Dumpster Diving, Not A Fan

There's no problem with dumpster diving if you find a shiny CD and clean it up. There IS a problem with dumpster diving if you find a moldy couch that lots of people have clearly loved and just leave it in the condition it's in.

Nicole at WORD for Teens

No, I'm not attempting an alternative lifestyle.  I'm not even talking about myself.  I'm talking about publishers and Nicole's quote there sums it up wonderfully.  I may get some shit for this but quite frankly I just don't care.  I'm tired of reading more shit than not and publishers dumpster diving plays into this.  If I see one more headline of this person or another getting culled from free access serial posting sites (or fucking fanfiction, seriously???) I'm going to give up reading (probably not but I will, at minimum, throw my hands up in the air in frustration and utter expletives not under my breath).  I'm not going to name names because this isn't really about the author.  Not really.  It's about dollar signs in publisher eyes and the erosion of quality as a result.

First and foremost I'm not talking about self-published authors; the people that actually publish to the likes of Amazon or Lulu and then go off and sell their product.  While I am not a fan of self-published works my first reaction to seeing one of these guys get culled is 'good for you' instead of 'are you fucking kidding me? not again.'  Why?  What's the difference, you ask?

The difference is actually selling a product and getting eleventy billion people to leave comments like 'omg i luuuuuuuuuuurve this plz post moar soon' on your work.  The difference is a proven sales record versus people that like free shit online who may not translate to actual sales.  That's why.  Being able to sell a half million copies of your book all on your own (through word of mouth, a hired publicist, etc.) is an astronomical feat and not something to be taken lightly.  Quality of the written work aside this person actually has a bonafide, PAYING fanbase behind them.  People have already proven they want to spend money on this person.  Getting a million likes isn't asking very much of anyone except for clicking a button.  While it may have been heinously time consuming for the person shilling you're merely asking for votes for prom king or queen.  Hell, Tila Tequila did it.  Why don't we give her a book deal too?  She's super popular on the internets.  Or was.

When a publisher snatches up some super popular story from Fiction Press or WattPad or LiveJournal or wherever the hell they're getting these novels from it's such a shameless grab for money that it actually puts me off reading the book now.  All they see is a fanbase: 10 million fans already built in, less money spent on marketing, as close to a guarantee as a publisher can get when releasing a book by someone otherwise unknown.  Ejecting one more person from the slush pile because sorry this was already picked up from a free site and the agent won't be able to sell it now although it's really good.  Quality?  Who the FUCK cares about that?  People are already going to buy it by default no matter what it looks like so bind it up and release it.  Let's go.

And fanfiction?  Seriously?  The very function of fanfiction is that it's not publishable because it would be a massive copyright violation because, you know, you're using characters you didn't create writing in a world you didn't build and using a plot that's probably more contrived than a scarf on a hipster in July in Arizona.  Now apparently it's publishable.  As someone that's been reading fanfiction for years now I can tell you that about 95% of the fanfiction out there is total dog shit.  The most popular stuff?  Suethor fic that panders to reader wants.  I've seen the comments.  I've attempted to read some of the stories.  My eyes have bled.  This is what the pubs are pulling from?  The slush pile wasn't enough?

ShadowsOfTheDay

This isn't about the right way and the wrong way to do something.  If a writer gets published, hooray!  I personally prefer the traditional route mainly because I suck at selling myself (a requirement for self-publishing) and I want the satisfaction of an objective third party looking at my work and going 'we can sell this' and pulling me from the mire.  Most writers I know want that feeling.  We don't want to circumvent it and we're okay with that.  Are we bitter because these people are throwing up whatever online and getting attention for it?  I'm sure a lot of people would say yes but I can assure you we're not.  I'm not.  Does it make me die on the inside that publishing is basically turning into an interweb popularity contest?  Yes, but I still have faith in the gatekeepers and the reading public that will eventually tire of the shit being released.

That's not to say all culled material is shit or all shit comes from culled material (I've read quite a bit of shit that never touched online serialization).  I'm just dandy with guilty pleasure reading but does all of it really need to be published?  Can't it just stay in the bog (of eternal stench) it's currently dwelling in and let another author with extraordinary talent get that slot even though they don't have a billion fans from the beginning?

This is about quality over quantity.  People are saying shit like this is the fault of book bloggers; our inability to fully contemplate literary criticism is what's destroying literature.  Frankly those suede-elbow-wearing, puckered asshole types can just shut right the fuck up.  Book bloggers alone, and citizen reviews, are not to blame for the deterioration of literary society, I assure you.  There are more than enough people out there putting more than fan praise into their thoughts on a book.  While publishers have a tendency of listening to what readers want and hopping on waves in the hopes of riding tails we're not dictating terms to them.  We're not saying you need to publish more of this or we'll stop reading.  Nyah.  Publishers are actively seeking out lower quality material for release in the hopes that it's what the readers want.  Sure some will want it but I can guarantee many are getting fed up with the low quality of what they're reading.  I've been seeing far too many reading funks going on for it to just be coincidence.  Trying to figure out whether the chicken or the egg came first isn't going to help anyone.  Editors can easily say you know what, we're good with that.  We need to move on to something else.  And some are but more are still clinging to waves.  That's the fault of book bloggers?  We crave copycats or are they thrust upon us in the hopes that we'll like it just as much as the more popular one that came out?  Let's grow a brain about this.  Not everyone wants to be surrounded by piles of total trash.

This is about me not having to wade through a pile of shit in order to find a diamond to read.  I don't want my local bookstore to turn into the live action version of fanfiction.net or FictionPress or WattPad where it's mostly crap and I'll have to be searching for days in order to find something good.  Yes, people like mindless shit and most readers don't really care about quality (which chagrins me to no end) but it manifests differently than just coming right out and saying it if it's getting to be too much: calling out copycat covers, copycat plots, pointing out overused tropes and cliches, characters blending together, noticing crappy editing in final copies (I've been seeing a lot of this lately), people not loving what they're reading more often than not.  They may not come out and say the quality isn't up to par but they're saying it in other, more passive, ways.

The more dumpster diving that occurs I think the lower the quality will dip.  If publishers think we only want fluff to read and to hell with editing that's what we'll get.  I think self-publishing started this trend but at least there it was merited with accounting reports to support it.  Now we have a slew of catastrophically misspelled fan comments as a means of justifying acquiring an online serial to turn around and sell.  And hell, they loved it unedited and all so why change it?  Just repackage it, run it through spell check really quick and we're good.  

No.  Times infinity plus one.  No.

The publishing world needs gatekeepers to preserve the quality of literature because obviously leaving it up to the public just runs it right into the ground.  Not every book needs to be Moby Dick (or insert dense classic here) but agents and editors edit and like Nicole said to me while sometimes things were missed (was that series called Dusk?  That time right when the sun's setting . . .) more often than not quality was maintained.  Not all books are for all people but there used to be a higher integrity of books out there.  Now not so much, whether that's because publishers are pandering to the public because that's what the collective we actually want, they THINK it's what we want or they just don't care and they'll publish it to ride a wave/because it already has a huge fanbase/because it cashes in on an already popular trope (PNR with vampires, for instance).  Quality is already deteriorating and culling from the online sludge and just throwing it into a bound version with the pub's logo on the spine is not the way to correct that.

Maybe cutting off that festering spot on that otherwise "good" tomato may save you some money in the short term but when you end up in the hospital with food poisoning that investment ultimately wasn't the wisest one to make.  Next time you might want to just go buy some fresh tomatoes at the store.  A littler pricier, yes, but at least you know they're GOOD.

ARC Hoarding is Bad, Mmkay? But ARC Shaming Kind of Sucks Too, Mmkay?

I think by now everyone's aware of ARCGate, or whatever other name that's been spawned for it, where a blogger posted a twenty-two minute video about the books she received from ALA, and posted a picture of the piles themselves, one for her and duplicates of every book for her non-book-world-related sister.  A librarian spoke out about it in a tone I was picking up as rather melancholy more than anything that while she was using ALA for its intended purpose, she missed her chance to grab a couple of ARCs she really wanted while this blogger not only got copies but appeared to have hoarded every other book on the floor itself.  People reacted, obviously taking sides, and the issue proceeded to blow up exponentially.

I've commented across a few different blog posts and even posted on the offending blogger's own post about it but I fall a bit in the middle.  I do believe librarians have a level of entitlement to ARCs at their own conference.  If you don't think so then I really think you need to re-evaluate what you believe conferences like ALA really are, and what ALA actually means.  In the same breath I don't think ARC hoarders can be entirely to blame in the situation.

WAIT!

Let me explain.  I don't think they're 100% to blame.  Let's not remove personal responsibility and self control here.  If you need a POD container to transport all your ARCs at the end of the conference then you've gone too far.  Would you go into BJs and take the entire tray of samples they were offering simply because they were free and because you could?  Of course not.  You'd look like a greedy hog and I really don't think you'd be allowed to to that.

Therein lies the stop gap: YOU WOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO.  At conferences like ALA and BEA there aren't any kind of checks and balances in place to prevent ARC hoarding.  Yes, I firmly believe people should not be salivating ARC whores and grab anything and everything they can get their hands on and do this of their own accord.  In a perfect world people would be polite and ask and say please and thank you and know their limits.  In case you've been asleep since the Medieval Ages, this isn't the world we live in, where there are nut allergy warnings on containers of peanuts, where you can order 47 cheeseburgers from McDonald's and then sue for getting sick, AND WIN, where society as a whole bitches and moans about how people act but doesn't suffer them any repercussions for their actions.

HELLO?

This is a broken system.  Anyone that's been to an open bar can attest that you're going to have people that drink a silo's worth simply because they're not paying for it.  Why would it be any different here? Of course we want people to THINK.  But what we want and what we get are two different things.

This is obviously a broken system that needs to be fixed at rungs far above us carpet dwellers that snake around the convention floor.  For $25 ANYONE can buy an all access exhibit floor pass thus giving them access to all of these ARCs.  Really?  BECAUSE NOTHING BAD CAN COME OF THAT.  I understand that it's really hard for the publishers to keep track of who's getting the ARCs they're setting out simply because the floors are mob scenes and it's a Where's Waldo? of the professionals versus the bloggers.  But maybe not dumping the ARCs on the floor for anyone to grab would be a good start for thwarting ARC hoarding?  Chopping up the pile, setting some aside for those professionals utilizing the conferences for what they're supposed to be for so they can get books they'd like since they don't have the time to troll the floor?  FORCING ORDER so people stop acting like stampeding wildebeests for a stack of bound paper?  Because OBVIOUSLY they're not going to do it themselves.  This is why people as a whole have governing bodies because people can't be trusted to govern themselves.  Because even those that do play by the rules end up getting forced to conform to the mob somewhat or end up getting left in the bookish dust with the rest going WHAT THE FUCK?

The thing is extremes are rarely beneficial and shaming anyone, including the hoarders, for obtaining ARCs certainly isn't going to help anyone.  Whenever I see people comment in the ilk of "I only picked up X number of books at this convention because blah blah blah which makes me awesome blah," not only does it make me irrationally angry but it sets a bar.  So you're saying people that picked up more than that number are ARC hoarders?  It's a passive-aggressive jab that makes a whole shitload of people feel guilty because maybe they picked up Y, which is only slightly higher than X so does that mean they now suck?  They're "but" statements that soften a harsher blow that someone might not want to necessarily come out and say forthright.  I've been seeing this for years and every time I see it it makes me angrier.  It's just a shitty way to attempt to make one person look awesome while making the rest look like trash.

The bottom line is bloggers should get ARCs.  Period.  Who gets what and why is entirely the publisher's prerogative.  I don't think only people with thousands of unique hits a day deserve them over all others.  Because WE ALL KNOW that there are bloggers out there doing sheisty things to stay on top, or loading their numbers by doing nothing but giveaways and if you follow you get a billion extra entries or whatever else it is.  NUMBERS DON'T MEAN EVERYTHING.  My measly little blog, per the author, singlehandedly helped launch her career with my outward support and my 150 unique hits a day.  Who's to say of those 150 people 50 of them aren't from blogs ten times my size that'll take what I say and explode it everywhere?  While the law of large numbers may not be in my favor, just because something's popular doesn't mean it's quality.

So stop making me feel guilty because publishers send me ARCs, because they're willing, when they find out I'm a book blogger, to hand me an extra ARC at BEA because I asked.  It's not anyone else's call but the publishers.  They can always say no and I'm certainly not going to pitch a toddler fit on the show floor if I don't get an ARC.  But it really pisses me the FUCK off when I see people basically make heinously uneducated comments and they're taken as gold because of the mouth it's coming out of.

I was once a first time attendee to BEA.  I'm well aware of the overwhelming awe one experiences when unleashed upon the floor.  I certainly came home with far more books than what I intended.  I don't think that makes me a horrible person.  In that same breath I also didn't need a dump truck to transport all of them either.  I was able to carry and move everything in the single bag I had.  With much difficulty.  But I did it.  I don't believe you can put a number on hoarding but it's something you know when you see it.  If you can build a multi-level fort for children to play in with the book you received you went overboard.  But it's a learning experience.  I'd like to hope.  The more conferences you go to the less of a concern the ARCs become and therefore the fewer you acquire.

There are problems at every level when it comes to something like this and it needs to be remedied, first and foremost, by the organizers and publishers themselves.  I do think that people that hoard THAT many ARCs do deserve to feel some shame for grabbing that much.  That's just ridiculously excessive.  But shaming your regular blogger that gets a tenth of that, either because you didn't grab even that many or you don't feel they deserve them to begin with is not a rehabilitative approach to fixing the problem.  You're making people ashamed to read and that's far more detrimental to the purpose of these conventions than people taking to many ARCs and not having enough for others.

Word of mouth is word of mouth.  I'm proof that even a quieter voice can help launch books so cut the shaming shit.  But hoarders need to get their compulsions in check as well.  Hopefully this whole shenanniganery will get convention organizers' attention and they'll institute change from the top because I think it's fairly obvious that people can't be left to their own devices and be expected to police themselves.  But if they're forced to they'll fall in line quickly enough if they want something bad enough.  I just think all this blame is a bit misguided.  Nothing is stopping bloggers from attending these book conventions.  There aren't any by-laws or constitutions or  bills being passed that ban book bloggers from exhibit floors and obtaining ARCs.  Publishers are handing over ARCs with the full knowledge that they're being given to book bloggers.  And people are getting cranky when book bloggers accept.  Seriously?  If someone offers you a glass of water on a hot day should we all expect you to turn it down because there's probably someone that's even thirstier that deserves it more?  Let's get real here.

A New Genre?

I'm an avid read of Agent Kristin's blog (who represents authors like Marie Lu, Mari Mancusi and Ally Carter).  I think she gives pretty good advice and she has some good insider information on what's going on behind the scenes in the publishing world.  As she should.  Since she's an agent.  So I'm reading one of her posts where she reveals what editors are seeing and there's a common theme that keeps cropping up.  Maybe you've heard of it?

CRAP

No, I'm not joking.  Read her post here.  With the publication of things like TWILIGHT and FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY, editors are getting submissions that are of a less than savory quality.  The thing is, the majority of these submissions are from agents who've already acquired the manuscript.

I'm a fan of Kristin because the manuscripts she takes on are books that she can get behind for more than money.  She doesn't look at her acquisitions and go "YES!  The next best dystopian!"  She takes novels on because she truly believes they're good and she can put herself behind them 100%.  This isn't the case with all agents.  Agent are commission-based so if one of them comes across a manuscript that they think they can hitch on a wave and sell, some are going to acquire that manuscript, and it might not be the best thing they can acquire, much to the chagrin of those editors and additionally, us, the reading public.

Lo and behold copycats are born.  Editors are the same way, of course.  Some want quality while others see wave jammers.  We've seen many, MANY of those wave jammers recently, I think.  I'm starting to branch out of reading the YA market because, frankly, I'm tired of coming across the same thing.  I'm tired of starting to read a book that I just end up DNF-ing because I've effing read it before or it's just not well-written or I couldn't connect with it or whatever.

Lately I've been feeling a bit like Stan when he turns 10 and the world around him just turns into a pile of crap.

Is it me?  Am I just bitter and I'm just not liking anything I'm reading?  Did I hit an unfortunate string of books?  Or is this indicative of the quality that's being released?  I just DNF-ed a really popular title.  I was SO excited to read this one.  Truly.  And I really hated DNF-ing it because I did want to like it.  The thing is I wanted to set it on fire by the end of chapter two.  I will be doing a DNF review of that soon so I won't go into detail here.  What I will say is I'm getting exceptionally tired of trying to read books that just end up falling flat.

With Agent Kristin's blog post above, it's a bit more reassuring of my opinion that it's not just me.  If agents out there are acquiring crap that rightly isn't ready for publication then it's probably getting published somewhere, set free into the world for mass consumption.

I don't consider myself a literary person in the slightest.  I can marvel at fine writing like the next college graduate with an English major but I read to escape.  Just give me a good story, some good characters and a mighty fine world and I'll be as happy as a pig in shit.  Except I've been getting let down far too much lately.  Sure I could have high expectations but in reality my expectations aren't very high.  I don't go into a book thinking it's going to be the best thing ever written.  I do go into it thinking it's going to be good, whatever that work entails.  I go into it thinking that it won't have me wanting to throw it across the room in frustration or begrudge reading it because I'm so bored with it.  I expect it to not look like a first draft or read like someone in high school remedial English wrote it.  I expect it to live up to it's quality that professional publication would insinuate.  I expect it to have been vetted and edited to within an inch of its life.  I don't expect to love it.  I just don't expect it to look self-published.

Are my expectations too high?  Maybe.  Or maybe I'm just not a fan of getting force-fed the same thing over and over again with eroding quality all the while.  If only ALL editors and agents felt the way those guys do.  We'd without a doubt have some better books to read.  And it would set the bar a little higher on the reading side.  We wouldn't just take what we're given and accept that it's awesome because that's what we're told.  We'd recognize awesomeness because that's what it would actually be.  Not everyone is going to like every book, of course, but I don't need to tell you that a gorgeous rich girl super spectacular #1 assassin with magical powers is pretty damn Sue if I ever saw one.

Word to Your Mother

First I think I need to give some credit where credit is due.  I don't want anyone to think I'm plagiarizing or anything.
A huge thanks to Justin Hall for creating the first ever blog.  Without him I certainly wouldn't be here, blogging.  Really, we all should be crediting Justin in each and every one of our posts because, well, every blog post that we make WITHOUT giving him credit is a win for plagiarism.  For more information on the history of the blog, please be sure to check out the bastion of all knowledge.
I simply can't go on without thanking that one dude in the tights and the tri-corner hat for thinking it a marvelous idea to publicly announce his general likes or distastes for books in print via locally type-set and hand-cranked newspapers.  Without this unknown gentleman (and you know it's a dude because bitches didn't typeset) we simply couldn't compile coherent thought enough to simply review, let alone add in succinctly placed animated images to better convey our feelings.  On a smaller note, one can't overlook the rise of literacy rates of the general public during that same time.  Thank you, minions, for rising above the mire and paving the way for people like me.
And look!  Even more credit is due to the 18th century!  The rise of the book advert!  Hooray!  Now if you want to talk the beginnings of true advertising you're going to have to go supernova old timey, back to the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians.  They were all about the adverts.  Except their billboards weren't mechanized.  But the book advert?  That coincides with the unwashed masses getting learned and wanting to read them wordy lumps and create discussions with each other and whatnot.  So big up to you, men of history, for thinking to spread the word about the awesomeness of books and giving me the idea to do the same.
Okay?  Are we good?  Is anyone else going to piss and moan about how horrible it is that someone is taking someone else's idea, putting their own unique spin on it and creating their own thing?  Yes?  Then go read Rachel's (Parajunkee's) post about plagiarism versus etiquette and check yourself.  At the rate people are throwing fecal matter at the rotating devices about meme stealing you'd think we'd need to credit the act of book reviewing itself.  Book covers in sidebars?  Credit.  Blog post titles?  Credit.  Blog post signatures?  Credit.  Book covers in reviews?  Credit.  The use of the word 'the'?  Credit.
But that's different--HOW?  How is that different?  I've actually had a feature meme stolen.  Not taken and put a different spin on it.  Stolen verbatim.  That's plagiarism.  You know what else I've seen?  A similar idea altered and added into the book review itself.  Do you see me losing my shit about it?  No.  Because, SHOCK, people can have similar ideas.  It happens.  But I don't expect to be the be-all-end-all of this particular meme and any variations thereof.  That's just insanity.  So really, just because someone posts about the books they received for that week, adding in, or not, whatever else it is they want to add, doesn't make them indebted to a single Al Gore-ish I INVENTED THE INTERNETS blogger because they happen to be bigger and popularized a particular aspect of it.  I'm not going to nitpick the differences between plagiarism and etiquette because Rachel does a good enough job of that.  But let's cut this shit because it's annoying.  The concept of advertising books was not invented in 2007.  Get over it.
Now, just to be clear, YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT IDEAS.  It's impossible.  The copyright office won't accept it.  Blogging tips, book reviews (generally speaking), snark, the word 'and,' these things are generalities.  Again, this is something that Rachel talks about in that same post above.  Everyone has ideas and they're going to overlap, sometimes unintentionally.  Common phrases, common topics, common themes. It's bound to happen.
Where the line is drawn is where you start copying syntax, set-up, timing, wording, execution.  That leaves the "general ideas" behind and broaches into the world of downright plagiarism.  You can find a billion and one blog posts about how to make your blog successful, how to get readers, how to utilize social media.  Whatever.  All of these guys are going to touch on the same subjects but they should read as individuals.  How many projects did you do in school on the same subjects as classmates but they ended up coming out completely different?  Duh.  Differing execution is possible.  But when your paper sounds awfully close to Billy's over there someone's going to have some 'splainin' to do.  Right, Ice?

Now see Ice here, or is it Mr. Vanilla?  Winky?  Learned the hard way that even though you add a couple of extra notes onto an already popular intro you can't call it your own, completely different or in any way not pass it off as you being a total douche and stealing someone else's stuff.  Bowie & Co. will notice, right Bobby?  A couple of notes does not your work make.  I mean, no wonder this guy totally broke down under his own pent up douchery years later.
So what did the nice tool box learn?  That you can't just take someone else's entire shit, sprinkle in a little of your poo and call it totally yours and be done with it?  Hmm?  Without credit attributed?  Hmmm?  That's right.  We're all big kids.  Totally edumacated.  Let's not toss around half-assed comments that you didn't know what plagiarism was.  That you totally thought you were working under Fair Use or Orphan Works or Feigned Ignorance or whatever.  Let's not start thinking we can strip off the Apple logo on an iPad and start calling it Pear and it's totally our own making because IT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE AN IPAD.  Totally.  Let's not patronize people and insult their intelligence, shall we?
We know Queen and David FUCKING Bowie when we hear it, man.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times and you're stumping around footless because you've shot them off.
I'm smarterer than what I'm generally given credit for.  Now for some of the REAL thing -

Fucking shenanigans.  Seriously.  Can we go a quarter without this shit exploding in a flaming blaze of stink?  Please?  Is that too much to ask?  Three months?  To quote Tom Hanks playing Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own, "Start using your head.  That's that lump three feet above your ass."  There's no crying in baseball.

SERE* is Not a Blogging Technique

You are quite possibly a luddite if you haven't heard about The Story Siren issue going on. Cuddlebuggery released the news with Smart Bitches spreading it with a post about an accusation of plagiarism on Kristi's part of a few fashion blogs, Beautifully Invisible and Grit and Glamour.

WTF? <-- My initial response. No way. You mean to tell me that Kristi, of The Story Siren, she who lectures on the woes of plagiarism, she who herself has been plagiarized, ripped off someone else's posts? Is it April 1st? So I began reading the posts on the fashion blogs, complete with screen caps, IP address and stats far too sophisticated for me to find on my own blog. But I knew what I was looking at. Then Kristi's initial evasive, half-hearted apology** without it being an apology. WTF?

The more I read the more my heart sank. Kristi's blog was the first I came across in my pre-blogging ventures. I read nearly all of her archives (at the time there wasn't too much). We chatted in her comments. She was the nudge I needed to start book blogging. She was a great support when I was a young blogger and was never anything short of nice to me. I met her at a couple of BEAs and again, absolutely lovely. People have said otherwise but I always disregarded it. That was never my experience.

As the years carried on and my style formed a life of its own and Kristi grew exponentially, a distance grew. I'm not going to lament on it or anything. Life happens. I still sleep at night. So while I wouldn't call her a friend now there was still some level of acquaintanceship there and I always provided her with an obligatory respect. I may not have read her blog regularly anymore but I still kept it in my sidebar and in my RSS reader. She was YA book blogging. Mention book blogging at BEA and her name would be right at the top of the list, if not the first name. You can't ignore that. And I respected it for the work she did to make it what it is; to be, in my opinion, the epitome of YA book blogging. Sure our styles differed greatly but . . . respect.

Until Monday.

This whole issue has affected me in ways that it rightly shouldn't do. Destroyed would be a good word. Don't get me wrong; I didn't put Kristi on a pedestal or anything. But the helping hand she offered to so many people, me included, completely came crashing down. All the work, the posts, the help, a lie. The closer I read into the proof the heavier my heart got.

No, I'm not angry. I couldn't muster up that emotion if I tried. I'm disappointed beyond words and ashamed of the hypocrite Kristi's made of herself. Even before reading the comparisons and setting my thoughts in stone, this was my initial scope of the situation -

• Kristi went outside of the usual book blogging community to rip posts with the presumed idea of not getting caught. 
• Kristi was caught, presented with evidence by the accusers and denied the plagiarism occurred.
• Accusers persisted and Kristi caved, sort of. With neither a confirmation nor a denial she apologized for something that was wrong but may have been unintentional and asked to keep it all private, presumably to preserve her reputation. 
• The book blogging world exploded and Kristi's reputation shattered. 
• Kristi issued an evasive "apology," appearing to be more concerned with her standing with publishers and authors than readers and then corrected herself. 
• Shock ensued as people tried to wrap their heads around their feelings about this. 
• Kristi issued a second "apology" stating she never denied the original accusation of plagiarism months before. 
• My opinion solidified.

This wasn't a post I wanted to jump into. I needed to read everything again and let it simmer. It needed to process. And I'm still processing it. I'm still shocked that someone who knows what it's like to be plagiarized actually plagiarized someone. It hurts my heart and makes me so incredibly sad.

And her reaction to it all makes me even sadder. In my personal run-in with plagiarism, in every single case the plagiarist came out publicly and immediately admitted their wrong-doing. I don't really believe in accidental plagiarism in most cases but I'm not above believing things settling in subconsciously, forgetting where they came from and then marveling at your own genius for thinking it up (just not WHOLE posts worth of information). But there are ways to avoid that so let's not alleviate personal responsibility. It's still there. But they admitted it, apologized and it was done.

That's not what Kristi did. It wasn't one post but a pile of posts with eerily similar qualities (in set-up, style, relayed information, timing) to a bunch of other posts not belonging to her. She didn't come out and admit what she did. She denied it and then tried to cover it up. For months. Until she no longer could. Actions speak louder than words and her actions lead me to believe she was sorry she got caught. She was forced into apologizing and didn't do it of her own accord. And that really sucks.

What sucks even more is the pandering at her feet. I am disgusted to the point of nausea at comments in the manner of "Thank you for apologizing! Smile! Now we can move on!" or "You are so brave to apologize!  Stay strong!"  Do you have any idea what this makes the book blogging community, especially the YA community, look like? How many other plagiarists were afforded the same kindness and understanding? BE HONEST!

There was a point, a couple years ago, where I gave a young plagiarist the benefit of the doubt. She was being crucified even after apologizing publicly. She was a kid, I don't even think old enough to drive. I felt bad. So I tried to help her rebuild herself. Stupid me. She went right back to doing it again. It only takes once. Never again.

We as a community are rabid when it comes to plagiarists. They suck. Hard. If you've ever been plagiarized you know how it feels. It fucking blows. So when plagiarism erupts we pounce, lambasting and shunning the plagiarist into nothing. Because that's what they deserve. It's not like you can accidentally cut and paste entire posts onto your blog, with or without tweaks. So they deserve it. And Kristi deserves support and glowing puppy dog eyes because . . .  Are we going to start treating all plagiarists this way?  Are we trying to make plagiarism okay?

Don't get me wrong. Kristi is a different case. She's not some noob or a lesser known blogger that we can easily beat into submission. She's huge, popular, nice, well-connected. Do you know what this says?

WE HATE PLAGIARISTS! THEY'RE EVUL AND DESERVE TO FADE AWAY!!! unless you're big and popular and influential and then we'll just slap you on the wrist, shame people for saying mean things about you, give you squishy bear hugs and carry on with our lives.

Double standard much? For someone that tried to hide the transgression? That preached ethics while blogging a lie? That half-heartedly apologized only when forced to?  So is this the spooge on the blue dress or the undercover cop in the next bathroom stall? Yeah, we all make mistakes but the bigger people own them from the beginning. They don't lie about it, hide it, lie some more and then only when backed into a corner nominally admit to anything.

Kristi's actions have far greater repercussions then just fucking herself. It affects all of us. If the epitome of YA book blogging, the metaphorical leader of our roost, can't even live up to her own ethical standards, what's expected of the rest of us? People already sneer in our general direction. Do you think this helps? Do you think sucking up to a plagiarist just because she is who she is makes us look BETTER? Plagiarism sucks! Most of the time.

We look like assholes, guys. Giant, unwiped assholes. And I really, REALLY don't like having my reputation fucked by association. Not a fan. Which is why I'm distancing myself from Kristi. I'm removing her link from my blog roll and RSS feed and I will no longer connect her to my Added to the Pile posts. I can't in good conscience support or promote a hypocrite and a plagiarist. And I say this with an immensely heavy heart.  It makes me sad to do it but doing otherwise would force me to compromise my integrity. That's not something even on my radar of consideration. I've discussed all of this at length with my fellow lady YAckers. We've hemmed and hawed over it. Looked at it, or tried to, from a bunch of different angles. We ended up pretty much in the same boat and this was my decision as a result. It took evaluating, thinking, conversing, knowledge. I don't feel I'm doing this in haste but after careful thought.

This decision is mine and mine alone. I'm not asking anyone to take any kind of action. Please, for the love of god, don't bully Kristi. I'm sure there's very little anyone else can do to her that she hasn't already don't to herself. Plus you look like a total douche and don't do us any favors. Not to mention it only victimizes her ("oh poor Kristi for getting harassed!"  Srsly?  So it wasn't harassing when it was done to the other, lesser, plagiarists?) when she is the LAST person that can be called a victim here.  I'm just asking you all to think about what it means to rally behind someone that's broken quite possibly the only steadfast law we have amongst book bloggers. What this makes the community look like.

It's not about forgiveness or moving on. It's about sticking to our laurels. A friend can help her through this but a real friend will tell her, "you fucked up, BAD," and will remind her that she now needs to sleep in the bed she made for herself. This is not a place for ego-boosting. She SHOULD feel like a fraud because that's exactly what she's presented herself as.  Instead we've gotten a dividing line of those that think Kristi is exempt from being wrong and those of us that believe plagiarism is plagiarism and should be treated as such regardless of the offender.  It's not like this is just hearsay.  It's not like there isn't any evidence.  And the fashion blogs are the ones getting the hate mail for deigning to smear Kristi's "good" name.  Disgusting.

You don't have to agree with me. Just THINK. This has now gone beyond Kristi and we need to contemplate the greater repercussions of her, and our subsequent, actions. Our reputation as a whole is shit and this certainly isn't helping it. So just think about what it means to rally for someone so obviously guilty of plagiarism because she's not lesser or unknown or too new to matter. Let's not make ourselves hypocrites too.

*Acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, military, see link.
**Originally I was going to link to both of her "apology" posts but quite frankly, at the end of the day I don't want to afford her website hits.

Why Requiring a Follow Doesn't Make Me Satan

Look, when I first started this whole book blogging thing I was right there with you. How much more shameless of an act can you get than requiring people to follow you in order to enter your giveaways? Seriously? Number whores! Fakers! SHENANIGANS! I call upon you SHENANIGANS!

Take a look at my follower number. See that? I fell onto the number whore street corner and offered it my leg. A good chunk of that number was from me requiring people to follow my blog when I was giving away an ARC of Cassandra Clare's CLOCKWORK ANGEL before it was released. My numbers totally blew the EFF up. And you know what? It boosted my ego. That was the only time I turned into a shameless shiller. Everyone got what they wanted although I kinda needed to shower afterwards.

I was never big on the additional entries hoops some bloggers made entrants jump through (post here, follow there, comment on this, walk my dog . . .) or requiring anything. All you had to do was comment; if you happened to follow I'd give you an extra entry but that's it. If you didn't follow, no sweat off my back. But the bigger my giveaways got (Summer Blast Giveaway, my Halloween giveaways, etc.) I would get a little grumbly that someone whom I'd never seen before, either following or commenting, was snagging the stuff I was giving away and then I'd never see them again.

How can I prove it? Really I can't. It's more of a gut feeling. The more giveaways you have the more you come to recognize the names on your list and just who's hanging around after the giveaway's gone. I have no viable proof but I know there are people who are drive-by giveaway entrants and when they won something it really rankled me. Of course I'd give it up. I'm not an asshole (most of the time) but I'd be grinding my teeth doing it. And I kept doing it because if I required a follow then I really was an asshole that was just in it for the numbers and I certainly didn't want that.

It was Jen at Reading with Tequila that made me look at it from a completely different perspective. It was because of her that I realized requiring a follow of some kind doesn't mean you're the epitome of blogging douchery and should be shunned onto a bed of spikes. It can mean that you don't want to give your shit away to just anyone.

So I'm wandering around people's posts this past Tuesday with the tips for book bloggers Top Ten as this week's theme and I'm seeing a lot of good stuff but at the same time I'm also seeing shunning in the name of requiring a follow and it stings a little because it's something I do. And I don't do it for the numbers simply because, for the most part, I don't give a shit about my numbers. Even as I sit here and require followers for my giveaways, my numbers increase organically. I don't get large dumps of sign-ons when I post giveaways. They creep up, creep down and sometimes just kind of hang out. Like everyone else's.

I just want to say that requiring someone follow you on your blog in order to enter your giveaways isn't the end of the world. It's not even halfway there. I ended up doing it (and giving people a variety of ways to follow) simply because I wanted to delude myself into thinking that I'm giving stuff away to people that actually use my blog and aren't just using me for the free shit.

An argument: but what if you're not the one supplying the giveaway? What right do you have saying who can enter and who can't? Um . . . my blog? For which I put into my own time, unpaid? For which I dress it up nicely with my own money? For which I give it its own URL, paid for with my own money? Because I fucking can? It is by the very act of my good graces that publishers and authors have access to my blog to use as a conduit for promoting their wares. If they don't like the way I function there are a shit-ton of other blogs out there they can use that I'm sure would be more than willing. Have at it. It's all in my policy. It's how I'm conducted my blog from the very beginning. If I am hosting a giveaway of an author or publisher, I don't forfeit my blog to them and let them dictate terms on who can enter or not (unless it comes to country restrictions, which is absolutely reasonable). It's still my blog, regardless of whether the giveaway comes from me or from someone else. I don't want my blog being a passing stop for anything I give away, or I allow to be given away in my space.

It's a synergistic relationship. With access to publishers and authors I can gain a greater audience with better giveaways which opens the publishers and authors up to a greater number of people. So, well, wouldn't it be better for everyone involved if there was a regular readership to said blog that would be better able to get the word out than a cluster of passers-by that may or may not care? Repeat customers are where the business is, people.

So considering everything I do for this blog, for the authors, for the publishers, for the books, for other bloggers even, am I really asking that much for people to follow my blog for a chance to win something I give away? Is that really so much to ask? For the daydream notion that the bookly good stuff I give away ends up in the hands of repeat readers of my site, someone that actually enjoys something other than what I'm giving away instead of someone that blog hops for the free shit and nothing else. Really?

This is why I do it. I may not care about the numbers but I do care about content and I'd like to think people are into me for more than just what I can give away. I don't think that's a lot. I don't ask for anything doing this. I don't host advertisements because I refuse to relinquish control of what gets advertised on my blog. I don't ask for donations because, quite frankly, I think that's tacky. I volunteered for this and I knew going in what it would cost. Why would I put my hand out for it? I don't participate in any kind of incentive program (aside from the fact that Amazon yanked their program out of Connecticut due to a tax issue, you're a douche, Malloy). I just want some reassurance that people are actually reading the shit I spit out. That's all. So call me an asshole for doing it. But I'm pretty sure there are a lot worse things I could be doing as a book blogger than requiring a follow for my giveaways.

When "Saturated" is Putting it Lightly . . .

With all of the shenanigans happening about authors/agents/whoever losing their shit over negative reviews, I'm left wondering why it's happening. Not shit being lost, but the negative reviews. If you read some of these reviews that others are going insane over, there appears to be a consistent theme: story-line fatigue (to put it nicely). So are these reviewers reaching their tipping points with that one review that garners all that attention? Have they finally had enough? And instead of going insane on these reviewers for their opinions, shouldn't this issue be addressed at its source? What company, in its right mind, is going to show down a consumer and scream, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why don't you like my product? You're obviously a failure!" They're not. They're going to listen to the public. Research and development, anyone? They listen to their consumers and then tailor their product based on popular opinion.

Now, the question here is what is popular opinion. Is the popular opinion that TWILIGHT knock offs really do sell so publishers are going to keep pumping them out? Or are the publishers wanting to milk a wave so badly that they'll continue spitting out a sub par product regardless of what the public thinks? To force the market, if you will. How much mirrored YA PNR is out there now? Or dystopians? All with covers featuring girls in pretty dresses? Is this what the public REALLY wants or is it what's being forced on them, and thus heavy-handing them their opinions for them? Chicken or the egg?

I'm really leery about reading dystopians at the moment because if I come across another one whose world-building is absolutely atrocious for the sake of building a love triangle, I might lose my mind. I avoid YA PNR altogether. I don't think I have one dressed up chick cover in my pile. All the covers look the same, what makes anyone think that I'm going to think any differently about what's on the inside? Plus PNR isn't really my thing to begin with. And I'm starting to wear thin on contemporaries, namely contemporaries with a really effed up MC. My definition of effed up is pretty broad but it appears that in order to compensate for all of the well-adjusted MCs in contemporaries, a rash of maladjusted MCs in contemporaries has come out. Not that anything's wrong with that. I'm by no means required to read any of it. And it's not like the stuff I'm coming across is bad. It's just too much is starting to get depressing so I need to step away from it. But what do I step away to? My options are a bit thin.

So when our options are limited, and we're REALLY trying to like what we're reading but it's falling short, who's to blame? The reader because they didn't like the book? The author for not writing a better story? Or the publisher/agent for acquiring yet another copy cat? I've read enough agent blogs to know that most agents say they really need to love a book to take it on. And I totally believe it. How else are they going to sell that manuscript if they can't get behind it 100%? But looking at some of the books that are coming out, I can't help but wonder what some agents/publishers see when they see these manuscripts. Are they truly in love with them as I'd like to believe? Or are they in love with the potential paycheck it's going to offer because it can surf the wave with the rest? I do genuinely like to think the best of people until they prove me wrong. But that's not going to stop me from questioning. And I honestly believe I'm right to question.

The good, original, unique works should not be buried under copy cat after copy cat after copy cat. That many copy cats shouldn't exist! It's one thing to write in the same genre. It's another thing entirely to be able to take a stack of books, flip around all of the characters and still have the same damn story. This is getting old and I think this is what people are really reacting to. Give us something new and different that we can sink our teeth into! And don't be surprised when we cringe and back away from the same pile of leftovers we've been eating for the past week.

Waves seem to hit hard in YA and that's okay. But since YA still needs to fight for every shred of dignity it currently has, it does nothing to shoot it in the foot with mirror-imaged wave riders and subsequent fall out. If YA wants to be taken seriously, it needs to start taking itself seriously. Start putting out the rich, voluptuous stories that I KNOW are out there. Stop pushing them aside for even more knock offs. We can tell when they're fake. We're not blind. We want the good stuff. Sure it may cost more but I'd like to think the payoff would be well worth it.

This is Why I Like My Bubble

I like my bubble. More than you probably know. Why? Because I don't get involved in shit unless I want to. I miss out on the Twitter fiascoes, the Goodreads shenanigans and your general social networking douchery. And I'm okay with that. I came across Stacia Kane's post about authors vs. bloggers a little while ago via Wicked Lil Pixie and I kinda went for serious? Again? Of course Stacia's post is thoroughly brilliant and should be read by all. It makes me all tingly in my cockles when authors use 'fuck' in a self-deprecating manner.

And then I came across this via Publisher's Weekly and it makes me want to punch a baby in the face. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? Why are negative reviews such a huge problem? I'm not understanding it. I'm really not. Well, maybe I am . . .

Why I think people absolutely lose their shit over blogger-written negative reviews -

• We're influential - first and foremost. Anyone that tells you we're not is swimming in a pool of liquid denial. As someone that has single-handedly amped up the sales of a book (right, Ilsa? :) ), as someone that's part of a community that has affected book cover changes when even the AUTHOR couldn't get it done, to say we're not influential is like saying Stephen Hawkins isn't all that smart.
• We're an unruly mob with a lot of power - see above re: influential. Add in our inability to be controlled. We don't work for anyone but ourselves. We're not 1099 independent contractors. We're not on anyone's payroll. We don't have rules. We don't have guidelines. We're a free for all. Our power is unadulterated.
• Fear - pish and paw and pfft all you want. There is a fear there that we, the unruly, heinously powerful mob, can bury a book before it even has a chance. With all the power we wield, we can make books, and we came break them. In theory. Back an animal into a corner, make it look like it has no way out, what does it do? It starts lashing out. Because it's afraid.
• We can get our hands on the product no matter what and review it whether you want us to or not. Book stores. Gotta love them.

This, of course, is actually assuming WE CARE THAT MUCH. Chances are, we don't. I know I don't. It's an opinion, of which people are entitled. Trying to browbeat someone into writing a review one particular way to suit whatever isn't an effective means of getting what you want. It just ends up making one look like a douche. Someone doesn't like your book. Boo fucking hoo. That someone decided to call your MC TSTL and supplemented his or her words with succinctly placed animated gifs and You Tube videos. How about seeing it for the creative piece it actually is, being honored that someone actually put in that kind of effort on YOUR novel to get their point across and, I don't know, LAUGH AT YOURSELF??? Where did all the senses of humor go? Are we supposed to be considering everything that we read lit-ra-ture? Should our reviews in kind be lit-ra-ture in order to be taken seriously and not lambasted to within an inch of its life?

For serious. I'm not trying to demean any author's work. As a writer I'm well aware of what goes into a novel. Every letter is a piece of my soul put down on paper, or whatever. I'm also aware that an opinion isn't an axe through my chest either. And I'm not going to make it my life's mission to shit on every single person that criticized me. There are far better things to do with my time. Like taking all that negative into consideration because maybe, just maybe, all those negative reviews might have a point. And while it can't be fixed in the current book, well, there's always the future.

So what the FUCK are people's problems? Why are people going feral on reviews? Am I right? Is it the fear that some random schmuck, banded together with all the rest of the random schmucks, can actually affect the sales of a book? Is it because people are still living by the adage "unless you have something nice to say, don't say anything at all?" Or are they just getting caught up in the flurry and jumping in as their typing fingers allow? What is it? Someone please explain this to me. If we are so fucking terrible, uncouth, uneducated, smart-mouthed little shits, why do we keep getting books?

Or how about . . . publishing something that won't make us want to tear our eyes out reading it? Something of quality, perhaps? Instead of yet ANOTHER copycat of that angel story or this dystopian trilogy or vampires, FUCKING VAMPIRES? Because, in my experience, from what I've seen, that's what's driving us insane; more of the same. Quite frankly, it's insulting. And that's just the covers. Never mind the redundancy between the pages where you can swap out characters from book to book and still end up with the same damn story written by different authors. How about the problem is addressed at its source instead of screaming at people who are merely reacting to shut the fuck up and deal with it?

The truth of the matter is no one book is going to please everyone. Why this needs to be reiterated, I have no idea. There are going to be people that won't like something, to varying degrees. And thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, they are given the opportunity to express their opinion as lavishly as they deem fit. And that's okay. Yes, it's okay. Because there are going to be people that love your book and the reality is, even the people that are ripping you a new one are still exposing others to it. How do you think I got to reading TWILIGHT? I just HAD to see if it was as bad as everyone said (yes, yes it was). But I read all four (I'm still not sure why). So what's bad about that again? I picked up the books BECAUSE people were shitting on it. So . . . the problem is . . .

No. I will not shut up because I didn't like a book. In case you haven't noticed, that's not what I'm about. And neither should anyone else. People should be ASHAMED of themselves for scaring book bloggers out of posting negative reviews. Ashamed. In some circles, that would be called bullying. You know, intimidating others in order to get your way? It's okay to have an opinion to someone else's opinion. But threatening to blacklist bloggers when they start to query should they be writers? Really, how childish can you get? Or tag teaming a bad review because the reviewed is your friend? Seriously? Are we fourteen again? Are you gonna trip her in gym class too? Seriously, how fucking immature has this gotten? How about we all grow the fuck up, accept the fact that we're not Nazis with one brain and move on with our lives? Is it really worth the effort to chisel someone down to nothing because they expressed their honest opinion about a book? Did it make you feel better? Can you rest your head on the pillow easier? Does sleep come quicker? How about next time you think about who's on the other side, and how old that person might just be. How good would you feel tearing the shit out of someone that isn't even old enough to drive? Feel good? You still get that warm and squishy in your cockle area? You don't even need to do that. How about, just for a second, you remember how it feels to voice your opinion and then have someone rip you a new one because it wasn't the right opinion. Right . . .

Let's get this straight, in case my policy isn't clear enough: I WORK FOR THE READERS. I don't work for authors, publishers, publicists or anyone in between. I will give my honest opinion about what it is I read because that's what READERS DESERVE. They don't deserve to be lied to. They don't deserve to be intimidated into reading something. NO ONE deserves to be intimidated into writing a review they don't want to write because they fear the repercussions of what they might say. Don't we fight against censorship every September (and all year round for that matter?)? So what the hell is this shit? Censorship is bad, but only in this instance? It doesn't apply to YOU, you lowly subhuman? You do what I say or I crush you? Please.

I'm going to retreat back to my bubble now because shit like this makes my hair fall out. This is why I don't get involved in social media. This is why I'm up front about the way I work so if this shit ever happened to me I can just point and go "I fucking told you so." Just because I don't get paid for what I do doesn't mean I'm some kind of puppet. You can't shove your hand up my ass and make me talk. But please . . . continue self-sabotaging. The reviewers aren't the ones ruining your book. You are doing a dandy enough job of that all on your own with your inability to NOT lose your shit when something doesn't go your way. Congratulations.

On Plagiarism and Wankery

Jeez, the YA book blogging world isn't itself without some kind of drama, huh? In this issue we have a little bit on blogging plagiarism and blogging superiority. First, on plagiarism . . .

Hey, you uncreative shit. Just don't do it, okay? If you can't think up an original thought and feel the need to take from someone else verbatim and post it as your own, perhaps you shouldn't have a blog. As if people wouldn't find out. As if we're not a well-connected network of people that looks out of each other. Such is the problem with people like this; they underestimate. Big mistake.

And I'm not one to believe ignorance in this matter is okay due to age. I mean, what could possibly be the thought process of copying and pasting someone's post and re-posting it on your own blog as your own and see it as okay? If you're a teenager, you don't have an excuse because the notion of plagiarism of banged into your head in school. You can fail classes for plagiarizing. In college, you run the risk of being kicked out of school. So really, where's the excuse for this? There isn't one.

Plagiarism on a bigger scale, when money starts getting involved, can have very serious legal repercussions. On our scale, copying and pasting reviews from free sites written by amateur reviewers won't put you in front of a judge, but you will be called out and ostracized from the community, absolutely destroying any chances of publishers and publicists contacting you for reviews should you do it and be a shit about it. As one, our voice as the power to change book covers. As if we can't crucify an asshole blogger.

Personally, should I find out anyone ever plagiarizes my blog, I'm not going to take you to court. Really, I don't think it should go that far as we're just not in a position to lose like a professional reviewer or author would, plus it's amazingly costly and you could rightly get fined or wasting the court's time. Not something that I want to deal with, but that's just me. But you can guarantee I will make your life a living hell. Not only am I a blogger but I am a writer and I take plagiarism very seriously. So fuck with me. I dare you.

Copyright law with the written word dictates that the second the words are written down, they are copyrighted to the author. This blog post? Copyrighted. And while you can't copyright ideas (that has been ruled over and over again, it's about the execution of the idea, not the idea itself that can be copyrighted), starting a meme titled "What the Mailman Brought Me" is going to make you look like an asshole for taking an already long-standing idea, changing the title and calling it yours. Just because you change a few minor things doesn't mean you can call it your own. That's not how originality works.

We live in a derivative word and we are subconsciously influenced by so many things and it's impossible to keep track of it all. But be aware of what you're writing. As other bloggers have said, don't read reviews of books you're reading until after you've already posted your review, for instance. Keeping your exposure down on something is very beneficial and it'll keep you from ending up with egg on your face. Accidental egg on your face isn't so bad. It can be cleaned off. But throwing egg in your own face? That'll stain.

As for wankery and blogger superiority, I read on a blog (for the life of me I can't remember the name) a rebuttal for a post on yet another blog (whose name escapes me) that basically trashed American book bloggers for their unintelligent content and elevated UK bloggers for being of such a higher level.

Um, fuck you.

This self-aggrandizing blogger chastised US book bloggers for reviewing books she'd never heard of, not seeking out UK books to review, for the amount of memes we may or may not use and for how loud and obnoxious we are in how we advertise our blogs; apparently, according to this blogger, UK book bloggers are all about content, not comments or followers or any of that.

Again, fuck you.

I'm American and I have lived in the UK for an extended period of time and this kind of hypocrisy really chapped my ass, even now. We are accused of being narrow-minded, unintelligent and sheltered from the rest of the world. Funny, because everyone I heard making such accusations were just as sheltered, ignorant and uninformed about how Americans really are. When I was over there (mind this was in 2006, height of Bush World so American sentiments were in the shitter) I was looked at as representing everything that was wrong with America, as if I had something to do with it, while at the same time being chastised for not knowing more about the greater world around me. Isn't that a bit contradictory?

For this particular UK book blogger, she mentioned she'd never heard of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn until very recently. So can I call her an uneducated moron for not knowing about one of our classics? Or would that just make me a brutish oaf and there the American goes again, expecting everyone to know everything about them while they know nothing about everyone else? Why does she get to sit there and accuse us of of being so closed off while she's exhibiting the same exact signs of being sheltered?

I follow a lot of book bloggers. Some of my favorites are from the UK and I've never noticed any stark differences in how anything is portrayed on their blogs. I don't even know a blog is outside of the US until they start having contests and I realize they're in Australia or England or Pakistan. I also didn't realize we're writing theses on books here either. Should everyone have a college degree before deigning to write a book blog? A lot of these blogs are maintained by teenagers and it's insulting to insinuate that they, nor anyone else, has unintelligent content because they do a few memes or their reviews don't live up to particular unwritten standards.

Any lobotomized chimp can tell you that the center of the publishing world, the WORLD, is New York City. Not London. Not Bologna. Not Stuttgart. New York City. USA. America. I'm sure that brings major chagrin to that particular UK blogger but it's true. Also, what does sell in England might not sell in America. Different tastes. US publishers also aren't willing to ship internationally when promoting ARCs. At least most of them don't. I haven't seen any that do. It doesn't make them assholes; it just makes them cost effective. Plus why would they try to promote a book across the pond when it's not even being released there? And vise versa? I've never been contacted by and UK publishers to review ARCs. Why would they? The market's completely different. Why am I going to help promote a book that the majority of my readers can't even get? Duh?

It's this nonsensical masturbatory logic that gets to me. Don't accuse us of basically being showboating idiots when you haven't even thought your argument through. Don't be so quick to judge us and pat yourself on the back as if it makes you look good. You look like a sack of shit. While I may be the boorish American that's slinging insults and swears around, I'm not as dumb as you may think I am, and neither is anyone else. My IQ's 12-fucking-6, bitch. So don't think you can insult me, or my counterparts, and get away with it. We don't judge each other over here based on country of origin. No one's any better than anyone else and we all support each other. We don't shit on each other because we think someone's somehow lesser.

I'll say it one more time: FUCK YOU.

ETA - Thanks to an anonymous comment (that has been removed due to other information posted), the link for the offending superiority blogger is here. And just an FYI, if you happen to know which blogger caused this plagiarism debacle, please don't post the name or any identifying markers. Your comment will be deleted if you do. It's just not necessary to point fingers.

Stand Up For What's Right - On Your Own Terms

The underlying issue with this post is the cover for Magic Under Glass not accurately representing the character between the covers. Obviously not the first time this has happened. Whitewashing sucks, plain and simple. If publishers would just accurately represent what the writer wrote on the cover, we wouldn't have this issue. They assume the reading public wants model-looking white people and only that, otherwise they won't buy the book. Readers should feel pandered to and they should feel patronized by it. It's insulting to think that publishers think so little of their reading public.

But the issue I want to discuss is how bloggers treat each other in such a case. Some are rather peeved that this book didn't get the attention that Liar had a few months ago so they're "calling out" bloggers and are "disappointed" and "upset" with them for not giving this the attention" it deserves."

To them, I've failed as a blogger because I haven't brought attention to this most recent issue. I'm a disappointment. Never mind I've never even touched the book let alone picked it up and read it. I've still failed.

Bite me.

There's a reason why I don't support PETA. Their intentions are good but their methods absolutely suck. Negativity should never, ever touch a cause. What makes you think I'm going to help you after you poke me in the eye? Or cover me in red paint? Or tell me I've failed?

Seriously, people. We're readers. A lot of us are writers. We understand the power that words can have. So why do people think that slapping down other bloggers will help their cause? Why do they think that inviting people to "call out" bloggers that don't bring attention to such things based solely on their own interpretations of how it should come about will help them? I may be a masochist (maybe that was a little TMI, oh well) in some areas of my life but don't berate me than then turn around and expect me to help you.

These people are leaning heavily on big bloggers like Kristi at The Story Siren to get her to stand up and scream with them, all while telling her she's not obligated to do so. So is she obligated or not, because you're contradicting yourself. I don't know one blogger that runs their blog based on bowing to pressure from other bloggers. We're a community. We support each other; we don't bully each other. Yes, those big bloggers have bigger voices than a lot of us but piss them off and just as many people will see their frustration at the situation as you want to see the stance for the cause.

I don't run my blog based on other people's expectations of me. I don't bow to community pressure, basically because there's next to none. If someone else thinks I've failed because I haven't lived up to their expectations of how I should react, fine. Whatever. Not my fault as I didn't set their expectations of me. They did that all on their own. Just don't expect me to help. Negative reinforcement doesn't bode well with me. One of the reasons why I'm not in the military.

Like PETA, I have no doubt in my mind the intentions of these people are nothing but good. It really is a cause to stand up for. But their methods blow. Hard. This is why negativity should never touch a cause. It detracts from the real issue at hand. Whitewashing sucks. Bloggers chastising other bloggers for not doing what the other feels they should sucks even more. I'll stand up how I want to stand up on my own blog. I don't need someone else telling me how I should do it and then telling me I've failed because I haven't. Yeah, that's a real motivating factor to get me to do what you want me to do.

Shut the Fuck Up Already

Read this article. Now. Did you read it? Well what the hell are you waiting for? The rest of my post won't make a damn bit of sense if you don't read it. It'll take five minutes. Just do it. You done? Ok.

How's your forehead? Is it dented yet? Need an ice pack? How about some Advil? Tylenol Migraine maybe? Or perhaps some Topamax to stop the twitching.

In the words of Denis Leary, open ass, insert head.

You know, there will be very few times I actually defend whatever integrity that might exist around Twilight, and this is one of them. YA ISN'T FUCKING LESSER, DAMMIT! No, Meyer isn't Jack Kerouac but who is other than Jack himself? Why must things be as they were in the past to be just as good? While Twilight has a tendency to make my eyes bleed, it also makes me re-evaluate the position of women in society, gender roles, religious roles, the concept of life and death. Yes, all that is in TWILIGHT. Odd though, I know, but it is there. Why must the youth of America read to someone else's standards in order to reach a goal set by someone else?

I may not Twit, Twat or Tweet but is Twitter not a beneficial program to have connected to these new timey devices called cell phones to alert students to lock downs and mad gunmen on campuses? Virginia Tech, anyone? There's a reason why most of the age bracket gets their news from The Daily Show with John Stewart, ok?

For fuck's sake we're getting the same information and having the same conversations as the hippies 35 years ago just in a different language. Instead of groovy it's awesome. Instead of man it's dude. Instead of yeah it's like. What the hell's the difference when it's all the same thing? Does Generation Dead not touch upon social diversity, stereotypes and human differences the same way those beatniks did? Is it really so bad that Daniel Waters says that message with zombies as opposed to fist-pumping tie-dye? Seriously, same difference, man.

Just to warn you right here, I've been amped up on Denis Leary for the past week. Read his book. Saw him live on Saturday. Be prepared for Fuck Force One in three, two, one . . .

I'm what these dipshits call a Millenial. I'm at the old end, 1981 being the official start. I was born in 1983. And guess what? My fucking IQ is 12-fucking-6. I have a fucking Bachelor's in fucking English with a minor in creative fucking writing that I 4.0'ed my way through. I consistently fucking tested in the 90th fucking percentile and up in state school testing all twelve fucking years and graduated with a fucking honor cord wrapped around my goddamn neck and honors tassels in my fucking eyes. I can debate and write my way out of any fucking scenario, on any intellectual fucking level and I grew up on Stephen fucking King, Christopher fucking Pike and RL fucking Stine.

So they can take their fucking poetry and brown acid and "real literature" and sit on it and fucking spin. I'm going to go over here and read my Stephenie fucking Meyer and my JK fucking Rowling and my Daniel fucking Waters and my Caroline B. fucking Cooney and enjoy myself. And then have conversations with my fucking peers who also fucking enjoyed themselves and talk about the same goddamn things that kids our age were talking about forty fucking years ago, just using different fucking filler words and then get our social fucking commentary from South Park and The fucking Daily Show.

So piss it.

This expletive enema brought to you by Joe Pesche, the MAFIA and a pepperoni pizza. Remember people, don't piss off the little Italian girl, mkay? Not good.