes people who are trying to engage in serious discussions about a business that provides their family income get snarked at and belittled, which is dumb and rude and must be hugely off-putting. Yes, there's a lot of stuff any one person will have to wade through because it's not of interest to them. Yes, people's emotions run high and they lose their ability to reason and end up treating others badly. Yes, the _quality-is-subjective-so-no-one-can-really-say-what's-good-or-bad_ crowd has to put up with the _umm-no-there-are-times-when-something's-pretty-clearly-awful_ crowd, and vice versa. Moreover, if you're making $300,000 a year, every minute of your work week is worth $2.50. Time matters. Emotional energy matters. If the cost in time and energy of being here is not worth whatever someone feels they get out being here, they should not be here. I think that goes for all the things in one's life except those few most inescapable and sacred committments.

What bothers me is this idea that seems to be out there that the WC is a static entity or place, and people come and go from it because of what "it" is. In fact, it's not a place at all. It is _us_. When people leave, the forum changes because their portion of the forum is gone. Does that mean they shouldn't leave, or that leaving is in some way unethical? No, I'm not saying that. People should stay if they want to stay and go if they want to go. It would in no way help the community for people who don't like being here or want to be here to stick it out. That'd be actively damaging, I think -- both to the WC and to them. Nevertheless, I'd like it if people recognized their role in the overall dynamic. The WC is what it is now because of the people who are here _and the people who are not here_. It's as simple as that.

_Blaming_ and _recognizing causation_ are, in my mind, different things. Obviously, I like Kboards and want to see it remain viable and valuable as part of the indie movement. I think it's unique and cool, and I enjoy being here. So it's hard for me to talk about what many see as a decline in its quality without sounding like I'm issuing ethical judgments. I really am trying not to do that. But neither do I want not to call out what seems like an unfair way of representing how a forum and its membership constitute one another.

When a person leaves, they take their strengths and their weaknesses out of the community. That's just the way it is. It doesn't mean people shouldn't leave. We all make lots of these kinds of decisions, figuring out where to participate and where to pull back. For instance, I recently said no to a committee leadership opportunity at my workplace. I denied that committee my strengths and weaknesses as a leader, whatever those might be. I did it because I felt it would take time away from my family and writing. It was a matter of priorities. I don't regret the decision in the least. But it would be wrong to assert that my decision did not affect the committee. Perhaps the effect will be for the better, perhaps for the worse -- who knows? I'm not assigning myself _blame_. I don't think I did anything wrong. But I am recognizing that my decision had an effect on that little group, because that group = the people in it and the roles they choose to play.

As someone who likes the WC, I _hope _that a good number of people continue to see enough value here to put up with the "noise" and stay on, but I'm not saying any one person _should _stay on, is responsible for the WC's future, or ought to feel bad for leaving or scaling back on their participation.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

@Becca Mills - that was really well put.

Excellent post.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Becca for Queen of the Internet!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Donna White Glaser said:


> Becca for Queen of the Internet!


LOL. Thanks, Donna and Anarchist. And um ... <reconsiders co-chair of the assessment committee job, which sounds a little more manageable>


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

thesmallprint said:


> Perhaps we need George Roy Hill directing some threads.
> 
> For those too young to recall Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969), there's an early scene where anonymous men play cards. The blond stranger wins. The dark gunslinger accuses him of cheating and invites him to draw. Butch tries to ease everyone out of the situation but the 'slinger won't back down. Butch moves away saying, 'Can't help you, Sundance.'
> 
> The dark gunslinger suddenly turns very pale . . .


Oh, awesome reference! I just saw that movie for the first time, and I loved it!

I wanted to throw my two cents in because sometimes I get frustrated by the locked threads. We're all adults here - as Monique pointed out, there's really no reason to complain to mom about somebody being wrong on the Internet. I check in with the boards a few times a day. Most of the times, I don't see a thread that interests me and I move on. I personally like to read controversial subjects, but, inevitably, those are the threads that are locked, leaving only the promotion threads, critique my cover threads, and pimp my blurb threads open, along with some other random things that are vanilla and wouldn't get anyone's passions up. Every so once in awhile, I read a thread that is opened with a strong opinion, and those are the threads that I gravitate to, knowing that it's only a matter of time before it gets locked down. But those are the threads that attract a lot of passions and a lot of opinions, and I don't think that's a bad thing. People who's feelings are easily hurt obviously do think that's a bad thing, and that's a shame.

There's a simple solution to not wanting to be offended - instead of going to Betsy or Ann, just stay out of the thread.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Annie - I'm convinced the new national pastime is being offended.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Annie - I'm convinced the new national pastime is being offended.


That and drama.

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Just to clarify, reading some of the comments (and I do take all the critique seriously), there seems to be the belief that report=threadlock.  Y'all have no idea of how many reports we take no action on. 

In most cases, unless a thread is set up to actually attack someone, and that does happen, we try very hard not to have to lock a thread.  We don't lock a thread before multiple attempts to get a thread back on track.  Sometimes the bad feelings and recriminations that have occurred in a thread really have poisoned the well, from our perspective.  But our goal is always to keep the conversation going, if we can.

The best solution, really, is for people to be a force for good here.   Be kind to each other.  And remember, not every post needs to be responded to.

And eat more cookies.

Betsy


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I don't know. Watching people here donating money/miles/time etc to help a man who had written a book about how to take advantage of drug-addicted very young women in a poverty-stricken country (based on his own direct experience, which the book made abundantly clear, mind you) was pretty much a glorious moment in studying human psychology for me.  Probably not the most glorious moment for Kboards however...

Anyway, back on topic. I think also people who are successful have to move on eventually because, as I'm slowly coming to realize (I'm stubborn haha), a lot of the concerns and information at higher levels of this career just aren't things you can really explain. They are problems that people who are in stage 1 really aren't going to understand. I used to think that was BS, btw, when I was stuck on the bottom, but it success really does breed different issues that only other people who have been through it will understand. While I think it is poorly done to tell people "you are doing well, stop complaining"... in the end, I understand the sentiment. The people saying it have their own set of issues to deal with and most likely just don't get that success breeds different issues.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> I don't feel bad about helping Michael Buckley get back to the U.S., despite his prostitute book. But other than that, I agree with what you're saying, Dalya.


I think it was Just Browsing that you were quoting, not Dayla.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

Becca Mills said:


> I don't feel bad about helping Michael Buckley get back to the U.S., despite his prostitute book. But other than that, I agree with what you're saying, Dalya. I think KBers should feel perfectly free to leave, and that leaving makes a great deal of sense. I'm sort of surprised that some big-sellers choose not to leave, actually, given all the factors you mention. Yes, people do get retaliatory reviews after posting here. Yes, sometimes people who are trying to engage in serious discussions about a business that provides their family income get snarked at and belittled, which is dumb and rude and must be hugely off-putting. Yes, there's a lot of stuff any one person will have to wade through because it's not of interest to them. Yes, people's emotions run high and they lose their ability to reason and end up treating others badly. Yes, the _quality-is-subjective-so-no-one-can-really-say-what's-good-or-bad_ crowd has to put up with the _umm-no-there-are-times-when-something's-pretty-clearly-awful_ crowd, and vice versa. Moreover, if you're making $300,000 a year, every minute of your work week is worth $2.50. Time matters. Emotional energy matters. If the cost in time and energy of being here is not worth whatever someone feels they get out being here, they should not be here. I think that goes for all the things in one's life except those few most inescapable and sacred committments.
> 
> What bothers me is this idea that seems to be out there that the WC is a static entity or place, and people come and go from it because of what "it" is. In fact, it's not a place at all. It is _us_. When people leave, the forum changes because their portion of the forum is gone. Does that mean they shouldn't leave, or that leaving is in some way unethical? No, I'm not saying that. People should stay if they want to stay and go if they want to go. It would in no way help the community for people who don't like being here or want to be here to stick it out. That'd be actively damaging, I think -- both to the WC and to them. Nevertheless, I'd like it if people recognized their role in the overall dynamic. The WC is what it is now because of the people who are here _and the people who are not here_. It's as simple as that.
> 
> ...


Becca, I think your post is so true and so well said. KBoards is always going to be whatever we the members, from casual reader to highly successful author, make of it.

The Café has become the most active forum, much to the consternation of some of us long-time members who joined excited about this wonderful new piece of technology from Amazon. Some of us have moaned and groaned publically and privately about the folks who won't come out of the Café to play with the rest of us, or have been upset if we try to get involved in a conversation in here from a reader-only perspective and have felt shunted to the side. In the end, it's exactly what you said (only so much better than what I am trying to say), with these two things: "I'd like it if people recognized their role in the overall dynamic." and "We all make lots of these kinds of decisions, figuring out where to participate and where to pull back."

Thank you for putting things in perspective.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jana DeLeon said:


> I think it was Just Browsing that you were quoting, not Dayla.


Good lord, you're right! What's wrong with me? Sorry, Dalya. Sorry, Just Browsing.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Annie B said:


> I don't know. Watching people here donating money/miles/time etc to help a man who had written a book about how to take advantage of drug-addicted very young women in a poverty-stricken country (based on his own direct experience, which the book made abundantly clear, mind you) was pretty much a glorious moment in studying human psychology for me. Probably not the most glorious moment for Kboards however...


How is it I had no idea that was what his book was about? 

I guess I didn't put in my due diligence before supporting him. Now I feel terrible.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Helping get the man home to the U.S. from a miserable life stuck in poverty in a third world environment was not a bad thing. In my opinion, everyone who helped should feel good about it. The book is another subject. I'm pretty sure no one on her approves of such material. It would be best if it had never happened or disappeared from existence IF what is being reported here is truly what it is. I, for one, have no intention of even looking for it to find out. The topic is totally repulsive to me.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> And remember, not every post needs to be responded to.


Quoting this, because it's soooooo true. You (general you) don't have to "win" a discussion by having the last word. You can't make anyone agree with you by stating your opinion six times, each in increasingly desperate and/or rude verbiage [mentally insert a GIF of a guy digging a hole here]. You should probably be writing, not writing essays on a forum.

Ditto to Annie about different things being of concern to people in different stages in their careers. Certain things really are much better discussed in small groups with people from your cohort. You do tend to get sick of hearing the same noob questions over and over again. But you know what? You can ignore those threads. You can not respond, even if the threads and the noobs themselves annoy you. Eventually, I guess, even the most tolerant person reaches the point of Too Many Noob Questions and leaves, even if the immediate trigger for leaving is something else. People tend to outgrow forums. You come here to learn. Then you share to others. Then you get sick of answering the same questions and getting occasional daft replies. Then you leave. That's pretty much a given. This place is a forum, so people will discuss. It's not anyone's fan club.


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

Annie B said:


> I don't know. Watching people here donating money/miles/time etc to help a man who had written a book about how to take advantage of drug-addicted very young women in a poverty-stricken country (based on his own direct experience, which the book made abundantly clear, mind you) was pretty much a glorious moment in studying human psychology for me. Probably not the most glorious moment for Kboards however...


Yeah, this. I remember being weirded out at the time, when people mentioned it but only in a "you might want to remove that section from your books because it might make people reluctant to send you money" way. That was a nail in the coffin for me.

The lack of response to stuff like that is IMO the biggest factor in making KB the "cesspool" so many say it is. I respect the moderators and know they have a lot of work, but ultimately they are largely unwilling to take a stand about ANYTHING, usually in the name of equanimity. I'm in several other large open writers' forums, and they don't have the problems KB has because the boundaries are clear and the rules strictly enforced. They don't wait for people to cross the lines, they are proactive and stop it before it happens. They state clearly what is Ok and Not Ok, rather than poking their heads in to heated threads with a general warning to play nice, or attempting a little bit of passive pruning here and there. The minute people get rude, they're done posting in that thread or they risk a ban.

Some people might say that stifles discussion -- but they'd be wrong. We have far more open and productive conversations in these other forums because people know they can post without fear of retaliation or attacks; they know the worst to expect is respectful disagreement. As a result, you get a variety of perspectives from people at a variety of different publishing levels, and there's no useless "my sales are better/number of sales doesn't matter" arguments because that's not the tenor of the conversation.

Furthermore, those sites are proactive about protecting their members from harassment of any kind - whether based on gender, race, sexuality, genre, personal vendettas, etc. They listen when groups of members say they feel threatened or silenced - as was the case here, a couple of years ago, when a member went around trying to suck people into his fetish for nonconsensual violence against women. It took a thread like this one, but much longer, before anyone took action. Ditto the Michael Buckley thing. Or the repeated dissing of people based on the genre they write (usually romance or erotica). Or the dramas surrounding KU 1 & 2, Hugh Howey, Elle Casey, Russell Blake, Viola Rivard, etc. That shit wouldn't fly elsewhere. But here, it's routine and I'll never fully understand why. But based on my experience hanging out with writers on the Internet, I think it boils down to inadequate moderation.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

dianasg said:


> Yeah, this. I remember being weirded out at the time, when people mentioned it but only in a "you might want to remove that section from your books because it might make people reluctant to send you money" way. That was a nail in the coffin for me.
> 
> The lack of response to stuff like that is IMO the biggest factor in making KB the "cesspool" so many say it is. I respect the moderators and know they have a lot of work, but ultimately they are largely unwilling to take a stand about ANYTHING, usually in the name of equanimity. I'm in several other large open writers' forums, and they don't have the problems KB has because the boundaries are clear and the rules strictly enforced. They don't wait for people to cross the lines, they are proactive and stop it before it happens. They state clearly what is Ok and Not Ok, rather than poking their heads in to heated threads with a general warning to play nice, or attempting a little bit of passive pruning here and there. The minute people get rude, they're done posting in that thread or they risk a ban.
> 
> ...


The KB is not a cesspool in any form or way. There are no flame wars. There is no swearing, no name-calling, and if things get out of hand in private, how can you blame the forum for that?

I don't know what forums you refer to, but I've never been on a forum that's more heavily moderated than this one. In fact, when I first came here, the moderation weirded me out a little.

I want to express my very public support to the moderators here. I think they do a good job considering the varied membership and temperaments of members. I don't always agree with all decisions they take, but that's life.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Cherise Kelley said:


> How is it I had no idea that was what his book was about?
> 
> I guess I didn't put in my due diligence before supporting him. Now I feel terrible.


I didn't pick up on this either, Cherise. My bad, I guess . . .  I didn't even think to vet his books before making a contribution to his cause. I just liked the whole idea of writers helping out another writer.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I imagine Betsy and Ann are reading this thread carefully, trying to see if there's a consensus on if/how the moderation of the board should change. I just reread the thread, and these are the sentiments and numbers I came up with:

Threads are locked way too quickly; the WC needs lighter moderation: 4 people
Maybe there's a little too much locking, but moderation is generally good: 2 people
There's not nearly enough moderation; bad behavior needs to be curbed faster: 2 people
The moderation is both too light and too heavy; we need more bannings/timeouts and fewer thread locks: 3 people
Moderators need to be more consistent instead of playing favorites: 1 person
Some of the members here are a problem (no explicit points made about moderation changes): 14 people

These are quick, rough counts and probably aren't super-accurate. But even with a lot of wiggle room for error, it seems safe to say the only clear take-away is that some of the people who post here (or used to post here, or might want to post here) have a problem with some of the other people who post here. On how to fix the problem, or whether it can be fixed, there's no consensus. In fact, the recommendations of some members seem to contradict the recommendations of others. There's also little consensus on exactly how the problem members are causing problems. There are a lot of different kinds of complaints, from rudeness to snarkiness to one-starring to repeated newbie questions to entitlement to vociferous arguing to just not having shared concerns, and a bunch of others.

Not sure where that leaves us, exactly.



crebel said:


> Becca, I think your post is so true and so well said. KBoards is always going to be whatever we the members, from casual reader to highly successful author, make of it.
> 
> The Cafe has become the most active forum, much to the consternation of some of us long-time members who joined excited about this wonderful new piece of technology from Amazon. Some of us have moaned and groaned publically and privately about the folks who won't come out of the Cafe to play with the rest of us, or have been upset if we try to get involved in a conversation in here from a reader-only perspective and have felt shunted to the side. In the end, it's exactly what you said (only so much better than what I am trying to say), with these two things: "I'd like it if people recognized their role in the overall dynamic." and "We all make lots of these kinds of decisions, figuring out where to participate and where to pull back."
> 
> Thank you for putting things in perspective.


Thank *you* crebel. You're a gem. 

Yeah, I think the choice of where to spend one's KB time (only in the WC, never in the WC, or all over) is probably similar to the choice whether or not to spend time on the site, period. It's easy to "should" people, but in the end, personal desires and priorities will guide almost everyone's behavior.

That said, I wish I'd discovered KB before I started writing. I read so much more then than I do now. I would've loved the more readerly parts of KB because I would've had so many reads to talk about.

Though come to think of it, I did just finish a cool nonfiction book about feathers (counts as research). I should get out there and see if anyone else has read it.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Buckley took down the prostitution guide the moment a few people like myself started pointing out it existed. We tried to post actual lines from the book, but I believe those posts were moderated very quickly. Once Buckley realized that people might find that book objectionable and therefore stop giving him free stuff, he pulled it down very fast. Everyone glossed right over the warnings some of us tried to give about it and what its content implied (I mean, it seriously was a guide about how to make sure you got a good bargain on young prostitutes including how to tell who was on drugs and who would be more likely to rip you off etc, all written from direct experience- I mean you guys realize he was living there because he'd stayed to be with one of the women he bought, right? He said this more or less a few times not explicitly but it was easy to put together from context when he could keep his story straight.  His other books had some disturbing stuff in them also, but it was couched in fiction at least).

ETA: Actually, the book is back up now. Heh. Guess now that it can't hurt his donations, he's republished it. 

As I said, that whole entire situation was a study in human psychology. I don't think anyone should feel awful, it's not a bad thing to want to help people, and one of the downsides of being a nice human is that you'll occasionally do good things for not very good people.  Their being questionable doesn't make you bad. 

I don't think Kboards is a cesspool. I think it is an open forum where the moderators err on the side of deleting conflict, which ends up muting some kinds of voices, both needed ones and unhelpful ones. It's cutting out the good flesh with the cancer, but it does keep the cancer to a minimum.  For people who are business-minded however, I think it has evolved perhaps beyond its initial usefulness for a lot of reasons.

However, I still hold some hope. One of the reasons I still post here is because I recognize what Becca is saying. If all the successful people leave, the only voices left will be new or the voices of those that haven't found their way yet or are caught up in bad information or don't really care about the business side of things as much because they are coming at it from a hobby POV or whatever, and those will be the only voices people hear when coming here for information.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Becca Mills said:


> I imagine Betsy and Ann are reading this thread carefully, trying to see if there's a consensus on if/how the moderation of the board should change. I just reread the thread, and these are the sentiments and numbers I came up with:
> 
> Threads are locked way too quickly; the WC needs lighter moderation: 4 people
> Maybe there's a little too much locking, but moderation is generally good: 2 people
> ...


I am indeed reading the thread with an eye to how to improve. Critique is important in any endeavor and when I respond to people who PM me to tell me what they think of my moderation of them, I generally thank them for the feedback, and I mean it. (Including the member who recently told me to do something physically impossible.  That member is no longer here, though not specifically because of that comment, but because of refusal to accept the moderation he/she was complaining about. Surprisingly, it was the first time in my seven years as moderator I had been told that. Achievement unlocked.)

Newbie questions: There will always be newbie questions. KBoards philosophy on newbie questions from a moderator standpoint was established early on by Harvey in our admin section. We were "just" a Kindle forum at that time, but I believe it still stands:

[quote author=Harvey on November 1, 2008]This kind of fits under the category of 'tone', but is worth emphasizing. Many of our guests, and registered members, are newcomers to Kindle. Often newcomers will ask questions that have been asked many times before. In many forums, these newcomers get welcomed with impatient posts telling them to search for the answer, read the manual, or otherwise answer their question. Not a nice introduction after someone has bothered to register with us and to post their query.

We want to be a welcoming place for newcomers, while at the same time dealing with the frustration that more experienced members may have of seeing the same questions pop up time after time. We are putting in place an approach for doing that. Here's our forum code of conduct for welcoming newcomers:

A. We are putting a FAQ sticky post at the top of the "Let's Talk" forum. That sticky post will have a list of the most commonly asked questions that we hear from people new to Kindle. The post will also have a link to the Kindle FAQ downloadable book. The post will also have instructions on how to search the forums effectively.

B. When a newcomer asks a question whose answer is well-documented, someone (either a moderator or any member) will:
1 - Welcome the newcomer
2 - Answer the question courteously
3 - Point them to the sticky post (or to another post if applicable) that contains that answer
4 - Do the above promptly, before other less patient forum members jump in and tell them to go away and read the manual. Smiley

C. If the same newcomer continues to ask questions that are easily found in the forums, we will simply point them to the sticky post (or other post) that has the answer - rather than answering it directly in our replies.

We hope that this will have the effect of giving newcomers a friendly answer, while at the same "training" them on how to find similar answers on their own.[/quote]

It's a little more problematic with self-publishing data as the landscape does keep changing--it's not a matter of just pointing them to an FAQ about the Kindle. But we do have a link to useful threads as one of the sticky posts. We update that with suggested threads from members (though we don't automatically add all suggestions).

For the record, I don't have a problem with people hanging out just in the Writers' Cafe any more than I have a problem with our many members who mostly hang out in only Not Quite Kindle or any other subforum. Though I occasionally invite people to visit other areas of the forum. And believe that not every post should be in the Writers' Cafe no matter the topic. 

And yes, crebel is a gem.

I do appreciate this conversation.

Betsy


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

I agree 1000% that the moderators receive totally mixed messages about how to moderate. That's because you can't really please everyone. I think that's where the trouble comes from - trying to please everyone. It sends mixed messages. Again, I appreciate and respect the work Betsy and Ann do and think they can receive feedback just fine.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

dianasg said:


> I agree 1000% that the moderators receive totally mixed messages about how to moderate. That's because you can't really please everyone. I think that's where the trouble comes from - trying to please everyone. It sends mixed messages. Again, I appreciate and respect the work Betsy and Ann do and think they can receive feedback just fine.


Thanks, Diana.

I do want to say that one message I've taken from this is that even though I think we're doing some of the things commented on in this thread, people don't think we're doing it...so obviously I need to be clearer in my communications. (for example, ElHawk didn't realize we actually DO ban people. )

Betsy


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

That's actually a really good point, Betsy, and maybe speaks to what I was saying as well (the idea that more moderation is happening than I/we are really aware of).


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## Susan Alison (Jul 1, 2011)

EC Sheedy said:


> I didn't pick up on this either, Cherise. My bad, I guess . . .  I didn't even think to vet his books before making a contribution to his cause. I just liked the whole idea of writers helping out another writer.


I didn't pick up on it either. That's put a dent in my day.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Annie B said:


> For people who are business-minded however, I think it has evolved perhaps beyond its initial usefulness for a lot of reasons.
> 
> However, I still hold some hope. One of the reasons I still post here is because I recognize what Becca is saying. If all the successful people leave, the only voices left will be new or the voices of those that haven't found their way yet or are caught up in bad information or don't really care about the business side of things as much because they are coming at it from a hobby POV or whatever, and those will be the only voices people hear when coming here for information.


I am one of those who came here as a newbie and learned how to publish what I'd been writing. Due to passage of time,* I am now more interested in the business-minded discussions myself. I don't know where else to go for more of those discussions.* I wish I did. Then I'd spend working time there and come to the WC for nostalgia and a little fun.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2015)

Betsy, I'm sorry someone was verbally abusive to you.  You don't deserve that.  You do your job, and you do it well.  I'm outspoken, and I often don't color within the lines, but I apologize for any pruning of my posts that you've had to do.  (For all I know, you may end up pruning this one.  But I can be a fearful faker, or I can be me.  I choose to be me.)  

Also, I spent some time reading the blog posts written by Harvey's wife and reading some of the information about Harvey.  He died at my age.  Life is short.  I'm going to live my life, on my terms, and I'm going to be happy.  I'm not going to live my life in hopes of pleasing others, particularly people I've never even met.

With that said, it's clear to me that the successful authors are seeking like-minded voices.  It's also clear to me, whether they want to admit it or not, that newbies and people who are not yet successful should be seen but not heard.  I understand where they're coming from, but it's offensive.

In any case, I will be a successful author, again, and more so, by the end of December 2016.  When Becca says that she wishes successful authors would stay, I respect that.  Therefore, when I hit my goals, I'd like to stay and share how I did it. However, it's important for me to like, at least somewhat, the people I'm hanging around.  That would be a person who accepts me at any level, not just when I'm at their successful level.

Indeed, when I get to a successful level, I'm not interested in hanging with the upper crusts who look down on the authors who are where they used to be.  I'd prefer just to stay on my own, over in the corner, drinking two shots of Jack Daniels over ice.  Or maybe dancing on a pole.

Anyway, it's better for someone like me, who is outspoken, and who doesn't always color within the lines, to stay away from Kboards.  When I hit my goals and when I'm successful, I may be back.  After all, I love my fellow newbies and I'd like to help them out.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Sapphire said:


> I am one of those who came here as a newbie and learned how to publish what I'd been writing. Due to passage of time,* I am now more interested in the business-minded discussions myself. I don't know where else to go for more of those discussions.* I wish I did. Then I'd spend working time there and come to the WC for nostalgia and a little fun.


Perhaps splitting the Writer's Cafe into multiple subsections is an option.

For example:

- *The Cafe*: shoot the breeze with other self-published authors. Air frustrations, share stories and celebrate each other's successes. 
- *The Conference Room*: business only. Share stats. Share long-term strategies. Share short-term tactics. 
- *Newbie Corner*: just getting started on your self-publishing adventure? Post your questions here and experienced authors will offer guidance and perspective.
- *The Fight Club*: got a beef with another writer? Don the gloves, raise your dukes and work it out like Neanderthals. (But leave your beefs in the ring.)

That way, folks will have an easier time finding what they're looking for.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> I think also people who are successful have to move on eventually because, as I'm slowly coming to realize (I'm stubborn haha), a lot of the concerns and information at higher levels of this career just aren't things you can really explain. They are problems that people who are in stage 1 really aren't going to understand. I used to think that was BS, btw, when I was stuck on the bottom, but it success really does breed different issues that only other people who have been through it will understand. While I think it is poorly done to tell people "you are doing well, stop complaining"... in the end, I understand the sentiment. The people saying it have their own set of issues to deal with and most likely just don't get that success breeds different issues.


The other side is true as well. I can't remember if it was here or another forum, but someone posted a link to an article about being successful on iBooks and the person wasn't trying to be a jerk or anything, but they had a front page promotion on iBooks and had been on best seller lists and were regularly on BookBub. Totally different experience of trying to get traction than being in a low selling genre or not already successful on other stores.

I think moderation here has improved drastically and gotten a lot less intrusive, but incidents like Buckley and others often gave the impression that the worst voices on the board were the ones most protected by the moderation.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Anarchist said:


> - *The Fight Club*: got a beef with another writer? Don the gloves, raise your dukes and work it out like Neanderthals. (But leave your beefs in the ring.)


Um...no. We prefer that those happen in the alley behind the clubhouse. 

Betsy


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Betsy, I'm sorry someone was verbally abusive to you. You don't deserve that. You do your job, and you do it well. I'm outspoken, and I often don't color within the lines, but I apologize for any pruning of my posts that you've had to do. (For all I know, you may end up pruning this one. But I can be a fearful faker, or I can be me. I choose to be me.)
> 
> Also, I spent some time reading the blog posts written by Harvey's wife and reading some of the information about Harvey. He died at my age. Life is short. I'm going to live my life, on my terms, and I'm going to be happy. I'm not going to live my life in hopes of pleasing others, particularly people I've never even met.
> 
> ...


I never got the impression newbies should be seen but not heard. I mean you don't always know a newbie. Some writers might be doing well, even better than some of the bigger names on these boards, but they use a pen name and don't really talk about their earnings. Just saying. You never know who you're talking to online. You could be blowing off someone who could teach you a thing or two. What's that saying? The most important person in the room is usually the quiet one, I think.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Betsy, I'm sorry someone was verbally abusive to you. You don't deserve that. You do your job, and you do it well. I'm outspoken, and I often don't color within the lines, but I apologize for any pruning of my posts that you've had to do. (For all I know, you may end up pruning this one. But I can be a fearful faker, or I can be me. I choose to be me.)


Well, this wasn't the first person to be abusive to me or another moderator...just the first one to use that expression. Abuse of a moderator was a bannable offense in Harvey's eyes, and he took out a few people over the years on our behalf.  He always had our back and was the best boss I've ever worked for (though technically I didn't work for him, I and the other moderators are volunteers).

People who need to be moderated (or at least in our eyes) typically respond in one of three ways: they apologize and promise to sin no more; they disagree with the moderation (and may want to discuss it with us in a civil manner) but then accept it and move on; and the third type never accept it. I don't have a problem with either of the first two categories.

I think there's a place for you here, Jolie, even though you may need moderation now and again.  Every dish needs a bit of spice.

Betsy


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Indeed, when I get to a successful level, I'm not interested in hanging with the upper crusts who look down on the authors who are where they used to be.


Wow. That's a wide paintbrush you just swiped over a lot of people. I guess the fact that we spends tens of thousands of dollars of our own money traveling to conferences to teach every year isn't enough? And I'd like to note that the one time I was offered money to teach, I donated it back to the organization to cover someone else's attendance cost. Then there's the fact that many of us have written books on indie publishing or have videos and blogs with article after article on the subject? I assure you even paid non-fiction doesn't make us any money (and that's not why we do it anyway). Then there's all the forums, loops and groups we participate in where we answer the same questions over and over again, but none of those count?

What successful authors would like is to be able to answer questions here without being automatically dismissed because of our success, 1-starred because it's not the answer someone wanted, called outliers, get accused of having an inside contact, secret handshake, etc. that got us where we are. If by "like-minded" you mean people who actually want to share information and learn how to move their business forward, then yes, successful authors are looking for that. One would hope all authors are. It is a known occurance that hanging out with people who are better than you at something tends to elevate your game. I am always hoping to talk with someone more successful than myself so I can pick their brain. Even if it's just the energy they convey, I never cease to get something out of it.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

I know some people didn't see Buckley's "How to get a drugged Asian prostitute" book. (Although that's a question too--why not? It was referenced quite a few times. The only direct response I remember seeing was people telling him to take it down or at least change the cover--a man sliding his hand up the thigh of a young drugged girl passed out on a bed--so that he could get more money for his fundraising campaign.)

Strangely, that wasn't even what I was complaining about. Let's imagine for a moment that book didn't exist. It did, and it still does, but that's a separate issue. Let's imagine that only his other books existed. I would like to know why people--many, many people here on Kboards--kept encouraging him to write more, change keywords, adjust his covers, try advertising, etc. And almost no one told him he couldn't write. If anyone ever tried to, it seemed those comments got moderated away or protested by people saying that everything was somebody's cup of tea, you couldn't criticize anyone else's writing, this Pulitzer winner got one-star reviews so never mind about his, etc.

See, _that_ was my breaking point--when the forum as a whole declared that no writing is ever bad. Are there disagreements over what makes fine prose? Well, of course. I just don't see the logical extension of that being "and therefore no writing is ever bad, and therefore must never be discussed."

Is there really no harm in telling someone with craptastic writing that their works are good and to keep going? I don't think so. I think there is definite harm. I think you're asking them to invest time, energy, caring, and above all hope that they might get some reward, when _you know_ they won't. This was a man desperate for money. "Go home and get on social services," that was sensible advice. "Just keep on trying, man! Why don't you try a romance next?", that was abusively cruel. And if people say, "Oh, well, I never looked at his books, I just gave the standard advice," I wonder why. If someone says their book isn't selling, wouldn't the FIRST thing you'd do be to look at the book? Rather than to _never_ look at the book? If I say my dog isn't well, do you automatically say, "Oh, give him B-12 injections", or do you ask to look at the dog? Because if his leg is broken, vitamins aren't what he needs right now.

Well, some people did look at his books. Some people from Kboards bought them. Some gave him 5-star reviews (that are still up, names attached...). A Kboarder designed his Christmas book cover. A Kboarder gave it a 5-star review (its only other review is a 1-star). Go ahead. Check the Look Inside. Really? That's a question of people liking different cups of tea? That's not someone with serious grammatical and story arc issues who needs a ghostwriter? But he wasn't told that. He was told he had a unique voice and to keep going. Someone bought him a Damonza cover. Check the look inside of that one. Check all three volumes, since Kboards told him to make it a series and release quickly, because everyone knows series do well. Check the Cave In series he wrote when he was told romance sells.

I get being kind; I get helping out; I get paying back. But lying to people about their chances is just cruel. I don't get that. I don't get building people up so that their dreams can be crushed (especially when they're in desperate financial straits). Buckley was the most extreme example; but he also wasn't the only one.

There are great people and great writers on Kboards--there most definitely are (many of whom also post, of course, in closed places elsewhere). There are smart, successful, funny, engaged people on Kboards, many in this very thread. If most people are happy in a particular environment and I am not, the 'solution' is not for me to rail about wanting changes; the solution is for me to go and find myself a compatible place, and I have. I am not asking for a single change to Kboards or the way it is run.

I guess I just felt like saying it isn't true that people who don't post as much (or at all) are all "too busy." And to ask, because I never did at the time, why people encouraged someone who couldn't write to write more. Well, not to _write_ more--to publish and offer works for sale more. I don't expect an answer, but I couldn't help asking.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Ugh. That whole thing. And that review. Lawdy.

Can't say more that won't get slapped.

But, advice that maybe it's not for them or to walk away is never welcomed here. It's drowned out by the rainbows and lolllipops every time. If you offer any other advice, you're a dream killer.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Well, this wasn't the first person to be abusive to me or another moderator...just the first one to use that expression. Abuse of a moderator was a bannable offense in Harvey's eyes, and he took out a few people over the years on our behalf.  He always had our back and was the best boss I've ever worked for (though technically I didn't work for him, I and the other moderators are volunteers).
> 
> Betsy


Can I be bold and ask. I thought the Kboards is a privately owned profitable venture, so why do moderators not get paid here? And why do you (Betsy) volunteer to do this thankless highly criticized job ?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Melody Simmons said:


> Can I be bold and ask. I thought the Kboards is a privately owned profitable venture, so why do moderators not get paid here? And why do you (Betsy) volunteer to do this thankless highly criticized job ?


Love.


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## Mystery Maven (Sep 17, 2014)

I'm here at my kitchen table, giving this post a standing ovation. Bravo!



Just Browsing said:


> I know some people didn't see Buckley's "How to get a drugged Asian prostitute" book. (Although that's a question too--why not? It was referenced quite a few times. The only direct response I remember seeing was people telling him to take it down or at least change the cover--a man sliding his hand up the thigh of a young drugged girl passed out on a bed--so that he could get more money for his fundraising campaign.)
> 
> Strangely, that wasn't even what I was complaining about. Let's imagine for a moment that book didn't exist. It did, and it still does, but that's a separate issue. Let's imagine that only his other books existed. I would like to know why people--many, many people here on Kboards--kept encouraging him to write more, change keywords, adjust his covers, try advertising, etc. And almost no one told him he couldn't write. If anyone ever tried to, it seemed those comments got moderated away or protested by people saying that everything was somebody's cup of tea, you couldn't criticize anyone else's writing, this Pulitzer winner got one-star reviews so never mind about his, etc.
> 
> ...


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Just Browsing said:


> I know some people didn't see Buckley's "How to get a drugged Asian prostitute" book. (Although that's a question too--why not? It was referenced quite a few times. The only direct response I remember seeing was people telling him to take it down or at least change the cover--a man sliding his hand up the thigh of a young drugged girl passed out on a bed--so that he could get more money for his fundraising campaign.)
> 
> Strangely, that wasn't even what I was complaining about. Let's imagine for a moment that book didn't exist. It did, and it still does, but that's a separate issue. Let's imagine that only his other books existed. I would like to know why people--many, many people here on Kboards--kept encouraging him to write more, change keywords, adjust his covers, try advertising, etc. And almost no one told him he couldn't write. If anyone ever tried to, it seemed those comments got moderated away or protested by people saying that everything was somebody's cup of tea, you couldn't criticize anyone else's writing, this Pulitzer winner got one-star reviews so never mind about his, etc.
> 
> ...


This. Every bit this.

I remember the one time I decided to be crazy and suggest it might be the writing that as causing poor sales. I often think it, honestly, because often it is. I look at books and can tell by end of sample that no marketing and change in cover art is going to sell that book in any kind of profitable number. But Kboards proved to me in swift and harsh fashion that telling someone they need to work on their craft at basic levels and might not be ready for prime time... that's not welcome here. I'll likely never do it again. I'll just groan privately and feel a little sad inside when I see the same person posting four or six or twelve months later, wondering why X didn't work for them while fifty people tell them to keep holding onto their dream cause it's a marathon and their books are a unique flower that someone will someday appreciate instead of saying the far more truthful "Go take a writing class, learn basic story structure, genre conventions, and grammar, then try the level 2 stuff." 

But I think a lot of writers (heck, people in general in a lot of professions but especially the arts) would rather believe success is a luck factor or outlier thing more than it is a hard work and being darn good at what you do thing...


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Betsy, I'm sorry someone was verbally abusive to you. You don't deserve that. You do your job, and you do it well. I'm outspoken, and I often don't color within the lines, but I apologize for any pruning of my posts that you've had to do. (For all I know, you may end up pruning this one. But I can be a fearful faker, or I can be me. I choose to be me.)
> 
> Also, I spent some time reading the blog posts written by Harvey's wife and reading some of the information about Harvey. He died at my age. Life is short. I'm going to live my life, on my terms, and I'm going to be happy. I'm not going to live my life in hopes of pleasing others, particularly people I've never even met.
> 
> ...


This idea of successful authors looking down on or lording it over new/less successful ones is important to address, I think, because it has the potential to foster serious divisions.

Look, I can see why Jolie is getting that impression from this thread, though I don't think it's actually true that KB's successful authors (both those here now and those who've left) look down on others. I mean, okay, maybe a few do. But I can also think of some new/less successful authors who seem to look down on others. That's just being an asshole, and there are successful and less successful subgroups within the asshole species. I don't think most of the folks here are assholes, whatever their sales happen to be.

I think the impression of looking-down-on can come from a couple different chains of reasoning:

First ...
1. It's good to have successful authors here because they have so much knowledge to offer. --> 2. We need to do what it takes to keep successful authors here. --> 3. Successful authors cannot be argued with or criticized because that might make them leave. --> 4. Successful authors demand preferential treatment as the price of staying here because they think they're better than everyone else.

Second ...
1. Claims about practices and strategies should be backed up. --> 2. Concrete evidence of efficacy is the best backup. --> 3. The greatest concrete evidence of all is high sales. --> 4. The only way to back up your position effectively is by proving you have high sales. --> 5. The feelings and opinions of people with low sales are worthless here.

Hopefully everyone can see that there are some leaps of reasoning in those two chains.

In the first one, there's a big gap between Point 3 and Point 4: even if the masses hesitate to argue with or criticize successful authors (which, based on experience, I think is generally not the case), that doesn't mean the successful authors actually object to being argued with or criticized. The way we perceive them as feeling may not be the way they actually feel. There's also a big gap between Points 2 and 3, as I don't think most successful authors are looking for an enviroment in which they're not argued with or criticized at all. Rather, they're looking for an environment where argument/criticism is on-topic, fair, and constructive. That's what people in this thread seem to me to be saying, anyway.

In the second one, there's a big gap between Points 4 and 5. Coming out on the losing end of an argument does not mean you're seen by the community as worthless. It just means most people found the other person's point more convincing this time around. There's also a gap between Points 3 and 4: successful authors point to their own sales as evidence that their strategy works for them, and that is the claim most of them make, so far as I've seen. I almost always hear such claims tempered with "YMMV," and so forth. Very few people here insist that _everyone must do X, Y, or Z_. There seems to pretty good recognition that indie publishing contains variety. There's also a gap between Points 1 and 2, as reasoning (vs. concrete evidence) can and has been used successfully as backup. And the whole chain presupposes that the point of discussion in the WC is to win arguments rather than to share info, which I don't think is the case for most of the successful authors here. Most are here, like Annie said, because they want to be part of the community and to help others.

But here's the thing: there are enough grains of reality mixed into those chains of reasoning that they're "sticky."

Re the first chain, yeah, some successful authors may leave after being argued with aggressively. That doesn't necessarily mean they're taking a "how dare you argue with me peon" attitude. I think it often means they've realized they're spending too much time and energy on something that doesn't help them professionally, or that they're concerned about damaging their public image. But the timing of some departures might give the wrong impression.

In the second chain, many big-sellers do use their sales to justify their strategies, and yeah, that can make people without sales feel like they have no corresponding way to argue in favor of their own preferred strategies. That sense of helplessness can, in turn, can make them feel not respected or taken seriously. This one's tough because, at least from where I'm sitting, sales evidence is pretty darned convincing. I don't see anything wrong with citing it and actually appreciate it when people reveal their numbers and the strategies that got them there. But this is not to say that people who are not yet big sellers don't make great points backed up by their own reasoning or evidence drawn from others. They do, and those points should be listened to and taken seriously. I think that usually does happen. There have been a couple particularly nasty show-me-your-numbers arguments, but in the ones I can think of off the top of my head, it's taken two parties to get the tango going -- a successful author insisting that sales must be revealed to prove efficacy and a less successful one arguing for a position they really have no way to back up. Neither one of those argumentative approaches is a good one, IMO, and when the two come together, the resulting blow-up cements Chain 2 and the sense of division that comes with it.

The truth of the matter is that we have huge differences in levels of success, here, with some people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and others really not having two pennies to scrape together. That's a difficult situation to navigate, since the whole point is to talk together about the business that is or is not making us money. I don't really have a solution to propose except to say we should try to be aware of tone. And I think that really does go both ways: _everyone _needs to be tone-conscious, not just the big-sellers. It might be the most important -- and the trickiest -- for them, but it matters for everyone.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Just Browsing said:


> I would like to know why people--many, many people here on Kboards--kept encouraging him to write more, change keywords, adjust his covers, try advertising, etc. And almost no one told him he couldn't write. If anyone ever tried to, it seemed those comments got moderated away or protested by people saying that everything was somebody's cup of tea, you couldn't criticize anyone else's writing, this Pulitzer winner got one-star reviews so never mind about his, etc.
> 
> See, _that_ was my breaking point--when the forum as a whole declared that no writing is ever bad. Are there disagreements over what makes fine prose? Well, of course. I just don't see the logical extension of that being "and therefore no writing is ever bad, and therefore must never be discussed."


With regard to critiquing others' prose, here's the problem. A lot of folks are sensitive about the things they create. All feedback wounds them.

It shouldn't be so. But it is.

Even something as benign - even helpful - as "tighten up the writing in this passage to quicken its pace" will make a wallflower wilt.

With that in mind, here's a snippet from Harvey's Forum decorum thread: "_No flaming, *no insults*, no name calling. Your post will be deleted._" (emphasis mine)

That's a tough rule to navigate since so many feel insulted when anyone offers feedback about their creations.

Here's an example:

I know a lot of elementary school teachers. They regularly complain about the pushback they receive from moms after telling them their kids are struggling in certain areas. These moms feel insulted and offended. The feedback is valid. Moreover, it's intended to help. But everyone's a special snowflake.

The same goes for a lot of writers. Feedback = insult.

Earlier, Jana mentioned she's "convinced the new national pastime is being offended."

Indeed.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Just Browsing said:


> I know some people didn't see Buckley's "How to get a drugged Asian prostitute" book. (Although that's a question too--why not? It was referenced quite a few times. The only direct response I remember seeing was people telling him to take it down or at least change the cover--a man sliding his hand up the thigh of a young drugged girl passed out on a bed--so that he could get more money for his fundraising campaign.)
> 
> Strangely, that wasn't even what I was complaining about. Let's imagine for a moment that book didn't exist. It did, and it still does, but that's a separate issue. Let's imagine that only his other books existed. I would like to know why people--many, many people here on Kboards--kept encouraging him to write more, change keywords, adjust his covers, try advertising, etc. And almost no one told him he couldn't write. If anyone ever tried to, it seemed those comments got moderated away or protested by people saying that everything was somebody's cup of tea, you couldn't criticize anyone else's writing, this Pulitzer winner got one-star reviews so never mind about his, etc.
> 
> ...


The problem is people who I think can't write have bestsellers. Seriously, books I've read where I would have told the author never, EVER quit your day job have taken off. There's one big indie name right now whose books I just don't get. So I don't tell people they can't write or they'll never make a living because I don't know that.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

My memory of the conversations with Michael Buckley about his books is a bit different--I remember many posts where people suggested he needed to improve his basic writing skills, join critique groups and get an editor.



Annie B said:


> This. Every bit this.
> 
> I remember the one time I decided to be crazy and suggest it might be the writing that as causing poor sales. I often think it, honestly, because often it is. I look at books and can tell by end of sample that no marketing and change in cover art is going to sell that book in any kind of profitable number. But Kboards proved to me in swift and harsh fashion that telling someone they need to work on their craft at basic levels and might not be ready for prime time... that's not welcome here. I'll likely never do it again. I'll just groan privately and feel a little sad inside when I see the same person posting four or six or twelve months later, wondering why X didn't work for them while fifty people tell them to keep holding onto their dream cause it's a marathon and their books are a unique flower that someone will someday appreciate instead of saying the far more truthful "Go take a writing class, learn basic story structure, genre conventions, and grammar, then try the level 2 stuff."
> 
> But I think a lot of writers (heck, people in general in a lot of professions but especially the arts) would rather believe success is a luck factor or outlier thing more than it is a hard work and being darn good at what you do thing...


It's a fine line and no doubt we get it wrong sometimes.

What we say is critique shouldn't be offered when it isn't requested. That doesn't mean it should never be given. I think when someone is posting that their books aren't selling well and asking for opinions why, it's okay to say that one of the things they should look at is is the writing good enough. And then ask if they'd like a critique of their writing in thread or in private. Critique is painful and having someone launch into a list of their shortfalls can be hard to take even in a trusted critique group. Ask me how I know.

At the same time, people have complained quite a bit about the writing in books like Fifty Shades of Gray and in Amanda Hocking's books....and yet they sold. (And not saying there's a comparison with the writing you're describing, Annie, just that I think that's why people think they can catch lightning in a bottle if there's a story there.)

A lot of times it's not what's said, it's how it said...

Betsy


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

katrina46 said:


> The problem is people who I think can't write have bestsellers. Seriously, books I've read where I would have told the author never, EVER quit your day job have taken off. There's one big indie name right now whose books I just don't get. So* I don't tell people they can't write or they'll never make a living because I don't know that.*


^^ I'm with you. What I may think is dreck, may sell like it's pure gold. You never know. Hence the "not my cup of tea" response. It's not always used simply as a pacifier; sometimes it's just plain truth.

And Betsy mentions another thing that occurs from time to time: unsolicited feedback. I've seen someone post asking opinions about their cover, when another poster will say, "In your blurb, you may want to do....." Or a similar comment about the first few paragraphs in the Look Inside. _That wasn't the question. _I realize we're all trying to be helpful, but you can't always help someone before they're ready to accept it. (That's assuming they even want or believe they need the help.) So my rule of thumb is to put my blinders on, answer only, specifically, what is asked.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

I was one of the people who donated to help yet Michael back to the US, and participated in that thread. By the time I learned about his book, I had already donated, but looking back on that situation, I'm not sure it would have made a difference with regard to donating. What I knew at the time was that someone was living in deplorable conditions, and needed help. I was as disgusted as most people by the topic of the book in question once I learned of it, and as much as I hated it, I also I'm a firm supporter of free speech, and that extends even to those who published things I find despicable.

Putting the topic of Michael aside, I would never want to be the person who tells someone they can't write. They may not be able to write right now, but that doesn't mean they can't learn. Rather than tell someone they are not capable of accomplishing what they have set out to do, I would rather lead them to the tools that may help them accomplish what they have set out to do. I did tell Michael that his writing skills were not up to par, and I posted links to some free online classes where he could learn to improve his skills. I would have done the same for anyone.I prefer to sandwich my criticism between things that are more constructive, such as tools to help them, and support.

When I look back at when I first started writing, seriously, had it not been for a couple of people who saw some potential in me, and who took me under their wing, and gave me the support and the tools that I needed to improve, I would never have made it as far as I did. But, because of them, I was able to go on to a successful career as a copywriter at a time when copy writing was not an easy field to break into. I am grateful to those people every single day, and if I have to choose between being someone like them, or being the person who tells someone they don't have what it takes to reach their dreams, the decision is an easy one for me.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I've told people they should probably take some classes and get the basics down before they try to sell their work. 

That's not telling someone to never ever never never write. But it's advice that is frowned upon here.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Annie B said:


> But Kboards proved to me in swift and harsh fashion that telling someone they need to work on their craft at basic levels and might not be ready for prime time... that's not welcome here.


In my short time here, I've learned this. And I also learned there are some new writers who are so hypersensitive that even the suggestion of feedback (not actual feedback, just mentioning the abstract concept of finding CPs to work on their craft) is enough for retaliation and cries of bullying.

I think the moderators have a tough job, made harder by trying to infer tone into written words and also when some people edit their original posts and then cry wolf. I don't know what the solution is, I know I find it frustrating. I am serious about this career, and I may be a newbie but I have a plan that I am working toward. I know how I want to build my catalogue. I appreciate those further along the path who share their journey and give an insight into their methods or approach. I do wish there was some way to discuss the business side without the sensitive hobbyists who want their hands held, heads patted and someone else to do the work.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

If someone cannot take criticism from peers who attempting to help, they have no business publishing. Reviewers will not be nearly as kind.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Annie B said:


> This. Every bit this.
> 
> I remember the one time I decided to be crazy and suggest it might be the writing that as causing poor sales. I often think it, honestly, because often it is. I look at books and can tell by end of sample that no marketing and change in cover art is going to sell that book in any kind of profitable number. But Kboards proved to me in swift and harsh fashion that telling someone they need to work on their craft at basic levels and might not be ready for prime time... that's not welcome here. I'll likely never do it again. I'll just groan privately and feel a little sad inside when I see the same person posting four or six or twelve months later, wondering why X didn't work for them while fifty people tell them to keep holding onto their dream cause it's a marathon and their books are a unique flower that someone will someday appreciate instead of saying the far more truthful "Go take a writing class, learn basic story structure, genre conventions, and grammar, then try the level 2 stuff."
> 
> But I think a lot of writers (heck, people in general in a lot of professions but especially the arts) would rather believe success is a luck factor or outlier thing more than it is a hard work and being darn good at what you do thing...


I think some don't get that it's a timing factor, too. You didn't have to be the greatest writer if you were one of the very first offering your book for 99 cents. You didn't have to be the greatest if you were one of the very first to offer for free in Select, or the first author in your genre to get noticed in KU. None of that stuff works now the way it did back then, so you might need an awesome book, or find success when the next brand new opportunity for visibility comes along and you're one of the first to jump on the wagon.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I think there's a difference between asking one's peers for critique--I've been in a critique group--and receiving unsolicited  critique from an internet forum of mostly strangers, especially for members who are relatively new to the forum.  And that's the issue.  It's more like getting reviews than critique.  And we see how well bad reviews go over here.

I don't think it has to do whether someone is a real artist or not.  *checks own artist credentials for by-laws*

Betsy


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

I haven't written anything in weeks. I have issues.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

JLCarver said:


> But if they're coming to a forum like this, and they're asking why what they're doing is not working, then they're asking for critique. It is no longer unsolicited. It's the very definition of a solicited request. If they don't want their writing to be critiqued when asking a "what am I doing wrong" question, then it is their responsibility to say that they're not searching for a critique of their work. Or they can say they only want advice on marketing and marketing only. A general question leaves the door open for someone to peek into the writing side of it.


Agree. And I said much the same earlier. What I'm saying though, is that actual critique requires trust in the people giving the critique, and that's harder to come by on an open internet forum. And that when new folk ask in a general way "what am I doing wrong?" they may not realize what they are letting themselves in for. As I said in my earlier post, it never hurts to ask what kind of critique they're looking for.

Betsy


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## Mystery Maven (Sep 17, 2014)

There is a difference between those popular books that some of us feel aren't well-written and absolutely incoherent writing. There should be SOME point where we can agree the writing is truly bad, or that writing professionally might not be the career best suited to that person.

For example, imagine we are Olympic sprinters. A high school athlete who does well in his division 1 meets comes here telling us he wants to win an Olympic gold medal within a few years. Some of us may think he can do it with the right training and commitment. Some of us may think that's unrealistic.

But what if a kid who's never done track, who is not physically fit, who has no idea what goes into being a runner of that caliber, comes here telling us he wants to be an Olympic gold medal sprinter?



katrina46 said:


> The problem is people who I think can't write have bestsellers. Seriously, books I've read where I would have told the author never, EVER quit your day job have taken off. There's one big indie name right now whose books I just don't get. So I don't tell people they can't write or they'll never make a living because I don't know that.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Annie B said:


> But I think a lot of writers (heck, people in general in a lot of professions but especially the arts) would rather believe success is a luck factor or outlier thing more than it is a hard work and being darn good at what you do thing...


I think that luck CAN be a factor, both good luck and bad luck. But luck can only take you so far. You still need a product that people want to buy. I don't know what's "good" writing or what's "bad" writing, just what I like or dislike. But I know that, ultimately, you need writing that people want to pay you for.

If somebody simply cannot create a marketable product, it's best to be honest. It's cruel to lie to somebody, to encourage them to keep going, when you know they'll just fail later.

That said, I think there are two types of authors on KBoards. There are professional authors who have or want successful careers. And there are hobbyists, and that's fine too. If somebody stinks but just wants to write for fun, there's room for that too. Many people just want to sing karaoke for fun but have no delusion of becoming a professional singer. It's a bit mean, maybe, to tell a hobbyist--somebody who's just writing (or singing, or painting, or dancing, etc) for fun--that they stink. It's absolutely necessary to tell somebody who wants a successful career if they stink.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2015)

Is Micheal Buckley still on these boards? Haven't seen his posts in a while.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Mystery Maven said:


> There is a difference between those popular books that some of us feel aren't well-written and absolutely incoherent writing. There should be SOME point where we can agree the writing is truly bad, or that writing professionally might not be the career best suited to that person.
> 
> For example, imagine we are Olympic sprinters. A high school athlete who does well in his division 1 meets comes here telling us he wants to win an Olympic gold medal within a few years. Some of us may think he can do it with the right training and commitment. Some of us may think that's unrealistic.
> 
> But what if a kid who's never done track, who is not physically fit, who has no idea what goes into being a runner of that caliber, comes here telling us he wants to be an Olympic gold medal sprinter?


There's not always a difference. I've seen huge best sellers with reviews asking if a second grader wrote the book. More people will overlook typos, bad grammar, and plot holes than you might think. I could shoot you twenty links to books like that right now if it were allowed. Would I suggest putting out a book like that? No, but good for that author if he found a way to make it work for him. Maybe he or she is a good marketer. Some genres are more forgiving than others, too, so it depends on what category you're writing in. Either way, they're making a living and not losing any sleep over what we think.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Annie B said:


> I think it is an open forum where the moderators err on the side of deleting conflict, which ends up muting some kinds of voices, both needed ones and unhelpful ones. It's cutting out the good flesh with the cancer, but it does keep the cancer to a minimum. For people who are business-minded however, I think it has evolved perhaps beyond its initial usefulness for a lot of reasons.


I think that's true. For example, a while back, somebody was bragging about thousands of "sales." We later discovered these were freebie downloads, not sales. Comments pointing out that free downloads are NOT sales were deleted (presumably because they felt too "mean"). Meanwhile, comments that were along the lines of "woohoo, congrats!" remained. When too much is deleted in this way, new writers who visit here get wrong ideas about the industry. New writers need to sometimes see bad behavior slapped down, or at least see mistakes corrected, so that they don't repeat the mistakes themselves.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Lots of people told Michael Buckley he needed to do some serious work on his craft. It was never ignored. Also, whoever mentioned someone paying for a Damonza cover, I believe Damon gave him a freebie.


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## Mystery Maven (Sep 17, 2014)

katrina46 said:


> There's not always a difference. I've seen huge best sellers with reviews asking if a second grader wrote the book. More people will overlook typos, bad grammar, and plot holes than you might think. I could shoot you twenty links to books like that right now if it were allowed. Would I suggest putting out a book like that? No, but good for that author if he found a way to make it work for him. Maybe he or she is a good marketer. Some genres are more forgiving than others, too, so it depends on what category you're writing in. Either way, they're making a living and not losing any sleep over what we think.


But we're talking about people who _aren't _making a living, aren't we? People who are asking for help, asking why?


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Mystery Maven said:


> But we're talking about people who _aren't _making a living, aren't we? People who are asking for help, asking why?


Well, my point is, maybe that's not why they aren't making a living. Maybe there bad marketers, or they suck at keywords. Telling them they're writing stinks is an opinion that a whole bunch of people out there might disagree with if they got their book visible. Some of the people I've seen give advice on writing an awesome book don't in my opinion (not saying anyone in this conversation right this second, but what I've seen in the past), and they might not think I do, either. Some reader might come along and say they enjoyed that writer's book more than they enjoyed a book you think is much better. It's a big world out there. Besides, how can writers tell each other they stink when no one writes the same way. I try to show, not tell. Some highly successful authors have scoffed at that every time it comes up. I say it's a good idea to have something proofread by another pair of eyes, lots of writers say they don't need that and a few or even a lot of typos don't hurt their sales at all. Who decides what stinks?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Lydniz said:


> Lots of people told Michael Buckley he needed to do some serious work on his craft. It was never ignored. Also, whoever mentioned someone paying for a Damonza cover, I believe Damon gave him a freebie.


This. Lots of people told him this. In threads about poor sales, craft comes up regularly, too. Some people will still say encouraging things, but, merph. People. We're all different.

Here's another little thing.

I often shut down the KB tab because being here makes me feel totally inadequate. People talking about selling hundreds a day don't encourage me. That stuff just depresses me. That's me and that's how I work. Can't change that.

But every year I post my sales results on my blog. I just did that this weekend. I've been blown away by reactions from people, many of whom trade authors, who don't make that much, and many others who never sell at all. I think the KB atmosphere can totally skew your perception of self-publishing land.

Oh, and Becca's analyses are awesome.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

katrina46 said:


> Well, my point is, maybe that's not why they aren't making a living. Maybe there bad marketers, or they suck at keywords. Telling them they're writing stinks is an opinion that a whole bunch of people out there might disagree with if they got their book visible. Some of the people I've seen give advice on writing an awesome book don't in my opinion (not saying anyone in this conversation right this second, but what I've seen in the past), and they might not think I do, either. Some reader might come along and say they enjoyed that writer's book more than they enjoyed a book you think is much better. It's a big world out there. Besides, how can writers tell each other they stink when no one writes the same way. I try to show, not tell. Some highly successful authors have scoffed at that every time it comes up. I say it's a good idea to have something proofread by another pair of eyes, lots of writers say they don't need that and a few or even a lot of typos don't hurt their sales at all. Who decides what stinks?


This argument comes up a lot here, and it's like saying one man's trash is another man's treasure, I guess. But it's simply not _completely_ true when it comes to writing.

Yes, there may be bestsellers that aren't well-written. I could name a few. But I think most people could read them and imagine what pleased millions of readers anyway even if they don't appeal personally. There's a big difference between the pedestrian prose found in a bestseller and some of the books people offer up here and ask, "Why isn't this selling?"

There is such a thing as objectively bad writing, bad stories, bad books. There really is. I don't know why people insist there isn't. Most of the books presented for help here aren't horrible, they're just first-drafty, loose, amateurish writing--the kind that a bit of practice, studying and revision _can_ fix. And occasionally there are writers who have it so wrong, it's likely to going to take months to years for them to even understand why their writing is so bad.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> This argument comes up a lot here, and it's like saying one man's trash is another man's treasure, I guess. But it's simply not _completely_ true when it comes to writing.
> 
> Yes, there may be bestsellers that aren't well-written. I could name a few. But I think most people could read them and imagine what pleased millions of readers anyway even if they don't appeal personally. There's a big difference between the pedestrian prose found in a bestseller and some of the books people offer up here and ask, "Why isn't this selling?"
> 
> There is such a thing as objectively bad writing, bad stories, bad books. There really is. I don't know why people insist there isn't. Most of the books presented for help here aren't horrible, they're just first-drafty, loose, amateurish writing--the kind that a bit of practice, studying and revision _can_ fix. And occasionally there are writers who have it so wrong, it's likely to going to take months to years for them to even understand why their writing is so bad.


Oh, I don't insist there isn't. Like I said, I could name twenty right off the top of my head, I just wouldn't say they can't sell, because they do. Therefore, I'd never tell a writer to pack it in, because I know someone I think is even worse than they are is doing fine.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Ultimately, readers decide what stinks. So if something isn't selling, I always recommend looking at the work first, not keywords, not cover, the work. Because the bottom line is always the work. 

A lot of people seem to think that because they've read books and have a computer and an idea, they can craft a story that will make them millions. That's no more true that someone saying "Golf is just hitting a ball with a stick. Anyone can do it." Sure, anyone can hit a golf ball, mostly, but not everyone can make a living hitting golf balls. I have seen indie books that are inarguably awful. All books need editing. All writers should have beta readers until they are comfortably established in a series that is selling well, then maybe drop the betas. 

And no one wants to hear, "but I never took a workshop or read a technique book and I sell five copies a month." People making a living at this don't care about five copies a day, much less in a month. You have to put everything in perspective.

Another thing, you only get one chance to make a first impression on a reader and throwing up work that isn't ready for publication is a great way to prejudice people against you forever.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

katrina46 said:


> Oh, I don't insist there isn't. Like I said, I could name twenty right off the top of my head, I just wouldn't say they can't sell, because they do. Therefore, I'd never tell a writer to pack it in, because I know someone I think is even worse than they are is doing fine.


A look at what is selling on Amazon and a look at the top 100 in various subcategories will turn up books with lacklustre prose, typos and grammatical errors. A creative writing teacher would cringe. Yet, they are in the top 100 in the Kindle store, in the hot new releases, and in the top 100 in their categories. What this says is that what matters to readers is not necessarily the same as what matters to critics or to authors. These books have something that is enticing readers to buy, whether it is a page turning plot or irresistible characters or savvy marketing.

Since there are so many books out there that have typos, grammatical errors, and no more than workman-like prose, and are selling so well, if someone asks about why their book is not selling, while I may mention that they might benefit from a good edit, I know that is less important than visibility. Visibility is the biggest problem most indie authors face.

Knowing who is your audience and knowing how to get in front of them is the real problem once you have a book to sell.

So, given how many books are in the top 100s on various Amazon lists that suffer from typos, grammatical errors and other measures of poor writing, I would NEVER suggest to someone that their book is simply objectively badly written and that is why it isn't selling. The only real test is whether increased visibility sells their book. Whether it's better covers, better metadata, some publicity, etc. if greater visibility sells their books, that was why their book wasn't selling, not some objective measure of writing quality.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Sela said:


> A look at what is selling on Amazon and a look at the top 100 in various subcategories will turn up books with lacklustre prose, typos and grammatical errors. A creative writing teacher would cringe. Yet, they are in the top 100 in the Kindle store, in the hot new releases, and in the top 100 in their categories. What this says is that what matters to readers is not necessarily the same as what matters to critics or to authors. These books have something that is enticing readers to buy, whether it is a page turning plot or irresistible characters or savvy marketing.
> 
> Since there are so many books out there that have typos, grammatical errors, and no more than workman-like prose, and are selling so well, if someone asks about why their book is not selling, while I may mention that they might benefit from a good edit, I know that is less important than visibility. Visibility is the biggest problem most indie authors face.
> 
> ...


That's all I was trying to say. Thank you.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Right, to clarify, when I say "good" I mean a couple things. Mostly clean and well-formatted with prose that conveys what the author wants to convey in a way that doesn't get in the way of the target reading experience and a story that fulfills reader expectation and that people actually want to read.

All the marketing in the world might sell one book decently. Nothing will sell the second book unless the first provides a reading experience the target audience for that kind of book want.  And that's not exactly a subjective thing in some ways. 

I'm with Jana on this. If you aren't selling well, look to the work first. Not just the prose (though that might be part of the problem) but the story and reader expectations. All the marketing ever won't save a book that can't deliver what readers want.

But people would rather believe that they just need to book the right ad or whatever. Which is a nice thing to believe, I suppose, but 99% of the time, it isn't a magic pill.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2015)

Because the bottom line is always the work. 

Not necessarily...my books have been well received to the handful of strangers who have bought them. I`d say the art of selling is MORE than just the work itself.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Annie B said:


> Right, to clarify, when I say "good" I mean a couple things. Mostly clean and well-formatted with prose that conveys what the author wants to convey in a way that doesn't get in the way of the target reading experience and a story that fulfills reader expectation and that people actually want to read.
> 
> All the marketing in the world might sell one book decently. Nothing will sell the second book unless the first provides a reading experience the target audience for that kind of book want. And that's not exactly a subjective thing in some ways.
> 
> ...


That's all true. I do also think while it's not all luck, it is sometimes. I hit a huge milestone a couple of months ago all because I was in the right place at the right time. I'd written and published the story in question a year ago. It was pure luck that got it visibility all that time later.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

katrina46 said:


> That's all true. I do also think while it's not all luck, it is sometimes. I hit a huge milestone a couple of months ago all because I was in the right place at the right time. I'd written and published the story in question a year ago. It was pure luck that got it visibility all that time later.


And are you waiting for luck to strike magic again? Careers aren't built on magic, so one would hope not, right? (I mean, I had a thriller that sold over 2k copies back in 2011. I did...exactly nothing afterward to take advantage of what was basically timing and luck. That thriller now sells about 10 copies a year. I've been there... magic is great, but it won't last just as sales won't last without assistance...)

Anyway, I realize we've wandered way off topic. Sorry. This stuff isn't the kind of thing to discuss on Kboards, that's abundantly clear. My husband and my mother think I'm one of the most beautiful women in the world, but I'm not going to be booked by Vogue anytime soon or land a Sports Illustrated swimsuit contract. Audience and size of audience matter when you are talking about being successful as a *business*. Which not everyone is. As Daniel said, some people are in it for the business side as much as the art side, some aren't. There is room for both kinds and the spectrum between. What galls me is when people appear to be asking for business advice ("why isn't my book selling?" seems like a biz question forex) but really just want cookies and a hug. It's misleading and frustrating for people who step in and try to help from a business perspective. For me, writing is art and craft, but publishing is a business. The moment I ask people to spend money and time on what I create, I'm in business and I had better fulfill what they want to invest their dollars and minutes into or they are going to patronize someone who does. My mantra is "reader don't care" when it comes to a lot of things. They just want the end product to be something they want. If you dashed it off in an evening or sweated blood for twenty years, reader don't care.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Annie B said:


> Right, to clarify, when I say "good" I mean a couple things. Mostly clean and well-formatted with prose that conveys what the author wants to convey in a way that doesn't get in the way of the target reading experience and a story that fulfills reader expectation and that people actually want to read.
> 
> All the marketing in the world might sell one book decently. Nothing will sell the second book unless the first provides a reading experience the target audience for that kind of book want. And that's not exactly a subjective thing in some ways.
> 
> ...


I don't believe books sell themselves, with the very rare exception. I think books need visibility and some authors don't have a clue how to get some. While Amazon does have a great system of discoverability, it is not failsafe and rewards success. There is so much business behind most books that sell well, even though it's not necessarily visible or immediately apparent what is selling the books. It could be author platform, it could be pre-release buzz and promotion, it could be early velocity due to efforts behind the scenes to get the book into many hands via ARCs, etc. On the rare occasion, it might be Amazon picking p a book for internal promotion.

It's nice to think quality sells books, but having seen tons of books that sell well that suffer from typos, grammatical errors and the like, that's just not true. The work is, of course, central. But very few of us can predict which books will sell like hotcakes and which will languish. The test of whether a book is the problem or whether it's visibility is whether increased visibility in front of its target market sells more copies. If it does, then that's probably a big part of the issue. If increased visibility doesn't sell books, the problem may lay with the book itself and at that point, the author should go back to the manuscript and consider getting some beta readers to help with plot, pace, etc as well as a good edit.

YMMV


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Visibility will only get a book noticed. It won't give a book legs. What gives a book legs and KEEPS an author selling is satisfying reader expectations. Over and over again. "Luck" might give the author the initial visibility, but all the marketing in the world won't sell a book readers don't enjoy, and sure as heck won't give the book word of mouth. 

Quality matters. Writing matters. Does it have to be "beautiful"? No. It has to be entertaining. It has to work for the reader. It has to, or the book isn't going anywhere. 

I've resisted saying anything at all in this thread up till now, because I don't even know what to say. I've found that a lot of "advice" is pretty tricky. There's a lot of YMMV in this business, because authors aren't the same, and books aren't the same. I do think that the magic X factor for ongoing success is the book. At least it sure seems that way to me. But it can be hard to tell if your book has what it takes or not until you put it out there. I do think that removing any obstacles to its success is just . . . logical. Sure, books have sold with crappy covers, lousy blurbs, and less than stellar editing. But WHY put that barrier in your way? Why not make it the best it can be, give it its best shot? 

At first, it was really, really hard from me to hear, even from my best friends, what was wrong with my book. Now, I've learned that if a beta or an editor doesn't tell me, my readers will! You can fix things. You can learn how to do things better. Heaven knows I have. But you can only do that if you seek out feedback and then take it in and apply it. 

My two cents.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Annie B said:


> And are you waiting for luck to strike magic again? Careers aren't built on magic, so one would hope not, right? (I mean, I had a thriller that sold over 2k copies back in 2011. I did...exactly nothing afterward to take advantage of what was basically timing and luck. That thriller now sells about 10 copies a year. I've been there... magic is great, but it won't last just as sales won't last without assistance...)
> 
> Anyway, I realize we've wandered way off topic. Sorry. This stuff isn't the kind of thing to discuss on Kboards, that's abundantly clear. My husband and my mother think I'm one of the most beautiful women in the world, but I'm not going to be booked by Vogue anytime soon or land a Sports Illustrated swimsuit contract. Audience and size of audience matter when you are talking about being successful as a *business*. Which not everyone is. As Daniel said, some people are in it for the business side as much as the art side, some aren't. There is room for both kinds and the spectrum between. What galls me is when people appear to be asking for business advice ("why isn't my book selling?" seems like a biz question forex) but really just want cookies and a hug. It's misleading and frustrating for people who step in and try to help from a business perspective. For me, writing is art and craft, but publishing is a business. The moment I ask people to spend money and time on what I create, I'm in business and I had better fulfill what they want to invest their dollars and minutes into or they are going to patronize someone who does. My mantra is "reader don't care" when it comes to a lot of things. They just want the end product to be something they want. If you dashed it off in an evening or sweated blood for twenty years, reader don't care.


Well, I didn't say I was waiting. I'm working to take advantage of the other pans it threw in the fire. But it all started with luck. I can't take credit for something that just happened to me because I was there. I'm sure lots of writers who are better than me could have gotten that break, but they weren't lucky enough to have been there at the time it was presented.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> Visibility will only get a book noticed. It won't give a book legs. What gives a book legs and KEEPS an author selling is satisfying reader expectations. Over and over again. "Luck" might give the author the initial visibility, but all the marketing in the world won't sell a book readers don't enjoy, and sure as heck won't give the book word of mouth.
> 
> Quality matters. Writing matters. Does it have to be "beautiful"? No. It has to be entertaining. It has to work for the reader. It has to, or the book isn't going anywhere.


I would add that STORY and CHARACTER and PLOT matter more than writing qua prose. Quality is in the eye of the beholder, which is what I am trying to point out. What appeals to one person when it comes to story and character and plot will not appeal to another and so if someone asked me why a particular book wasn't selling, I wouldn't use my own personal concept of quality as a measuring stick. Books I personally think stink sell very well and books I loved don't sell as well as the ones I consider stinkers.

Since there is no dispute when it comes to matters of reader preference, when you have a book that isn't selling, my first approach would be to see if I could get some visibility for the book in front of its target audience. This is so that readers will have the chance to pass judgement. If they have no idea a book even exists, they can't even do that.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2015)

Rosalind James said:


> Visibility will only get a book noticed. It won't give a book legs. What gives a book legs and KEEPS an author selling is satisfying reader expectations. Over and over again. "Luck" might give the author the initial visibility, but all the marketing in the world won't sell a book readers don't enjoy, and sure as heck won't give the book word of mouth.
> 
> Quality matters. Writing matters. Does it have to be "beautiful"? No. It has to be entertaining. It has to work for the reader. It has to, or the book isn't going anywhere.
> 
> ...


I like this post.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Andrew Murray said:


> I like this post.


Thank you. I don't want to discourage people, because when I was first considering self-publishing, I poked around and read some boards (not here), and got so discouraged by all the stuff about, "You probably won't sell" that I almost didn't even try. As it turned out, my books DID sell, after they'd been turned down flat by absolutely everybody I'd tried to interest. So it absolutely CAN happen.

You don't always know. But if you get feedback in the form of very low sales and mixed reviews, I think it's worth considering that it could be that your work isn't satisfying reader expectations. Or at least not yet. I know I've learned a lot about all sorts of stuff in the past few years since I first published. Not least of which is "how to write better novels"! I do wonder whether my books would have sold much better if they'd BEEN much better--if I'd known then what I've since learned.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

On the issue of whether Michael Buckley should've received help ...

1. I bet all of us agree a person doesn't have to be 100% good in order to deserve help.
2. I bet _most _of us also agree there's a line past which a person becomes too repugnant to help (I know I'll lose a saintly few, here).
3. Lastly, I bet we all recognize that the too-repugnant line falls in different places for different people.

Helping MB was a personal moral decision. The fact that some people located him on the near side of the too-repugnant line and others on the far side doesn't say anything about Kboards or the moderators or anything else. It's simply an illustration of a moral gray area and how good people navigate such areas differently. I'm glad there are people on the board who thought the prostitute book put Michael on the far side of the line. I'm not one of those people, but I respect them and think their stance is virtuous.

On the question of telling people their prose is beyond-the-pale bad ...



katrina46 said:


> The problem is people who I think can't write have bestsellers. Seriously, books I've read where I would have told the author never, EVER quit your day job have taken off. There's one big indie name right now whose books I just don't get. So I don't tell people they can't write or they'll never make a living because I don't know that.





Shelley K said:


> There is such a thing as objectively bad writing, bad stories, bad books. There really is. I don't know why people insist there isn't. Most of the books presented for help here aren't horrible, they're just first-drafty, loose, amateurish writing--the kind that a bit of practice, studying and revision _can_ fix. And occasionally there are writers who have it so wrong, it's likely to going to take months to years for them to even understand why their writing is so bad.


The above represent two incompatible attitudes toward the aesthetics of art. There's no way to bring these two viewpoints together because the undergirding beliefs (_aesthetic quality is at least partially objective and predictable_ vs. _aesthetic quality is wholly subjective and, therefore, unpredictable_) are diametrically opposed and, furthermore, are largely _beliefs_ of the sort people don't let go of. Since the board contains people who hold both these views, there's always going to be tension over how to handle books that might be subject to the "bad" label.

The forum's rule against unsolicited criticism seems designed to prevent the very real damage that can happen when people who aren't psychologically prepared for critique receive it. I support that rule. Yes, critique is essential to writing, but getting to the point of being able to receive critique is itself a process. For some would-be writers, it takes a long time. Not everyone who shows up in the WC is there, yet. That's okay. Those folks are learning to be writers (even if they've already published), and they should have their place here.

_Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_

One unintended consequence of the rule against unsolicited criticism is that it can create situations where the quality-is-subjective folks can say something authentic and the quality-is-objective folks pretty much can't. A member like katrina46 might look at someone's book and think, "Wow, I don't find that readable, but hey, someone out there might like it. I'll say something encouraging, so this person keeps practicing and improving, and will give some advice on how to market what they already have as effectively as possible." Meanwhile, someone like Shelley K might be looking at the same book and thinking, "Whoa, someone needs to tell this person to unpublish their books and spend a few years working on the basics because this is beyond dreadful and it's just not going to sell." But that can't be said unless the author of the book in question has explicitly invited a content critique, and often, they haven't.

This dynamic gives the whole WC a sort of bright-side positivity about writing. It's not that there aren't plenty of people here who are not only willing but would appreciate being able to point out serious weaknesses in books; it's that the rules silence them much of the time.

Sounds bad, right? We tend to think silencing is a bad thing. But is it really, in this case? Personally, I think someone needs to be ready to hear their book sucks before being told their book sucks, and the author is the only available judge of their own readiness. This is a stranger. We don't know what damage it will do to criticize without invitation. Maybe they'll shrug it off and rewrite the book. Maybe they'll sigh, hang it up, and go get a desk job. Maybe they'll kill themselves because they were on the edge already, and the book was helping them hang on. Who knows? We just don't know.

So, I'm willing to embrace a bright-side mentality, here, even though it's not really part of my day-to-day personality. Lord knows, I don't do that with my students. If their draft is bad, I tell them it's bad and enumerate specifically how it's bad and tell them they need to start over. And then we work on rewriting it. They're paying me (indirectly) for my expertise, and I expect them to accept my critique and move forward with it. But these are people I'm seeing F2F several times a week, so I can gauge how my critique landed. And because they're paying me, I'm guaranteed not to just drop a critique on them and disappear. I'll for sure be there to help them pick up the pieces afterward. Plus, it's academic writing. In most cases, it's not close to their hearts. With a few exceptions, either they just want to get through the class or they recognize the value of the skill I can help them acquire and are willing to work for it. Creative writing is a whole other kettle of fish.

Interacting with strangers in an online environment -- people you might never have contact with again -- who are presenting something that may be very dear to them ... it seems like a minefield to me. Quieting the critic until she's explicitly invited out to play makes sense to me, here. Even when critique is invited, hesitating to give a very harsh one makes sense to me too, at least until the person's been around the forum for a while and you've gotten to know them. Might this lead to weak writers not getting the message and continuing to spin their wheels? Yeah, there's that risk. But the risks of a harsh critique that lands badly seem greater.

_Edited to correct a misplaced "either."_


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

I prefer to rely on reviews rather than sales, because, while positive reviews are tough to get, people are not shy about coming forward when they think something is rubbish. 

Sales are a function of so many variables, that they simply aren't a good indicator of whether a writer's craft is lacking. Genre plays a part - lit fiction is notoriously difficult to sell, for example - so does the quality and scope of marketing, the cover, the blurb, and so on.

That being said, I think anyone who isn't working on their craft all the time is doing themselves a disservice. Even if it's not formal training, every writer should read, consider the strategies and techniques of other writers, check out different genres, even get to know more about the industry. 

I don't think there is instant success in writing. Every story takes time to write and edit, to think of the characters, to close those plot holes. Having a back catalogue should happen naturally when (and if) a writer breaks through the anonymity barrier.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Sure, there is instant success. Sometimes. It more often happens after a writer's written a ton, but there are plenty of examples of writers who sold big or mega-big with their first fiction--both tradpubbed & indie. 

But, yes. People I know who are successful--they're all trying to get better at all the things, all the time. From writing to marketing to running their business. Like sharks, you move forward or you die.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Becca Mills said:


> The forum's rule against unsolicited criticism seems designed to prevent the very real damage that can happen when people who aren't psychologically prepared for critique receive it. I support that rule. Yes, critique is essential to writing, but getting to the point of being able to receive critique is itself a process. For some would-be writers, it takes a long time. Not everyone who shows up in the WC is there, yet. That's okay. Those folks are learning to be writers (even if they've already published), and they should have their place here.


This.^ (except the jerk part that I didn't quote and am going to remove. *looks sternly at Becca.*)

The Writers' Café wasn't established with that rule in place. The rule developed over time when we saw first hand how over the top those discussions can go.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Shelley K said:


> There is such a thing as objectively bad writing, bad stories, bad books. There really is. I don't know why people insist there isn't. Most of the books presented for help here aren't horrible, they're just first-drafty, loose, amateurish writing--the kind that a bit of practice, studying and revision _can_ fix. And occasionally there are writers who have it so wrong, it's likely to going to take months to years for them to even understand why their writing is so bad.


And yet... when I read this, it was in the Top 100 on Amazon. It is objectively bad. In like every way you can possibly imagine. And yet... look at that star rating. Whatever. http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Me-Darkness-Paige-Weaver-ebook/dp/B00CAB3RGQ/

There is NOT an objective bad. Eye of the beholder, like she said.

No intended offense to Paige Weaver, New York Times Bestseller, BTW. I think your story squandered its tension--which was hackneyed and cliched and overdone anyway, but at least it was kind of readable. At first, anyway. After that, it was a decent into a black hole. I'm sure you're a very nice person, however, and I'm clearly in the minority with my opinion. Also, there are other people that I could pick on and have in the past (cough Abbi Glines cough.) I know it's against the girl code to say that other indie authors are bad in a public forum, but I've had a glass of wine, and I'm aiming to misbehave. There are dozens indie books that I've read and thought that they didn't deserve to be selling half as well as they were. But, I mean, what do I know? I don't think I've got a book ranked higher than 6 digits right now, so...

Oddly, it's never because of typos or grammar or other surface issues that I think these books are flawed. I basically feel that these works are badly structured. Generally, they lack tension and they lack conflict and they lack proper pacing. What I have learned is that readers don't actually care about that sh**, so I need to get over it.

And I am, actually. I might sound bitter, but I'm not. I've got a great effing life, and I get to write the stories I want to write, and I actually get paid to do it. So, I am not complaining at all. And I wish both Paige Weaver and Abbi Glines nothing but the best.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> This.^ (except the jerk part that I didn't quote and am going to remove. *looks sternly at Becca.*)
> 
> The Writers' Cafe wasn't established with that rule in place. The rule developed over time when we saw first hand how over the top those discussions can go.


It was a totally hypothetical jerk. Scout's honor.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> And yet... when I read this, it was in the Top 100 on Amazon. It is objectively bad. In like every way you can possibly imagine. And yet... look at that star rating. Whatever. http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Me-Darkness-Paige-Weaver-ebook/dp/B00CAB3RGQ/
> 
> There is NOT an objective bad. Eye of the beholder, like she said.
> 
> ...


The funny part is I was thinking about buying that book. I still probably will. The blurb intrigues me.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

katrina46 said:


> The funny part is I was thinking about buying that book. I still probably will. The blurb intrigues me.


That blurb makes that book look crackalicious.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Deanna Chase said:


> That blurb makes that book look crackalicious.


I know, I have to buy just for that.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Becca, I agree with a lot of what you've said. But I think the suggestion that it's just visibility, the cover, the blurb, when the opening of their book makes no sense to anybody, can also cause damage. Let's say they spend pages describing the color of walls and he exact placement of furniture in a room that will never be revisited--any kind of objectively bad storytelling. If they think they've written something great, feel validated by the lack of criticism on the actual book and convinced it really is just something like visibility or a bad cover holding them back, they might spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on it, aiming for that visibility. I think that's horrific, too.

What if somebody sinks everything into a truly awful piece of fiction (objectively bad prose, objectively bad storytelling, something really hopeless--I contend it exists as I have read it) and then wants to end it all when he's out thousands with nothing to show? That seems as likely a situation to me as someone wanting to do it over a book that received criticism. I'm not going to try to compare damages from one approach to another, because we can't know what goes on inside people's heads. I only know that there can be damage from false praise and weightless encouragements, too.

I try not to offer unsolicited advice, and most of the time when someone asks why a book isn't selling, even if it's obvious to me it's because they need to make changes to the story and/or prose, I rarely say anything here. That's precisely because most people who ask really don't want to hear the truth. They want an easy fix--cover, blurb, buy some ads--but aren't interested in hearing there might be a problem with their book's contents.

There are ways to give constructive criticism gently, and I have always tried to practice that approach. I think brutal honesty should be brutal only in its unflinching thoroughness, not in its tone. I think honesty is important, and an honest critique, no matter how unhappy the person is about having their work's weaknesses pointed out, is doing someone a far better turn than pretending problems don't exist.

Also, I think because no one has defined "bad," we're talking at cross-purposes. I don't think Stephanie Meyers is a good writer. But she's apparently good enough--and a good enough storyteller--for millions of people. I think Dan Brown's prose is, at _best_, inelegant. Millions don't care. My dislike of their writing styles is subjective. Theirs is not the type of writing I keep referencing as objectively bad. Any book that sells well can't really be, overall. But surely we've all looked at a piece of fiction and known that the writer needed to do a lot of work just to make what they were trying to say comprehensible. Haven't we all read a first chapter filled with errors and also come away wondering what the whole thing was about, because there's also no story? Those are what I'm referencing as objectively bad.

There's a world of difference between amateurish and bad, at least the way I define them. And amateur/poor writing certainly can sell well as long as the story is good and the genre's readers are forgiving. Objectively bad books won't.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> And yet... when I read this, it was in the Top 100 on Amazon. It is objectively bad. In like every way you can possibly imagine. And yet... look at that star rating.


It's not objectively bad if it has an actual audience. I guess the only way to point out what I'm talking about would be to direct people to published examples. I won't do that, because I have no wish to try to embarrass anybody.



> Generally, they lack tension and they lack conflict and they lack proper pacing. What I have learned is that readers don't actually care about that sh**, so I need to get over it.


But something about the story resonates with people and they gain an audience. So they're bad to you, but not to hundreds, thousands, millions of other. That's what makes it subjective. Those aren't the kind of books I'm calling objectively bad.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Deanna Chase said:


> That blurb makes that book look crackalicious.


It does. And 700 reviews with a 4+ star rating!

Is it wrong that I got a big kick out of reading the 20 1-star reviews?


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Cherise Kelley said:


> It does. And 700 reviews with 4+ star rating!
> 
> Is it wrong that I got a big kick out of reading the 20 1-star reviews?


 Not wrong at all. I'm so jealous I would have read them to make myself feel better if I would have thought of it. It's that last line. Love is powerful, and so is the darkness. I have to read it.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> Becca, I agree with a lot of what you've said. But I think the suggestion that it's just visibility, the cover, the blurb, when the opening of their book makes no sense to anybody, can also cause damage.


For me, I would advise trying to increase visibility _first_ before doing a deep dive into story and plot and writing simply because I would NOT assume that I am the arbiter of quality and what will make a book sell since lots of books sell really well that I am bored with or find tedious etc.

So, instead of assuming that I know why a book sucks to other readers, I say try getting added visibility via tweaks to covers, blurbs, etc. and doing promotion or publicity and see if that helps. If it doesn't, then you know that there is something deeper wrong with the book among its target audience and so it may require re-examining the plot, pace, writing, etc.

It's almost impossible to tell someone what will make their book sell in terms of plot, pace, character, storyline, prose, etc. It is very possible to take a book that is not selling and with some tweaks, get it in front of its proper audience and visible. That will tell if the book itself has any interest to its target audience.

When I look at the bestsellers list and analyze a book that hits the NYT that i personally find insipid or tedious or whatever, I realize I am not a good judge of what will sell. However, I might be able to help someone get their book in front of their proper audience through cover tweaks, metadata and product info, plus some advertising, so that the target audience can decide if the book is worth the money.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

I am assuming that all those who propose to give honest hard criticism of books are going to be well-intentioned and honest. I mean given that new authors on the rise often receive 1-star reviews from trolls on Amazon to bring them down and discourage them, and given that many authors on Kboards have removed their book signatures from Kboards due to claiming they get 1-star review attacks from here, given all that I can imagine some of the consequences if everyone here is given a free license to criticize as much as they want.  Those providing the critique may have harmful intentions, and equally those receiving the critique may get upset and retaliate.


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## TheLemontree (Sep 12, 2015)

I'm a noob, and obviously there is _history_ here that I am oblivious to.

But I just wanted to voice my appreciation for the 'business, stats and dollars' posts, and the people who share them.

Thanks for risking the one-stars and the haters. Because of those posts, I now have a 2 year plan. Before I found KBoards my plan was:

1. write 3 related non-fiction books and publish on Amazon
2. they will sell each other
3. maybe I will make some money

Now my plan is waaaay more fleshed out. It includes mailing lists, maybe going wide, my own website and author facebook page, promo sites, and strategies for getting reviews in order to access those promo sites.

I know about trying to stay high in HNR for 2 weeks to try and get Amazon to help (thanks Phoenix Sullivan!). Not that I think it's likely for me with this series, but it's all information that helps. It means that books 2 and 3 will be released in a way to try and ping that, anyway.

I've also hugely appreciated AnnieB, Becca and Jana's posts - and heaps of others (sorry, names don't stay in my head very well).

Please just know that in the midst of the people who feel moved to post to a thread because they disagree, there are plenty of us sitting, reading and clipping advice to our ever-growing evernote files of information. But I often don't comment because as a total noob I really do have nothing to contribute.

So anyway.

Thanks.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Shelley K said:


> Becca, I agree with a lot of what you've said. But I think the suggestion that it's just visibility, the cover, the blurb, when the opening of their book makes no sense to anybody, can also cause damage. Let's say they spend pages describing the color of walls and he exact placement of furniture in a room that will never be revisited--any kind of objectively bad storytelling. If they think they've written something great, feel validated by the lack of criticism on the actual book and convinced it really is just something like visibility or a bad cover holding them back, they might spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on it, aiming for that visibility. I think that's horrific, too.
> 
> What if somebody sinks everything into a truly awful piece of fiction (objectively bad prose, objectively bad storytelling, something really hopeless--I contend it exists as I have read it) and then wants to end it all when he's out thousands with nothing to show? That seems as likely a situation to me as someone wanting to do it over a book that received criticism. I'm not going to try to compare damages from one approach to another, because we can't know what goes on inside people's heads. I only know that there can be damage from false praise and weightless encouragements, too.


I do agree with you, Shelley. In fact, way back when, I remember getting into a lengthy argument with Russell Blake over his advocacy of kicking off your writing career with a substantial capital investment. My feeling was that such an investment was a great idea if you're him or someone else whose books are terrific, but that most books aren't terrific, and most new authors will not recoup that investment. Some people can afford to blow $1,000 or more on the chance their first book is strong; many people can't. I wanted folks to have some evidence of a saleable product before making that kind of investment.

I'm just not sure KB is the best place to get that evidence. Like katrina46 has said, the darnedest things shoot up the charts. I've seen things ranking very well that have twenty to thirty mechanical errors per page. <shrug> I know what *I* think is bad, but I've lost confidence in my ability to predict what everyone else will think is bad. So I sort of want to let the market give its feedback.

To advocate for the devil myself, it could be that the market has matured enough that it's become hard to gain any visibility without a fully professional product. I'm not sure. It might vary genre to genre.



Shelley K said:


> I try not to offer unsolicited advice, and most of the time when someone asks why a book isn't selling, even if it's obvious to me it's because they need to make changes to the story and/or prose, I rarely say anything here. That's precisely because most people who ask really don't want to hear the truth. They want an easy fix--cover, blurb, buy some ads--but aren't interested in hearing there might be a problem with their book's contents.
> 
> There are ways to give constructive criticism gently, and I have always tried to practice that approach. I think brutal honesty should be brutal only in its unflinching thoroughness, not in its tone. I think honesty is important, and an honest critique, no matter how unhappy the person is about having their work's weaknesses pointed out, is doing someone a far better turn than pretending problems don't exist.
> 
> ...


I like the distinction between "amateurish" and "bad." There's probably a fuzzy line between them, but it's a useful way of thinking about books' strengths and weaknesses.

Dunno. I do give people honest feedback on writing quality when they really seem to want it. (I've taken to doing it via PM, since there's less potential for embarrassment.) But I really don't feel competent to judge story quality. People seem to really, really like stuff that I don't.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

TheLemontree said:


> I'm a noob, and obviously there is _history_ here that I am oblivious to.
> 
> But I just wanted to voice my appreciation for the 'business, stats and dollars' posts, and the people who share them.
> 
> ...


That's awesome, Lemontree. Good for you! 

Gotta say, your plan sounds way more advanced than mine, which is along the lines of "try hard not to end up not writing the next book."


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Sela said:


> For me, I would advise trying to increase visibility _first_ before doing a deep dive into story and plot and writing simply because I would NOT assume that I am the arbiter of quality and what will make a book sell since lots of books sell really well that I am bored with or find tedious etc.


I still think we're defining bad differently. There exist books that no amount of visibility will ever help, with incomprehensible prose. I am certain you would know that book when you see it. As far as a book like Twilight, for instance, that many people love and just as many consider "bad," that's not the type of book I'm talking about.

If someone presented that story and asked why it wasn't selling, suggesting cosmetic things certainly wouldn't be out of line.



> So, instead of assuming that I know why a book sucks to other readers, I say try getting added visibility via tweaks to covers, blurbs, etc. and doing promotion or publicity and see if that helps. If it doesn't, then you know that there is something deeper wrong with the book among its target audience and so it may require re-examining the plot, pace, writing, etc.


But don't you think there's a difference between checking out the sample and just not finding it to your taste and finding it incomprehensible? I know a lot of people feel exactly as you do, and I'm guessing a lot of people don't even check the sample for some reason and only look at the cosmetics. That's interesting. I can't say I understand it, but it explains a lot.

I don't think I'm an arrogant person, so when I look at a book that is truly awful in every way, from the prose to the lack of story or even anything that remotely resembles a complete sentence, I'm pretty sure I can call it objectively bad without doing so because of some high opinion of my own opinion. I know there are at least a couple books I've attempted to read that are objectively bad. There is no audience to find. And I don't feel the slightest bit hoity-toity saying that--it's true. But I don't really think that's the kind of book most people in this thread are talking about anyway. They're talking about subjective things, like how i find Dan Brown's storylines laughably bad but plenty of other people love them. That's just preferring pizza when somebody else prefers fried chicken. That can be argued all day long with no resolution, because it's just opinion. Doesn't matter if Meyers' prose is repetitive and lifeless to me if millions of others love it.

I still feel like there's room for gentle critique, because if a poorly written book has an audience out there, improving it can only help. And I think most people do want to put out the best product they can. But as I've said, I try not to offer criticism here anymore, no matter how gentle or well-meaning, because it's really unwelcome. Fair enough.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> I still think we're defining bad differently. There exist books that no amount of visibility will ever help, with incomprehensible prose. I am certain you would know that book when you see it. As far as a book like Twilight, for instance, that many people love and just as many consider "bad," that's not the type of book I'm talking about.
> 
> If someone presented that story and asked why it wasn't selling, suggesting cosmetic things certainly wouldn't be out of line.
> 
> ...


Honestly, I haven't found too many books that were that bad that they were incomprehensible. I've seen poor selling books with openings that were too slow to hook, with prose that clearly needed to be edited, but I've also seen those flaws in books that sell amazingly. Honestly, it makes me think that instead of focusing on issues of quality, which are so subjective, it's best to focus on visibility. I know there are hundreds of thousands of books that are just not going to sell very many copies because the story is not compelling enough, or because the writing is too poor, or both, but there are bestselling books that have problems and we could all go through them with a fine-tooth comb and point out dozens of ways the books could be improved. Would those changes improve sales?

Would a thorough developmental edit of _Fifty Shades of Grey_ increase sales? I doubt it could be possible since it sold over 100M books. The things critics hated about the book were things that readers who loved it ignored or didn't care about -- or loved anyway.

Some books have that special something that makes them sell, defying all the critics. Some books have amazing marketing plans behind them that propel a mediocre book into the ranks through sheer visibility and buzz. Some great books languish in the ranks.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Personally I'll never agree with the idea of opening a business and waiting for capital to improve it instead of putting out a complete, professional product immediately. I think years of frustration lay down that path, from what I've seen. I stick by my analogy that it is like opening a soup house in a cardboard box and asking people to drink your soup from their hands with the promise that if enough people buy soup, you'll get bowls and a roof and tables etc later on.  Sure, a few people might have soup good enough people taste it anyway, but most people would be setting themselves up for frustration and an empty box.

However, some people feel differently, and nobody is going to force them to put soup in bowls. That's the benefit of being indie, I guess. But I'll still point out my experience and share my opinion if someone comes here and does the equivalent of asking why nobody wants to drink luke-warm under-seasoned soup out of their own hands.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Interesting thread. I am one of those "can't spell, can't write and who could possibly want to read this junk - success stories." I'm not being flippant, I'm being honest. By most standards, I should not have sold a single book and certainly not any of the 28 I've written since. It's the stories. It must be.

By the way, after being an indie writer for five plus years, i assure you the bestseller lists are tainted. They certainly are not based on the love of the book, but rather on the guy who has the most money to promote it. With enough money, you really can make a bad book hit #1. 

Wool is a bestseller, but right now it sits at #264. My opinion? You can't judge a book by it's rank on the lists. Not these days.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Umm...Wool has been out for years. A book out for years at #264 is indeed a bestseller. That's what I'm talking about when I say "legs." A book that's been out for years and is at #264 has SERIOUS legs. (Not to mention, um, #29 in overall Science Fiction & Fantasy? Yeah, that's a bestseller by anybody's standards.)

You can perhaps promote a book so it temporarily hits high on lists. (Which doesn't mean the list is "tainted.") You can't KEEP it there week after week, month after month, year after year, unless people are actually enjoying it. You also can't make your subsequent books hit high on lists unless people enjoy what you do.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Annie B said:


> Personally I'll never agree with the idea of opening a business and waiting for capital to improve it instead of putting out a complete, professional product immediately. I think years of frustration lay down that path, from what I've seen. I stick by my analogy that it is like opening a soup house in a cardboard box and asking people to drink your soup from their hands with the promise that if enough people buy soup, you'll get bowls and a roof and tables etc later on. Sure, a few people might have soup good enough people taste it anyway, but most people would be setting themselves up for frustration and an empty box.
> 
> However, some people feel differently, and nobody is going to force them to put soup in bowls. That's the benefit of being indie, I guess. But I'll still point out my experience and share my opinion if someone comes here and does the equivalent of asking why nobody wants to drink luke-warm under-seasoned soup out of their own hands.


Well, yeah, but I think that analogy is too extreme. I'm talking more along the lines of opening your first restaurant a clean and safe but not trendy stripmall space and stocking it with dishes and flatware from Target vs. ordering a full line of monogrammed silver and fine porcelain for a professionally decorated downtown hotspot that costs an arm and a leg to rent. Scaled down to indie-book level, that means putting out a reasonably clean but probably not perfect text under a cheap premade cover vs. springing for $1,000 in editing and a $300+ cover. No one should publish a book in horrible condition. I wouldn't advocate that. And if you've already got some convincing evidence that your work is salable, then investing substantially in it is the way to go.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> Well, yeah, but I think that analogy is too extreme. I'm talking more along the lines of opening your first restaurant a clean and safe but not trendy stripmall space and stocking it with dishes and flatware from Target vs. ordering a full line of monogrammed silver and fine porcelain for a professionally decorated downtown hotspot that costs an arm and a leg to rent. Scaled down to indie-book level, that means putting out a reasonably clean but probably not perfect text under a cheap premade cover vs. springing for $1,000 in editing and a $300+ cover. No one should publish a book in horrible condition. I wouldn't advocate that. And if you've already got some convincing evidence that your work is salable, then investing substantially in it is the way to go.


Perhaps. But I see a lot of books that are more like soup in hands than soup in nice clean bowls in a mall setting.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I've been following this thread with interest, and really appreciate all the thoughtful posts from people who come down at opposite ends of any given point. I also deeply appreciate Betsy and Ann's efforts to keep things functioning.

But I'm finally coming out of lurk to expand on something that Becca referred to in passing about people being psychologically ready for critique. I wanted to offer another perspective that might sometimes alleviate our annoyance with some posts and posters...and maybe alleviate some of the criticisms of what sometimes happens here

All of this discussion starts from the premise that every writer who comes here actually wants a career in writing (or thinks writing's easy and they'll make millions without any effort). But some of them--not many, but a few of the most vulnerable (and often the worst in terms of writing skills)--are actually writing out of a need to heal severe emotional wounds that they themselves may not even acknowledge or recognize. They tell themselves and the world that they want to be published writers, but that is not what is really driving them, and honest critiques of their work given with the intention of helping them see how to improve their writing aren't helpful...and are a waste of time by those who are only trying to help.

At a writers conference years ago, one young woman was extremely obnoxious about following the editors, agents, and published authors around, demanding that they read her book and help her get published. I was one of the first she cornered, and because my mama taught me to be polite, I scanned her stuff, and, as kindly as I could, suggested that she sign up for some basic classes, read some books on grammar and style and story structure...all the basics because the writing was terrible and she was sooooooo insistent that she wanted to get published.

Since I'm firmly in the camp of those who believe that 1) there really is objectively bad writing, and 2) honest critiques may seem brutal, but no matter how thin-skinned you are, if you want to be a career writer, you'd jolly well better learn to suck it up and start working on that stuff, I believed that she needed to face hard facts. I wasn't that blunt, but that was my message to her.

Later I had a heart-breaking conversation with another much kinder, much more generous, and much more empathetic author who actually took the time to really talk to her. What he discovered was that she came from a severely abusive background, a beloved sibling had recently committed suicide, and she herself was struggling with severe depression and some serious health challenges. Further investigation on his part revealed that she hadn't over-dramatized the horror she'd experienced, and that the writing--the writing she told herself and everyone else was because  she wanted to be a published author--had been suggested by a therapist who hoped that it might help her confront and deal with what she'd suffered and was suffering. Acting as if she really wanted to be a "writer" was, I suspect, one of her coping mechanisms. 

That's why I really support the KB policy, and Betsy's reminders, that we should be very sure that honest critiques really are wanted, and that we respond only to what is being requested until we're sure the person asking can take it. (Or will listen in the first place.) 

And I guess I just wanted to bring this up because it might help us to ignore such threads if we remember they may not all be started by writers, just people using writing for other purposes. This isn't where those folks should be in the first place, and it's not really any flaw with KB that's dragging things down. These kinds of people and their problems would derail just about any social interchange.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## HWaterman (Aug 27, 2015)

Just Browsing said:


> See, _that_ was my breaking point--when the forum as a whole declared that no writing is ever bad. Are there disagreements over what makes fine prose? Well, of course. I just don't see the logical extension of that being "and therefore no writing is ever bad, and therefore must never be discussed."
> 
> Is there really no harm in telling someone with craptastic writing that their works are good and to keep going? I don't think so. I think there is definite harm. I think you're asking them to invest time, energy, caring, and above all hope that they might get some reward, when _you know_ they won't.
> 
> I get being kind; I get helping out; I get paying back. But lying to people about their chances is just cruel. I don't get that. I don't get building people up so that their dreams can be crushed (especially when they're in desperate financial straits).


There's no 'like' button, but this, and a couple other of Just Browsing's posts, I like.

And - why do we keep seeing Fifty Shades mentioned, sometimes to back an argument that good writing doesn't matter?

If we compare the number of books published each year against those that have enjoyed the success of Fifty Shades, then FS is a statistical outlier. Oh sure, Fifty Shades sold well. But tens - hundreds of thousands of poorly written books did not. I have this conversation with non-writers occasionally, readers who believe they could replicate that success - who needs to write well, they cry. Fifty Shades sold bucket-loads! Yes, I reply, and Bill Bloggs won the lottery last week, who then needs to work? Just buy a lottery ticket - that worked for Bill Bloggs so it should work for you!

Fifty Shades is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, it's not a reason to think we can just pass by the goal of writing well.

It's only a notion I have, I have no hard figures to work on, but if we were to look at the top 100 fiction sellers each year and judge the quality of their writing, we would find the overall quality to be excellent, good, or 'good enough'. You won't discover all 100 of them were un-edited, poorly crafted word spills on a page. What is quality? It is suitability, or fitness for purpose. Quality thriller writing will require taught pacing, quality literature on the other hand can afford to be more languid but its readers expect other qualities. This is not to say different genres can't tick all the boxes, but to succeed, sales-wise, there has been 'a quality' that met readers' expectations.

Visibility helps - but only if enough quality is present in the first place. If I write a pile of drivel, plopping down strings of words that don't even form proper sentences, and I use words in ways that demonstrate to readers I have no understanding of the language I write in, then trying to promote my writing would be pushing the proverbial up-hill. No amount of dollars thrown at marketing, or carefully honed blurb, or beautifully designed cover, will lift bog-awful writing into the best seller charts, or even into "selling well enough to buy me a coffee each day" figures.

I agree with Just Browsing - encouraging bad writing is bad. If someone does not care whether they sell a single copy, if they write only for therapy or as a hobby, more power to them. But lately I see more reviews and comments from readers of ebooks saying they are discouraged by the sea of carp (deliberate transposition) coming from self published authors. That really bothers me. There are writers here who self-publish and are very good writers, authors I admire. But some others are, to put it mildly, poisoning the well.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

> "For God's sake, PM me if my book sucks, is that - is that a typo? OMG, OMG, OMG!!! Start a thread, please please help! Does this cover make my ass look fat? It does, doesn't it? I'm a wreck...did you read it yet? How about now?"


Are you talking about me? You're talking about me, right? OMG, she's talking about ME! She's talking about my COVER! I KNEW I shouldn't have used that font! OMG!

Seriously...good post. And thanks for the laugh.


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## HWaterman (Aug 27, 2015)

P.J. Post said:


> Add icons in our signatures, examples:
> 
> "Cool hobby, huh?" (Treat like a feral kitten)
> "Thanks, but I got this." (This one needs to be earned through documented sales I think: Listen, be respectful and join in the discussion and learn something - these are the folks selling lots of books - they're doing something right, so pay attention.)
> ...


This is a great idea, perhaps with icons distinguishing 'Feedback welcome via PM only' versus 'I welcome feedback via a public discussion'.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I think there's a place for you here, Jolie, even though you may need moderation now and again.  Every dish needs a bit of spice.


Thanks, Betsy. Yeah, I'm done sulking. If there's a thread where I want to post, such as a thread about Mark Dawson's fabulous Facebook course, I'm posting.

Bottom line? I'm not making other people's problems about who posts in the Kboards and who doesn't post in the Kboards my problem.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2015)

Sela said:


> A look at what is selling on Amazon and a look at the top 100 in various subcategories will turn up books with lacklustre prose, typos and grammatical errors. A creative writing teacher would cringe. Yet, they are in the top 100 in the Kindle store, in the hot new releases, and in the top 100 in their categories. What this says is that what matters to readers is not necessarily the same as what matters to critics or to authors. These books have something that is enticing readers to buy, whether it is a page turning plot or irresistible characters or savvy marketing.
> 
> Since there are so many books out there that have typos, grammatical errors, and no more than workman-like prose, and are selling so well, if someone asks about why their book is not selling, while I may mention that they might benefit from a good edit, I know that is less important than visibility. Visibility is the biggest problem most indie authors face.
> 
> ...


This is perfect.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

The problem with online critique in a very open forum is you will always have the person who can't or won't make the differentiation between an occasional misplaced comma or semicolon and someone who cannot follow basic grammar or spelling conventions. Just in the last page of this thread, we started by talking about someone who, let's be honest, simply couldn't write whatsoever, and now we're talking about a very subjective opinion as to whether someone's prose is "lackluster."


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

HWaterman said:


> But lately I see more reviews and comments from readers of ebooks saying they are discouraged by the sea of carp (deliberate transposition) coming from self published authors. That really bothers me. There are writers here who self-publish and are very good writers, authors I admire. But some others are, to put it mildly, poisoning the well.


Maybe there are poor writers, as anywhere, but I find that a tad extreme! Poisoning the well should refer to malicious and illegal activities, like theft.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

HSh said:


> Maybe there are poor writers, as anywhere, but I find that a tad extreme! Poisoning the well should refer to malicious and illegal activities, like theft.


Yeah, ironically, that's what trad pubs say about indies in general. Yet, here we all are.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Shelley K said:


> Let's say they spend pages describing the color of walls and he exact placement of furniture in a room that will never be revisited--any kind of objectively bad storytelling.


You mean like David Foster Wallace in Infinite Jest? Admittedly that is a book I've twice tried to read and twice failed to finish, but that was over the tedious tennis, not the poor structure.

I don't believe there are objectively bad books because I'm a postmodernist and I eschew all claims to objectivity. Into the bargain there is probably not a single (or married) author on kboards whose writing I would not find bad, but that pernickety nonsense is why I can hire myself out as an editor. Those same authors I would probably enjoy their books as stories even though they would not please my high-faluting style standards. Is there such a thing as a book too bad to publish? No. It can be fun to read something really bad equivalent to Les Dawson playing piano. The muse strikes with a novel novel idea to write something in the style of a Dawson tinkle.

As to the uninvited critiques and the hurt claims of "but they asked why they weren't selling" I'll remind people of the sort of uninvited critiques that were happening here only last year.

OP: do you think that I was wrong to expect readers to appreciate a steampunk novel set in Brazil.
1st reply: the story's not the problem. Change that cover it's [expletive].
2nd reply: yeah with a cover like that you'll sell nothing.
35th reply: Is anyone going to answer the OP who appears to be ignoring the thread that you've turned into a cover critique?
36th reply: Shut up he cannot sell with that cover so it doesn't matter what he asked. This is important.
178th reply: this thread is being locked as uninvited critique in a thread that the OP is not responding to.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Shelley K said:


> But something about the story resonates with people and they gain an audience. So they're bad to you, but not to hundreds, thousands, millions of other. That's what makes it subjective. Those aren't the kind of books I'm calling objectively bad.


And I think why I keep returning to this argument is a personal reason. I'm like, "But I tried so darned HARD to resonate with people." I really did. I mean, I had to write what resonated with me, because that's just what comes out when I write, but I made a lot of concessions to what I thought was popular. And I did it over and over and over again in different ways, trying so hard to "break out" and to make the big $$.

And what I learned was that any series that I can get a bookbub for will pay my bills for two months. Maybe this is because I'm a decent writer, but considering that after those two months, my books fade to nothing, I don't think that I *do* resonate. My books don't have legs, like Rosalind is talking about.

This bugs me. I keep trying to "break out." (New pen name in the works, not shooting for the stars this time, something without so much competition, but decently visible--Regency romance.) But if I never do, I don't care anymore. I don't think anything's wrong with me anymore. I'm okay with what I've accomplished. I'm proud of what I've done, even if I don't make as much money as some others.

Anyway, the thing is, I don't actually care anymore if someone like you validates me by acknowledging that someone could be writing objectively good resonate-y books and still only make a living because I do promotions. (Even my mailing list hates me, lol.) You have your truth, I have mine. I need to believe that there is no objective good or bad so that I can keep going. You need to believe that there is an objective good to validate you and to make it true that you deserve your success. Well, you do. You work hard, you work smart, and keep it up. I'll tell myself whatever I need to in order to do the same, and I should really stop splashing it all over forums, 'cause it's about my head, not about the rest of y'all.

On that note...


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> Becca, I agree with a lot of what you've said. But I think the suggestion that it's just visibility, the cover, the blurb, when the opening of their book makes no sense to anybody, can also cause damage. Let's say they spend pages describing the color of walls and he exact placement of furniture in a room that will never be revisited--any kind of objectively bad storytelling. If they think they've written something great, feel validated by the lack of criticism on the actual book and convinced it really is just something like visibility or a bad cover holding them back, they might spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on it, aiming for that visibility. I think that's horrific, too.
> 
> What if somebody sinks everything into a truly awful piece of fiction (objectively bad prose, objectively bad storytelling, something really hopeless--I contend it exists as I have read it) and then wants to end it all when he's out thousands with nothing to show? That seems as likely a situation to me as someone wanting to do it over a book that received criticism. I'm not going to try to compare damages from one approach to another, because we can't know what goes on inside people's heads. I only know that there can be damage from false praise and weightless encouragements, too.
> 
> ...


I have looked at writing and known the author needed to do a lot more work. 10 typos to every paragraph on some (most) pages, entire passages missing. I think if we stuck the first few pages of that book up here and didn't give the authors name you'd say it was objectively bad. It's exactly what you're talking about here. It's also written by one of the biggest selling indies ever who is still very much around. In fact, if you go back and look at that author's posts on these boards when they were around some people did discourage them. Shows what they knew. I don't think she cares if some people just don't get it. She has millions of dollars. As for pages of unnecessary description, Stephen King does that all the time. He's a show off, and a damned fine writer.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

You are right.  There are no bad books. Just books without visibility or that haven't found their audience.  I'm sure that's it.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Annie B said:


> You are right. There are no bad books. Just books without visibility or that haven't found their audience. I'm sure that's it.


Oh, no you're right, I'm absolutely sure everything you say must be correct. I'll follow everything you say like the gospel and never dare have an opinion of my own again. How's that?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

katrina46 said:


> Oh, no you're right, I'm absolutely sure everything you say must be correct. I'll follow everything you say like the gospel and never dare have an opinion of my own again. How's that?


Seems a little too weird to me. Have you thought about getting a pet instead? 

I don't know how you made the huge leap from "I think a lot of books don't sell because they just aren't hitting audience expectations and have serious basic craft issues" to "do everything I say without question"... Like...what? This is the kind of crazy overreaction that happens here though, so thanks for demonstrating it, I guess?


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Annie B said:


> Seems a little too weird to me. Have you thought about getting a pet instead?


You mean you aren't really a cat?


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I can tell you one of the reasons why I don't post as much.

There was a thread back in July where I was just trying to be helpful. Somebody was asking for advice - I think that she was asking if it was okay to self-edit and do one's own covers and not market, and then spend the money when the book gets rolling. I told her that some people can get away with self-editing and some can get away with doing their own covers, if they're good. I also said that marketing, for me, is a no-brainer - you have to do it, IMHO, to get traction. 

My mistake was stating my last year's numbers. I figured that it was necessary to do so, because I wanted her to know that I kinda sorta know what I'm talking about.

I immediately got called rude and a ****-measurer for sharing numbers, by two different members.

I was also personally attacked in two lengthy diatribes last spring that were pretty vicious. All I've ever wanted to do is be helpful, yet I get attacked.

Just.not.worth.it


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2015)

katrina46 said:


> You mean you aren't really a cat?


A standard cat and a grumpy cat aren't the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

anniejocoby said:


> I can tell you one of the reasons why I don't post as much.
> 
> There was a thread back in July where I was just trying to be helpful. Somebody was asking for advice - I think that she was asking if it was okay to self-edit and do one's own covers and not market, and then spend the money when the book gets rolling. I told her that some people can get away with self-editing and some can get away with doing their own covers, if they're good. I also said that marketing, for me, is a no-brainer - you have to do it, IMHO, to get traction.
> 
> ...


I stay here because I do find some useful info and there are still a few people I respect here. I think Sela Ward is an angel to help the way she does. Monique Martin is insightful and funny. Kellie Wolfe is my friend on and off the boards. Most of the people I really liked have left, though. I wouldn't use my real name here. When people start calling you vipers you have to wonder if that's how you want to be seen on a very public forum where your readers might happen upon a thread you posted on. I once had someone using their full name tell me that good grammar doesn't matter because readers don't know any better. Ouch. I'd be pretty insulted if I saw my favorite author more or less calling me illiterate. Sometimes, I think people forget how public this forum really is.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Jolie du Pre said:


> A standard cat and a grumpy cat aren't the same.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat


Ah, I get it. Thanks for clearing that up, lol. I'm off to the pet store.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

True. Grumpy Cat is a world wide phenom!  Most other cats can't say the same.


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## dalyamoon2 (Oct 22, 2015)

anniejocoby said:


> I can tell you one of the reasons why I don't post as much.
> 
> There was a thread back in July where I was just trying to be helpful. Somebody was asking for advice - I think that she was asking if it was okay to self-edit and do one's own covers and not market, and then spend the money when the book gets rolling. I told her that some people can get away with self-editing and some can get away with doing their own covers, if they're good. I also said that marketing, for me, is a no-brainer - you have to do it, IMHO, to get traction.
> 
> ...


Annie, there are a few ding-dongs on here. But there are far more who shake their heads at the ding-dong posts... or ignore them. If someone goes after me, I never speak to them again, or read their posts. But... I have to admit that I was pretty fortunate when I was posting here regularly in that a few other people would ream the ding-dongs on my behalf.

I say keep posting if you want to help other people. You *are* helping people. You can't force people to be sensible. If all it took was someone sensible telling people what's what, we'd all be in a thousand-way tie for #1 bestseller.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Rosalind James said:


> Umm...Wool has been out for years. A book out for years at #264 is indeed a bestseller. That's what I'm talking about when I say "legs." A book that's been out for years and is at #264 has SERIOUS legs. (Not to mention, um, #29 in overall Science Fiction & Fantasy? Yeah, that's a bestseller by anybody's standards.)
> 
> You can perhaps promote a book so it temporarily hits high on lists. (Which doesn't mean the list is "tainted.") You can't KEEP it there week after week, month after month, year after year, unless people are actually enjoying it. You also can't make your subsequent books hit high on lists unless people enjoy what you do.


Apparently, I did not make my point well. What I should have said is that you can't judge the advice from someone on the current rank of their book. Someone not familiar with Wool would see the current rank and think the author's advice unworthy while you and I know better.

By the way, the bestseller lists have always been tainted by the amount of money a publisher throws at promotion. If your books are on the list and staying there, bravo. One of mine stayed in a top 100 list for over a year...until this bookbub thing started. I'm not resentful, I've paid them too. It is just that keeping a book on the list now that readers find they can get what they want for ten bucks a month, makes getting on the lists next to impossible for the rest of us not in KU. Frankly, I don't see books in KU as bestsellers even if they are on the lists, but that's just my opinion.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Martitalbott said:


> Apparently, I did not make my point well. What I should have said is that you can't judge the advice from someone on the current rank of their book. Someone not familiar with Wool would see the current rank and think the author's advice unworthy while you and I know better.
> 
> By the way, the bestseller lists have always been tainted by the amount of money a publisher throws at promotion. If your books are on the list and staying there, bravo. One of mine stayed in a top 100 list for over a year...until this bookbub thing started. I'm not resentful, I've paid them too. It is just that keeping a book on the list now that readers find they can get what they want for ten bucks a month, makes getting on the lists next to impossible for the rest of us not in KU. Frankly, I don't see books in KU as bestsellers even if they are on the lists, but that's just my opinion.


A book ranked in the 200s is selling hundreds of copies a day. Who would look at that rank, guesstimate those sales numbers, and look at the number of reviews on Wool and think the author has nothing to say? I see the point you are trying to make, but you chose perhaps the wrong book to use to make it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

My Dog's Servant said:


> P.J. Post said:
> 
> 
> > "For God's sake, PM me if my book sucks, is that - is that a typo? OMG, OMG, OMG!!! Start a thread, please please help! Does this cover make my ass look fat? It does, doesn't it? I'm a wreck...did you read it yet? How about now?" (Uh, this one is self explanatory, right?)
> ...


I sorta want that badge. Maybe it could incorporate this image?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

anniejocoby said:


> I was also personally attacked in two lengthy diatribes last spring that were pretty vicious. All I've ever wanted to do is be helpful, yet I get attacked.
> 
> Just.not.worth.it


That was awful, Annie. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that person got axed. They're no longer here, at any rate. The mods can't ban people until they reveal their inner asshole, but justice does arrive on a white horse soon after.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

dalyamoon2 said:


> I used to post a lot, then I shifted away. I'm not going to blame the board or members for any of that.
> 
> Here's what happened:
> 
> ...


I think that I can speak for everyone here that your presence is SORELY missed. Do wish you would come back for good!


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> That was awful, Annie. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that person got axed. They're no longer here, at any rate. The mods can't ban people until they reveal their inner [expletive], but justice does arrive on a white horse soon after.


Thanks for the kind words!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

anniejocoby said:


> I think that I can speak for everyone here that your presence is SORELY missed. Do wish you would come back for good!


+ 1 x 10^67


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Annie B said:


> You are right. There are no bad books. Just books without visibility or that haven't found their audience. I'm sure that's it.


You are right, Annie. There are books that are simply downright awful. Incoherent, misspelled ramblings. I have seen them.

I'm not sure why this is even a debate. Bad books exist. Good books exist. Books that are subjectively bad and books that are subjectively good exist. That's just the way it is.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

HWaterman said:


> There's no 'like' button, but this, and a couple other of Just Browsing's posts, I like.
> 
> And - why do we keep seeing Fifty Shades mentioned, sometimes to back an argument that good writing doesn't matter?
> 
> ...


Writing well is the issue that is up for debate. What does that mean? Objectively being able to competently string sentence along into paragraphs and then paragraphs into pages, and pages into chapters, and chapters into a full book with a plot, beginning middle and end is only the beginning. Whether that particular stringing has an audience, delivers audience expectations, and is visible, is another kettle of fish.

One of the reasons Fifty Shades IS a great example to use is its genesis. It started out as a fan fiction in a very hot fan fiction universe -- Twilight. There were millions of readers who were gobbling up Twilight fan fiction because of the success of the franchise. EL James, writing as Snowqueen's Icedragon, developed a huge following for her Master of the Universe series, an Alternate Universe fan fiction featuring Edward as sadist and Bella as ingenue.

Why is this important?

She WASN'T an outlier per se, as in she wrote this book and it went viral without anything behind it and with bad writing, etc. She already had a huge following when she took down MotU and republished it as FSOG. She had immediate visibility when her readers found out she published it as FSOG. When she published it through The Writer's Coffee Shop, she had a platform and it was almost like she had a backlist, but it was in a different format -- fan fiction. She had instant visibility the way any other author does who has a backlist and a successful series.

So I don't think it's really accurate to say that EL James was an instant success and outlier. Her success was in the top 1% of books, yes. But she built a following before she ever tried to actually sell her work. Probably most of her fans on Fanfiction.net went out and immediately bought her books to compare them to the original. That would have given her sales velocity and visibility to Amazon algorithms. She had professional covers and a cracking blurb but it was the platform and visibility that propelled her to even higher heights.

People love to trash her writing, but not me. I respect her business savvy and ability to tell a story. The fact that her writing, which has been trashed and made fun of by people around the world, is not up to literary fiction standards, matters NOT ONE WHIT because her readers are not literary fiction critics. Her readers are everyday erotic romance readers who focus on character and story and pace and plot.

What mattered more for her books was that she came out of a very popular fan fiction universe, was a success there, and was able to translate that success to the book market.

If there is a lesson to be learned from her success it is this: if you want success as in making a living off your writing, you need to write a book that has an audience, and by that I mean, write a book that has more than a few thousand readers. Then you need to deliver what your target readers expect and try to give them that little bit more. The quality of the prose is like gravy. It is not the meat and potatoes. Focus on the meat and potatoes.

If you do, your next issue is that you have to get that book in front of your audience. It has to be visible to them, or how the heck can they know it's out there? If you can do that, and if you really did give them the meat and potatoes they are expecting, then it is a matter of getting and keeping it visible. That doesn't ensure success, but probably it is the most likely way of having a chance of success.

The audience out there for eBooks is HUGE. How to write a book that feeds a portion of it, and then how to get it in front of that portion, is the indie's dilemma.

Writing well is more about delivering what your audience wants and expects and perhaps that tiny bit more. How successful your book is a factor of how well you delivered the goods, and how visible your book is.

Readers can't tell if you delivered unless your book is visible. Simply writing a book that delivers and plopping it on Amazon with no fanfare and no promotion is not enough in all but the most flukey outlier cases.

For the rest of us, knowing how to deliver the goods and then how to get the goods visible are the big issues.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

vlmain said:


> You are right, Annie. There are books that are simply downright awful. Incoherent, misspelled ramblings. I have seen them.
> 
> I'm not sure why this is even a debate. Bad books exist. Good books exist. Books that are subjectively bad and books that are subjectively good exist. That's just the way it is.


And yet there are people who would disagree with this part: "Bad books exist. Good books exist." Or, even if they didn't disagree in a general sense, they'd feel very uncomfortable and resistant if pushed to affix the "good" and "bad" labels to particular books. "Well, _I _find this one good, and _I _find this one bad," they'd say, "but maybe others would disagree."

The subjective/objective thing ... this is how _belief _works: once you adopt Belief X, really enter into it and inhabit it, Belief Y becomes literally inconceivable. Anyone who holds Belief Y must surely be deluding themselves. Or maybe they're just stubborn. Or _something_. There has to be some explanation, because no one could _really, truly_ believe Y -- not if they were thinking right.

And thus no debate between competing and incompatible beliefs will ever end. All it'll do is piss people off.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> And yet there are people who would disagree with this part: "Bad books exist. Good books exist." Or, even if they didn't disagree in a general sense, they'd feel very uncomfortable and resistant if pushed to affix the "good" and "bad" labels to particular books. "Well, _I _find this one good, and _I _find this one bad," they'd say, "but maybe others would disagree."
> 
> The subjective/objective thing ... this is how _belief _works: once you adopt Belief X, really enter into it and inhabit it, Belief Y becomes literally inconceivable. Anyone who holds Belief Y must surely be deluding themselves. Or maybe they're just stubborn. Or _something_. There has to be some explanation, because no one could _really, truly_ believe Y -- not if they were thinking right.
> 
> And thus no debate between competing and incompatible beliefs will ever end. All it'll do is p*ss people off.


I'm not a post-modernist, so I do think there is such a thing as a good and bad book in terms of basic issues of craft and writing quality. However, I think competent craft and good quality writing are very hard to define and vary depending on genre and audience. I _do_ think that the definition of a _good_ book and what is a _selling_ book are not necessarily the same because sometimes good books / good enough books don't sell and books with some bad qualities flourish.

Bad books in terms of craft and writing quality can be described as having poor writing mechanics (author doesn't know the basics of grammar, spelling and sentence construction -- I've seen a few of those)and suffer from problems with story, character, plot, and pace. Story can be overdone, characters can be cardboard, plot can be hackneyed, and pace can be glacial. Books can deliver or not deliver genre expectations. A bad genre book might be described as not delivering genre expectations at all or well enough, to please readers.

Any one of those bad-book criteria on its own can make a book have low sales, but if they occur in multiples, I suspect the book is unsellable. I would expect that a bad book with multiple issues of craft and writing will not likely sell well or at all.

However, you can't look at a book's sales rank and say that the book is bad. Failing to sell copies does not mean a book is bad.

In other words, a book may have some issues with quality, but still be good enough. It may not sell for a variety of reasons unrelated to book quality.

The book may be niche and may have a very small audience. The book's audience may not buy eBooks or buy online. The book may not have had any pre-release marketing. It may not have had any release day marketing. It may not be priced right. It may lack good meta data and cover and blurb. It may not have enough initial sales to garner reviews. Without enough sales or reviews, a book is largely invisible to Amazon algorithms. If it is invisible, it will not get linked to other books and will not be part of Amazon's discoverability engine.

If someone asks why their book is not selling, unless I know the audience and have read the book and actually KNOW about what makes a book _good_ in that genre and category and with that audience, I can't say it is due to objective issues of _quality_.

My only recourse, without doing a full beta read, is to see if the book had the kind of marketing and promotion it needed to get visible in the first place. If it didn't, only the flukey few good books will sell. Maybe someone at Amazon saw potential in the book and started to promote it internally, despite not having sales or visibility.

For every other hopeful author with a book to sell, quality and visibility are job 1.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Sela said:


> If someone asks why their book is not selling, unless I know the audience and have read the book and actually KNOW about what makes a book _good_ in that genre and category and with that audience, I can't say it is due to objective issues of _quality_.
> 
> My only recourse, without doing a full beta read, is to see if the book had the kind of marketing and promotion it needed to get visible in the first place. If it didn't, only the flukey few good books will sell. Maybe someone at Amazon saw potential in the book and started to promote it internally, despite not having sales or visibility.


This pragmatic issue might trump the more philosophical ones: giving people good feedback on content takes a big time investment. I used to have this problem when I put myself out there as a book-reviewer. Sometimes a book would start off strong. It'd have a great opening, a compelling MC, sound mechanics, and I'd think, "This is going to be great!" And I'd agree to review it. Then, halfway through, something would go wrong. It'd turn into a political screed, or I'd realize every single female character was cardboard-y, or the MC would become TSTL, or whatever.

When someone does ask for content feedback, here, I basically just look at mechanics. That's what you can get from reading a few pages of a book. Doing more than that? Well, even a three-page student paper takes me 20 minutes. There just isn't time. But mechanics aren't everything, that's for sure. I know the weaknesses in my own books do not have to do with putting commas in the right spots, and so forth. They have to do with arc and pacing and other mega-issues that might take someone hours and hours of reading to discover.

Well, they'd discover the slow beginning immediately, but everything else would take hours.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Sela said:


> Bad books in terms of craft and writing quality can be described as having poor writing mechanics (author doesn't know the basics of grammar, spelling and sentence construction -- I've seen a few of those)


Yes, this is what I refer to when I say "bad book." I am not referring to books where the writing style is open to interpretation, but books that are so poorly written, you cannot even identify what the author is trying to say. I have seen samples where the writer did not understand even the basic mechanics of sentence structure. I saw one not too long ago where the entire sample was one long sentence. There was no punctuation, no paragraph breaks, words were misspelled and misused. If there was a period or comma in there, somewhere, I missed it. There were even a few words that were not even words. One I can recall was "stroded." She stroded back to her car.

That is my definition of a bad book. Something that is utterly unreadable. Sadly, they are out there.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Multiple people speaking in the same paragraph. That is bad in an objective way.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> Multiple people speaking in the same paragraph. That is bad in an objective way. You're right -- it's totally confusing.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> Multiple people speaking in the same paragraph. That is bad in an objective way.


Yep. I'd settle for a coherent sentence.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted.


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## HWaterman (Aug 27, 2015)

Sela said:


> Writing well is the issue that is up for debate. What does that mean? Objectively being able to competently string sentence along into paragraphs and then paragraphs into pages, and pages into chapters, and chapters into a full book with a plot, beginning middle and end is only the beginning. Whether that particular stringing has an audience, delivers audience expectations, and is visible, is another kettle of fish.
> 
> One of the reasons Fifty Shades IS a great example to use is its genesis. It started out as a fan fiction in a very hot fan fiction universe -- Twilight. There were millions of readers who were gobbling up Twilight fan fiction because of the success of the franchise. EL James, writing as Snowqueen's Icedragon, developed a huge following for her Master of the Universe series, an Alternate Universe fan fiction featuring Edward as sadist and Bella as ingenue.
> 
> ...


You know Sela, I agree with much of what you're saying. I know the background of Fifty Shades, and I know it's not an overnight success - but sales-wise, it is a statistical outlier. All successful artists or writers would agree - "it took me years to be an overnight success". And I know that people don't believe every single indie can enjoy the same sales as FSOG, because that isn't possible or economically realistic. There aren't enough book-buying dollars out there for everyone to have that level of sales. We might dream it, but settle for less.

I'm genuinely interested in the way we think about visibility as an important part of the equation. No doubting it is. So, let's imagine that every indie writer gets the message about visibility - and marketing, and building a following, and identifying their audience. Every indie - that's a bit optimistic isn't it. Let's settle for half of us.

In this imagined utopia of visibility how many thousands upon thousands - each month - of new books are there that are now 'highly visible' and hitting their target audience (if that's even possible). Add to those the books that were written months, even years ago, constantly being pushed and made visible. Now, assuming it's possible for readers to absorb this onslaught of book promotion, and assuming everyone who follows the good advice available here makes their book visible - how do readers now judge, decide, what they will read (via KU, or straight out purchase) and what they won't read?

Maybe they do what I and many other readers do already - I scan the blurb in a genre I want to read. If that grabs me I then read a few pages from the 'look inside' on amazon. Sometimes I am hooked and buy the book. Other times, "this is alright I suppose, but...". And then there are the ones that are simply awful - the chances of me (or my friends) reading it are zero. The cover was great. The blurb was interesting, it's an interesting premise. It's my favorite genre, I'm the target audience. But, no.

Everyone's spectrum of what they consider "wow" to "alright" to "yuk" will vary. By ensuring there aren't spelling errors, typos, clunky constructions, etcetera, the chances of hitting more readers at the 'I will read this' point are increased. I find books where I think "if this author had spent as much time editing and revising as they probably did writing it, I might have read it". What would be better: a book that sells 1 copy for every hour I put into writing it, or a book that sells 2 copies for every hour I put into it? Not saying there is a hard and fast rule, or a magic formula, but food for thought?

Yeah, Fifty Shades wouldn't have had double the sales if twice the amount of hours put into editing/revision. My point is, a lot of writers miss sales - not because I didn't see their book. They miss a sale because although I saw it - I couldn't bear the writing. It wasn't the plot or the genre or the hook or the characters or the tropes or the pacing that didn't work. It. was. the. words. I don't believe I'm the only one that had the same reaction to so many of the books I've looked at. So, sometimes, when someone wonders why their book isn't selling? It just isn't written well.

In the end, *what is being made visible*? Our best efforts? Our, oh, it will do efforts? Or, let's just throw this carp out there and see if it sticks? Sure, we have to write something to make it visible in the first place. So why not try to get a few more sales by taking a bit of care - respecting ourselves - respecting our readers.*

* it's so easy to be misunderstood (says my passive voice). I'm not saying you, or the generic you, disrespect your readers, or that you lack self respect! And, since previous metaphors have been taken literally, any metaphors I employ are just that. Not a literal description of an act or intent. No carps were thrown.


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted.


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## HWaterman (Aug 27, 2015)

vlmain said:


> One I can recall was "stroded." She stroded back to her car.


And so you putted the book awayed. Thanks for the laugh!


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

JLCarver said:


> There are actually some famous one-sentence paragraphs out there. James Joyce, for instance and his Molly Bloom soliloquy in _Ullyses_. That one was over 4K words long. So it can be done. But, that said, I get what you're saying. Done badly, it can be a nightmare.


Yes, there are a lot of them. Twain was another who could write some incredibly long sentences. That said, the example I gave wasn't just a paragraph. There weren't any paragraphs. Just one long sentence. I only saw the sample, so I can only assume it was book length.


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## Overrated (Mar 20, 2015)

Annie B said:


> Buckley took down the prostitution guide the moment a few people like myself started pointing out it existed. We tried to post actual lines from the book, but I believe those posts were moderated very quickly. Once Buckley realized that people might find that book objectionable and therefore stop giving him free stuff, he pulled it down very fast. Everyone glossed right over the warnings some of us tried to give about it and what its content implied (I mean, it seriously was a guide about how to make sure you got a good bargain on young prostitutes including how to tell who was on drugs and who would be more likely to rip you off etc, all written from direct experience- I mean you guys realize he was living there because he'd stayed to be with one of the women he bought, right? He said this more or less a few times not explicitly but it was easy to put together from context when he could keep his story straight. His other books had some disturbing stuff in them also, but it was couched in fiction at least).
> 
> ETA: Actually, the book is back up now. Heh. Guess now that it can't hurt his donations, he's republished it.
> 
> ...


I appreciate that you're still here. As someone who is still new, I find it extremely helpful to read what those who are already in the same area I want to be in post. Do I have to agree with everything?

No.

But that doesn't take away from the fact I think it's incredibly generous when you, or Sela, or Rosalind, or Amanda posts with hard numbers and 'how to' posts and threads. And good lord, I hope you don't stop.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

This thread has taken some interesting turns!!

I think writers should do what they want in regards to quality, but I must admit as a reader, poor prose and proofreading turn me off. I realize everyone is on a learning curve, and I have room to improve, too, etc., but when it comes to spending time and money, I want it to read easily and give me the enjoyment I'm seeking (fun times, not funky typos).



> (I mean, it seriously was a guide about how to make sure you got a good bargain on young prostitutes including how to tell who was on drugs and who would be more likely to rip you off etc, all written from direct experience


I vaguely remember this, but it was all rather confused and obfuscated at the time; I couldn't figure out quite what was going on, so I didn't donate.

I want to just take this moment to be an annoying person and insert a link to an organization that's doing important work in regards to human trafficking. We might never see faces of all the victims, but they're out there, and need help. Prostitution might be one of "those" issues people can't discuss but surely we can all agree that human trafficking (which is enslavement, often of underaged girls) is wrong and needs stopped.

http://www.a21.org/index.php


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

HWaterman said:


> I'm genuinely interested in the way we think about visibility as an important part of the equation. No doubting it is. So, let's imagine that every indie writer gets the message about visibility - and marketing, and building a following, and identifying their audience. Every indie - that's a bit optimistic isn't it. Let's settle for half of us.
> 
> In this imagined utopia of visibility how many thousands upon thousands - each month - of new books are there that are now 'highly visible' and hitting their target audience (if that's even possible). Add to those the books that were written months, even years ago, constantly being pushed and made visible. Now, assuming it's possible for readers to absorb this onslaught of book promotion, and assuming everyone who follows the good advice available here makes their book visible - how do readers now judge, decide, what they will read (via KU, or straight out purchase) and what they won't read?
> 
> ...


I am not saying that authors shouldn't care about quality. I am not saying that authors should not put out the best product they can. That's _assumed_. I think books should be edited and have pro covers and that authors should take care with marketing, presentation and promotion.

That said, there are a number of reasons why books don't sell. Quality is one and visibility is another.

I, personally, am not the arbiter of what is "quality" since books I love fail to sell and books I hate sell like hotcakes. Hence, I don't feel that I should offer advice on whether a book is "good enough" or not.

So much of "good enough" is subjective and dependant on the audience and genre, etc.

If efforts taken to make a book more visible don't work, get a beta reader or six and get feedback on the story, characters, plot and pacing as well as writing.

If an author has done everything there is to make a book visible, if they've used all the tools in the indie tool chest and their book still doesn't sell, then go back to the editing board.

Increasing a book's visibility is relatively easy to do, but improving its quality is more difficult.


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## Sal Marotta (Oct 15, 2015)

I'm new to Kindle Boards I'm just hoping to find some success for my book. I appreciate this community a lot and I wish you all the best for the Holidays.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

I have to wonder for those that think there are no bad books, do you watch American Idol tryouts and think there are no bad singers either? Maybe it's just the outfit they're wearing that day, or maybe if they stood in a different place on the stage.....


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2015)

Sela said:


> I, personally, am not the arbiter of what is "quality" since books I love fail to sell and books I hate sell like hotcakes. Hence, I don't feel that I should offer advice on whether a book is "good enough" or not.


THIS.

I don't recall anyone in this thread saying there are no bad books. I do believe there are objectively bad books. However, I've seen objectively bad books sell. The bottom line for many authors is sales. Period.

The best author I've ever read is John Steinbeck. I've never found a John Steinbeck at Kboards. Sorry, but I haven't.

It doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter to me what other authors have to say about _my_ books. What matters to me is what my *readers* say. I put out the best book I can for my readers.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Bad does not describe "what I don't like." Bad describes bad. Something most everyone with a clue would say needs work. 

I don't like Twilight or FSOG but I definitely understand why they have an audience, and no, neither are bad books simply because I don't like them. I know plenty of people who hate Dan Brown, including some Big Publishing editors I know, but I love his books. Do I think the technique is awesome. No, the characters need serious development, but I LOVE a puzzle, and a puzzle linked to history with an adventure style is way cool. 

I'm sure plenty of people read my books and think "she's a hack." Okay, then I'm a hack. But I'm writing MMF that hundreds of thousands of people love to read. I never made a claim to write literary works and never will. I never claimed my books contained no typos and never will as no matter how many editors and proofers I hire, I still find them. 

But what you like is a subjective view, not objective. Objectively, there are most definitely bad writers, bad painters, bad singers, bad everything. Just because someone loves a thing doesn't mean they have the talent to do it. I always wanted to be a jockey when I was a kid. I'm 5' 8". Not going to happen. Was never going to happen. We're all equipped for different things, and sometimes we're ill equipped for what we'd like to do.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

Random note to Becca, telling Annie that "justice is coming on a white horse" was a serious missed opportunity to quote her own Book I title back to her. Ah well.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

erikhanberg said:


> Random note to Becca, telling Annie that "justice is coming on a white horse" was a serious missed opportunity to quote her own Book I title back to her. Ah well.


She was talking to the other Annie, I believe, who I don't think has a book with justice in the title


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Annie B said:


> While I think it is poorly done to tell people "you are doing well, stop complaining"... in the end, I understand the sentiment. The people saying it have their own set of issues to deal with and most likely just don't get that success breeds different issues.


This. It's like the unpopular kids looking at the cool kids and thinking their lives are perfect, and yet their popularity is precarious and that crowd can turn on them in a heartbeat. I was not a cool kid, but I had friends who were. Or similarly the kids who have the "awesome" homes, but yet their parents' expectations are causing them so much stress that they're secretly bulimic, turn to drugs, cutting, etc. Oh, poor little rich kid. Everyone has problems.

We all to through it day after day, whether it's health, finances, relationships. Most of the time you will NEVER know what someone else is going through because we all put on our public faces / masks, some more than others. So compassion and benefit of the doubt can go a long way. Okay--off my soapbox.

And yes, I agree that people outgrow things and relationships. That's not a bad thing, it just is. If you believe in spirit guides, they say some are with you for a lifetime, others are with you during a phase while you transition from one point of life to another. Relationships are the same.

And finally--Jana--I totally agree about being offended being the national pastime these days. I swear, some people are downright unhappy if they don't have something to be offended or pissed off about.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

Annie B said:


> She was talking to the other Annie, I believe, who I don't think has a book with justice in the title


Dang. I think you're right. I hate being wrong. Oh the Heartache!


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## dalyamoon2 (Oct 22, 2015)

On the always-exciting topic of quality...

We cannot write better than our personal taste, and we can't really change our taste. The best we can hope for is to write as well as our taste allows.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Annie B said:


> While I think it is poorly done to tell people "you are doing well, stop complaining"... in the end, I understand the sentiment. The people saying it have their own set of issues to deal with and most likely just don't get that success breeds different issues.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's the basis of the "first world problems" meme:

















All of us have problems. A few years back, Adolf Merckle (billionaire) committed suicide after a short sale on Volkswagen didn't work out the way he wanted.

Different level of success = different perspective on life and its many challenges.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Yes, but the implication of saying "first-world problems" is that they aren't really problems and the people who experience them are just pathetic whiners who should be grateful. I'm sure everyone who's successful is grateful for that success, but that doesn't mean they don't have genuine problems related to that success, and often that "popularity" or "success" is part of it. The normal kids can do whatever the heck they want. The cool kids have to watch every move--one misstep can cost them everything. Yes, it's hard starting out, but staying where you are and striving to go farther is hard too.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

erikhanberg said:


> Dang. I think you're right. I hate being wrong. Oh the Heartache!


Maybe, "The other Annie is coming, and she's waving her book at the bad guys"? 



Jana DeLeon said:


> I have to wonder for those that think there are no bad books, do you watch American Idol tryouts and think there are no bad singers either? Maybe it's just the outfit they're wearing that day, or maybe if they stood in a different place on the stage.....


It sounds reasonable to say there must be objective badness, because most of us know badness when we see it, whether it's on _American Idol_ or in a novel or whatever. But who defines what badness is, exactly? God, maybe? I'm not being flip, here. It's perfectly reasonable to believe something is bad because one's religious belief system says it's bad, and one's deity is the ultimate authority on what's right and wrong, good and bad. But it'd be a stretch to connect the aesthetic quality of fiction to any particular theology. So, we're left with book-badness being defined by generally agreed upon principles among a group of people who have something in common (all English speakers, for instance). In other words, we can look at _Book X_, which is made up of one endless, unpunctuated mass, and declare it to be bad because we've all pretty much agreed that writing needs punctuation and sentences and paragraphs in order to be good. You might say, "Well, there's a concrete basis for that decision: clarity. We think _Book X_ is bad because its lack of punctuation and paragraphing makes it unclear, and the purpose of communication is to be clear." But not all communication is intended to be clear. Plenty of avant garde literature revels in its lack of clarity; there might be work out there that's admired in part for the very traits we're using to declare _Book X_ bad -- the last chapter of _Ulysses_, for instance. "Yes," you might say, "but that's literary fiction. Different standards apply." And that would be right; different standards of goodness and badness apply from genre to genre. But we've already come a long way from _objective_ badness, right? We've decided that book-badness is defined by the consensus of a particular group of people who are considering a particular subset of books that are similar enough in their goals to be fruitfully compared to one another. This is really just another way of saying badness is relative: it depends on context. And, of course, contexts change: genres evolve, people's tastes change, cultural norms change. So, when you look at a particular book and think, "Wow, that's _bad_," are you right? Well, yeah, probably most people in the community would agree that, yes, it's _bad_. But it's possible that the book you're looking at is in the vanguard of a change in taste, norms, or whatever -- those big shifts that sweep through cultures and leave the old folks wondering where all the good music went, or whatever.

At any rate, I think it's fine to operate in day-to-day life as though there were such a thing as objective badness, because there pretty much is, according to our lived experience of the world -- there are books that a vast majority of us would think are bad. But I do think it's good to keep in mind that book-badness doesn't actually have any solid foundation sitting underneath it. It's produced by reader expectation, which is shaped by genre, which is in turn produced by a culture's established values, practices, and priorities, which are subject to change and, in fact, do change pretty regularly.

ETA: I think I'm developing an or-whatever tic, or whatever.


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## Ebook Itch (Mar 3, 2015)

It's the end of the (self-publishing) world as we know it! And we feel fine... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2015)

Boyd said:


> Prof Takes time to give everyone writer false hope
> 
> http://www.theonion.com/article/creative-writing-professor-takes-time-give-every-s-51721
> 
> Sorry, I couldn't help myself.


You've jumped on the cynical bandwagon too, Boyd?


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Boyd said:


> Prof Takes time to give everyone writer false hope
> 
> http://www.theonion.com/article/creative-writing-professor-takes-time-give-every-s-51721
> 
> Sorry, I couldn't help myself.


LOL thanks for the laugh, but isn't it usually the other way around? 



> Prof crushes the aspirations of dozens of young hopeful writers by telling them the truth about the vanishingly few writers who actually get agents, book contracts and advances that are large enough to live in something other than squalor eating ramen noodles and listening to gunfire on the streets below their tiny bachelor apartment.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2015)

Boyd said:


> Sorry Jolie, the onion is tongue in cheek snark... slapstick like Spaceballs or Robin Hood, men in tights!


Yep, I know.   Just checking on you.


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