I'm so annoyed! Kathleen Hale reminds me bloggers aren't safe!

The negative things I say here do not apply to all authors because 99% of the authors I've been in contact with are absolutely amazing.

As a book blogger, you come to realize that your book reviews are taken extremely personally by most authors. You also come to realize that there are a lot of authors that obsess over their first few bad blogger reviews. So, when I first "started" reading 'Am I being catfished?' An author confronts her number one online critic, I felt really bad for Kathleen Hale because I know that a lot of authors experience a lot of the same things she was feeling. When she talked about being tempted to make comments to this blogger that she talks about, in my mind I was coaching Kathleen and telling her "No!!! Don't do it!" Or when she went searching for bad reviews on Goodreads or searched her name on Twitter, I kept thinking "Oh no this can't be good!"

Bloggers know that authors do online searches to see what people are saying about them. Knowing this puts pressure on some bloggers because, if you've been blogging a while, you start to feel that you don't want any author to be obsessing about your reviews; especially, because there are some authors that lash out at bloggers, and there are even some authors that tell bloggers to remove their reviews!! (What? We can't have an opinion?!) A lot of bloggers learn to not care what authors think about their reviews/opinions if they’re negative. Other bloggers create pseudonyms so they can freely speak their opinions. I, myself, have had authors who were offended just because I didn't accept their review request, and I know this because the author would then make negative comments on one of my other reviews. This all seems very odd to me because bloggers aren't doing this for money, but at the same time I'm aware that their work is something they cherish. I'm not trying to tell you that you look fat in the outfit you are wearing, I'm just expressing my opinion about a book I wasted precious time reading (that's if I'm talking negatively, which doesn't happen very often). We are just reading books and speaking our mind about it. That's it!

I have a friend that was physically attacked (at her child's school!) because she tweeted her opinion about a book. The author didn’t like her opinion and proceeded to stalk her through Foursquare, finally tracking her down at her child’s school. Yep, stories like this make bloggers feel the need to create pseudonyms to protect themselves.

I've come to the point where, if I'm not liking a book, I simply stop reading it and set it aside so I don't feel the need to write a bad review. I also set aside books I don’t like because I'm already extremely busy with other things in my life, and I don't want to waste my valuable time on a sucky book. But I know of a lot of bloggers (and others) that feel the need to finish every book they've started. And, when you've put so many hours into a book that you didn't like, it's easy to have a lot of negative things to say, especially for that sucky book that took away all those precious hours of your life. I could gripe all day long about how much I hated the movie Drive, but that was only 1 hour and 40 minutes out of my life…unlike a lot of sucky books that take ten or more hours to read!

Now, when I feel the need to say something negative about a book or author, I just text my local blogging friends to vent about it because I don't want the author doing a search on Twitter to find it.

But Kathleen Hale took this searching/stalking thing to a whole other level by getting this blogger’s address, stalking her house on Google Maps, paying money for an internet background check, calling her at work and, finally, renting a car to show up at her front door step unannounced. I'm absolutely appalled! The only thing that had me questioning the blogger was her use of a supposed friend's picture. But since I don't know this blogger in question, I don't know if that information is true to begin with. I sure am not going to take the word of the person proudly stalking a blogger.

Now, Kathleen, if this was someone trying to have a relationship with you (online dating) then I can understand the horror of this hidden identity. But no! She's just a blogger who wants an online presence while keeping her identity a secret! Who cares if she's talking crap about your book!

On multiple occasions I’ve thought about how I wish I would have thought about keeping my identity secret from my blogging presence. Unfortunately, I realized this way too late, and now I'm kicking myself even harder for being so naive.

I just want to finish by saying, "Thank you Kathleen for reminding me that I'm not safe speaking my honest opinion in the book blogging world!"

How I let drama get the best of me: Lynn Shepherd vs. JK Rowling

***Note I wrote this yesterday and only decided to publish it today.***

As I started to write this, I wondered if I’d ever even post it or if it’d just sit in draft-form, or if it’d get deleted altogether just because I REALLY hate drama. But this is something that I seriously need to vent about. Whether it’s publicly or to myself, but I’ve got to get this all out in writing.

This rant is about Lynn Shepherd’s article on Huffington Post UK, titled “If JK Rowling Cares About Writing, She Should Stop Doing It.” I’m not going to leave a link because it’s easy enough to find.

First off, I absolutely cannot stand drama. Especially when that drama is initiated in a negative way because it brings out the worst in people. Me included. It’s the very reason I’ve stayed away from watching social media feeds, but this one was too hard to avoid as it’s something I’m very passionate about.

Second, I want to talk about how I reacted. When I first read the post Sunday night it really bothered me, so much so that I sent a text to a friend about it, and I’m pretty sure I also woke my mom up to talk about it. And then the next morning it started to absolutely consume me. I became extremely angry and I didn’t know where to release this anger. Of course, since this anger was consuming me, the worst thing for me to do was follow it on twitter. BAD MINDY!

I’ve been thinking and talking a lot lately about how words can be uplifting and inspiring, but also how words can also be poison to a person. And the person speaking the poison might not even know that their words are poison to someone else. Well Lynn’s words were poison to me and I’ll explain why later, but I want to first talk about what I did wrong after reading Lynn’s post.

I first tried multiple times (without success) to post a comment on her post. But because the post was getting so much attention (I think!), it didn’t work for me. So the next morning I went searching for her, and, lo and behold, she has published books and they are in the same genre that JK Rowling is now marketing in. This all started to make sense now! Jealousy got the best of Lynn Shepherd. And anger then got the best of me as I then decided to give Lynn my 2 cents-worth on twitter by saying, ”I'm sorry @Lynn_Shepherd that envy of JK Rowlings success consumes your life, but u destroyed ur own by bashing people that read her books” and, “@Lynn_Shepherd didn't you ever stop to think that maybe JK Rowling only introduced her fans to your genre?” Lynn spoke her opinion in her post, so I didn’t (and still don’t) think those tweets were inappropriate. I let her know my thoughts, but I guess that wasn’t enough to cure the poison in me and make me feel better. So, while the poison was still boiling my blood, I was thinking that if it’s okay for Lynn to talk crap about books she knows nothing about, it would also be okay for me to review her books on Amazon and Goodreads (without reading them) and give them all one star in my reviews. And, in my mind, I thought it was deserved. I was thinking, “She attacks, I’ll attack back.” But a few hours later I realized that rating her books one star on Amazon was absolutely wrong because I’ve never condoned that kind of behavior before so why would I now? So, let me say again that I hate when I react so badly. I usually give myself enough time to realize that those evil thoughts are wrong and that I shouldn’t act on them. I haven’t, and don’t ever intend to, read her books, so I don’t think it’s right of me to rate something I’ve never read, even if I’m still upset with her actions. So I immediately went in and deleted my reviews on Amazon. I still wanted to leave my 2 cents-worth on Goodreads, but at the time, I didn’t realize that I could just clear out my rating and still leave my comments about her books without deleting and starting over. But this morning, I was still thinking about my actions, and decided that if I couldn’t remove my one star ratings of Lynn’s books on Goodreads, then I’m just going to delete them off my Goodreads feed altogether. Luckily I discovered that there is a way to just clear out an already starred rating without having to delete it, so that’s what I did.

After all that drama, for most of the day I’ve been able to pretty much let it go and haven’t allowed the words from her post to consume my entire day like they did yesterday. That is . . . until I then saw some tweets from people who were upset, saying that Lynn was being bullied by all the people who were responding to her article! I did see a blog post about someone not agreeing with the one star rating on Amazon, and that’s fine, that’s their opinion and it’s valid. At that point I had already decided that my prior actions were immature (and I figured that out on my own), but I don’t think that anything I’ve seen written or posted about Lynn would be considered bullying. I mean, if you (Lynn) behave badly in public and insult other people (JK Rowling’s fans) then you better expect to be criticized right back, even if the backlash is immature. That is partially why I’m not beating myself up over my own behavior. I corrected my own bad behavior…and I’m sorry that I had one star reviews about Lynn’s books out on Amazon for about 3 hours (and on Goodreads for probably about 18 hours.) I feel bad about what I did, and I certainly won’t do it again. And I didn’t even need someone to tell me that it was wrong. I decided that on my own. However, I do think that Lynn Shepherd’s post was in a sense like one of those bullies who goes around pushing people, but never expects to be pushed back. But those kinds of bullies SHOULD expect to get punched back; especially, if they happen to push around someone who has done a lot of good for a lot of people. And they for sure better expect a lot of backlash from a lot of those people.

There were a lot of ways that Lynn could have written that post without being so insulting, petty and jealous and still get her point across. She could actually even have acknowledged her own envy brought about by a successful author changing writing genres and still being successful, and she wouldn’t have gotten this much backlash. But, then, she also wouldn’t have gotten this amount of attention. But the problem was that Lynn was rude. And she wasn’t just saying rude words to an author that she thinks will probably never see the article, she also insulted JK Rowling’s adult fans. I was disgusted! She said something that offended me personally. And then she was extremely rude to THE ONLY author that I would probably act like an extremely crazy fangirl over. Now, if Lynn had crazy people truly bullying her by stalking her over her Huffington Post article, then I’d be concerned. But that’s not happening. Instead, Lynn put herself in a very public forum, insulted a huge number of people, and got a negative reaction. So she better expect some reasonable internet backlash. It’s kind of (but I know not quite) like insulting a race of people . . . if you do that, you better expect a BIG backlash from that race. It’s understandable.

Now I want to discuss why I was so easily offended by Lynn’s article. It was primarily this paragraph:

“I didn't much mind Rowling when she was Pottering about. I've never read a word (or seen a minute) so I can't comment on whether the books were good, bad or indifferent. I did think it a shame that adults were reading them (rather than just reading them to their children, which is another thing altogether), mainly because there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds. But, then again, any reading is better than no reading, right? But The Casual Vacancy changed all that.”

Who are you, Lynn, to say that Harry Potter is not stimulating, especially when you haven’t read them? I myself had not been a big reader before I read Harry Potter because, as a child, I hugely struggled with reading and comprehension. And guess what? When I read Harry Potter in my early 20s I became a lover of reading. “Yes Lynn, I was one of those grown-ups reading Harry Potter, and I’m not going to go into why adults love Harry Potter because there are enough adults that actually have read them to understand why.” And then after I discovered my love of reading through Harry Potter, I experimented by trying other books. I actually became quite fond of V.C. Andrews at that time, but there was no huge attachment like I had with the Harry Potter world. Harry Potter changed my life completely! I was one of those people that was showing up for the midnight release of the newest HP book, and I’d read the new release within 1-2 days after getting it. But it still took me almost 10 years after that before I found the right kind of books that would hold my interest. But I now read 50-100 books a year! And guess what Lynn? I primarily support new authors, much more so than already successful authors! But still, to this day, I have not had any book blow me away nearly as much as the Harry Potter world did. And not just me! I remember when I was first reading HP that a woman told me that her two AUTISTIC boys would only ever show interest in Harry Potter books. That is purely amazing! Why would you EVER ask someone with that kind of writing skill to stop writing?

OK! This post has become WAY too long, but I think I’ve gotten my point across. I’ll just end by saying that I feel really bad for Lynn’s publisher, publicist and anyone else she has taken down, affected and/or hurt over that ridiculous article. I sure hope Lynn sees why her article was hurtful.

YA Series/ Adult Sexy Spin-Off

Before you read my craziness rambling, I want to ask...“Can you think of a YA series that you wouldn’t mind having a spin-off Erotica?”

WARNING!!! This started out as just throwing something out there, but as I sat here and typed, it turned into a very heated rambling of crazy talk. *eek*

I’m not sure if you heard the news…but Andrea Cremer just contracted with Penguin to do an Erotica trilogy (not currently named), in the world she created where both of her YA series take place (Nightshade and her prequel, Rift.)

When my best blogger friend made me aware of this news, I was ecstatic! Because I thought I might like something like this that Andrea writes; especially, in the awesome Nightshade world she created! So, obviously, I’m absolutely thrilled for Andrea Cremer! But I guess there are a lot of pretty upset people over her decision. So I’m now left here thinking… “What’s the problem?”

I want to be VERY clear so that everyone reading this is fully aware of one very important thing here…I am NOT a fan of Erotica books! They freak me out…NO LIE! Normally, I stay at least 10 feet away from any book that someone would consider “hot or sexy” (my hot or sexy is always YA.) Yes, I’ve read them, and a couple times I’ve gotten to a particular scene where I just couldn’t bring myself to go any further, and I immediately returned the book to its owner! I’ve read some racy adult books with some brief, minor, sex scenes, but I’ve also read a handful (no I won’t give numbers) of a few really hot and heavy Erotica books. But, yep, after I read the last one which was probably about 2 years ago, I haven’t picked one up since. So while I’m sitting here thinking that I really want to give Andrea’s new books a try, am I going to force myself to read the whole trilogy? Or even the whole first book? No! If it makes me too uncomfortable I’ll stop and probably recommend it to one of my friends who like them. But, yes, I like Andrea’s writing style and the world she’s created so, naturally, I’m curious to see how hot and heavy these books will get.  I want to meet new characters in the Nightshade world!  But most of all, I’m also curious to see if I’ll like them.

So I’m now sitting here debating in my mind both the positives and negatives of this issue. I think that the most legitimate concern for most readers is the need to keep YA and Adult in clearly separate categories. Are there going to be teens who are really obsessed with the Nightshade who will pick up the adult series? Probably! If I plan to, why wouldn’t a teen? So, would it ease peoples’ minds if they knew that Penguin will be marketing, and making it fully clear, that the new book series is Erotica? Or clearly marketed for the adult audience? One of my very favorite YA authors, Richelle Mead, writes some pretty racy adult books! And after I read her YA series (Vampire Academy), I gave one of Richelle Mead’s adult series a try. And guess what? I own them all and they’re signed! Have I read all of her adult books? No! Because, once again, they make me feel uncomfortable. But if you know much about Richelle Mead, she has got a lot of really obsessive teen fans, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them are picking up her adult books and giving them a try.

So let’s look at it this way. I personally think that it would be unfair to say that since Richelle Mead wrote such a popular YA series that she shouldn’t write an Adult series using the same pen name, or even publish a book series about the same fantasy world she created for her YA series! That’s her name to use as she sees fit, and her world to use in the manner she prefers. And of course she would need to find a publisher that will agree to it as well. That is what Andrea Cremer did, and I think it’s awesome!

The one thing that I find the most bizarre about this whole thing is that most of the complaining and negativity I’ve come across are comparing Andrea’s new series to 50 Shades of Gray! Like this is the only reason Andrea Cremer decided to write her adult Erotica trilogy. Hello! Can everyone stop talking about those dang books? PLEASE?!?!?! Are they REALLY that awesome that we are now going to see the comparison of 50 Shades of Gray in every Erotica book review out there? Oh…please! Erotica is not new! And I highly doubt that Andrea decided to write her new Erotica trilogy "just because" of the success of 50 Shades of Gray! A lot of women just never talked about these books until now, or they never tried reading them until everyone started talking about it! Almost every female “adult reader” I know has read a racy adult book BEFORE 50 Shades of Gray, and most of them really like, if not love, them! Have you ever seen the crazy obsessive fans of the Black Dagger Brotherhood? Richelle Mead has A LOT of majorly obsessed teen fans, and I don’t see people saying that she only wrote her adult racy books because of 50 Shades of Gray. Or that she only wrote them for the money! Oh right, that’s because they were published BEFORE the 50 Shades of Gray hype! So is it fair to say that since homemakers across the country (or the PTA president) are now proud to say they’ve read 50 Shades of Gray, that all YA authors have to be bashed because they want to explore writing something more adult?  If 50 Shades of Gray wasn’t all over the news, or wasn’t the only topic brought up when talking about books with someone who normally doesn’t read, do you think that people would still make a big deal about Andrea’s new trilogy? How do you know that this wasn’t something Andrea thought about 2 years ago? Why are people so quick to judge someone by assuming that being an author is about the money? If you know anything about the typical book author, you’d know that their salary isn’t all that great based off of the hours they put into writing and promoting their book.

OH! I do want to point out that this spin-off trilogy that Andrea Cremer is writing could not possibly be about the main characters in the Nightshade series. If you’ve read any of Andrea’s Nightshade books then you would understand WHY I say that. The series is not anything like: 1. The heroine picks up the guy; 2. The End; and 3. A year later we have an Erotica. NO!!! If that’s what you think this trilogy is about, then you are wrong. It can’t happen; it’s not at all possible! If you want to know why, read the Nightshade trilogy and you will know that it just can’t/ won’t happen. Can I say that another author won’t do that? No. But if they want to, and the publisher is up for it...so be it!

I would hope that the people who are the most upset are upset only because the new Erotica series takes place in the Nightshade world. Once again, I get it! So, I started thinking about other book series I’ve read that I wouldn’t mind having “that world” in a sexy adult spin-off! And here they are:

1. Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter world! You know that she could produce a super hottie shadowhunter...who has troubles controlling the ladies.
2. Vampire Academy spin-off with a hot dampire or moroi! I know! A dhampir from Scotland and a dhampir from Spain!
3. OH! You know that Tahereh Mafi would be the queen of a super steamy book!
4. Now, I’m not going to lie! I wouldn’t mind if Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins was racy! But I’ll be OK with her making another Nephilim! But he better be as sexy as Kai! Yum!!! *fans self* If you’ve read Sweet Evil, then you for sure would like it if she could make it HAWT!
5. Hello!!! Why the heck is Jennifer L. Armentrout writing YA??? She was born to write one of those steamy books! Hey Jennifer, can you make sure it is in the Covenant world? Pure meets human!?!?!?
6. And, finally, Lauren Oliver’s Dilirium! Now I’m not quite sure how she could pull it off since the “procedure” could mess up an adult. But maybe it could be a female woman that the procedure didn’t work on???

Those are my picks!!! So, that leaves me asking YOU, “What series would you like to see for a spin-off Erotica?”  Or do you find this whole thing barbaric?

My Moral Dilemma

I started book blogging in March of this year and so far it has been an amazing experience. For the most part it has been a lot fun. Before I started my blog, I became obsessed with reading and writing reviews on goodreads. After doing this for a long period of time, I then decided that I would start up my own blog. I can honestly say that this has been by far my favorite hobby. I have grown to love many fun and fabulous Indie authors and I have met some amazing bloggers that I would consider my friends. Through these bloggers and authors, I have also stumbled across a mountain of amazing books to read and I can’t read them fast enough. I no longer read books that I think are just OK. If I’m not “feeling” the book, then I just don’t finish it. There are just way too many fabulous books to spend those precious hours reading.

But then I have had some horrible and heartbreaking experiences. A short time ago, I was contacted by another blogger who told me that one of my reviews had been plagiarized. I confirmed the plagiarism, but my first thoughts were that it was some stupid teen who wanted to copy my review because they were too lazy to read or review the book and they wanted to use other bloggers’ reviews to gain a history in their own blog to get free books. But after doing some major research, I found that this person was actually a Kindergarten teacher. This upset me even more when I found this out. I felt violated. My oldest son is now in first grade and my youngest will start kindergarten next year. So the thought that a teacher who is stealing other’s hard work (claiming it as her own) is also out there influencing young minds really bugs me. Apparently, she is still able to sleep at night knowing that she stole other’s hard work. To me, she obviously doesn’t have the proper morals to be a teacher.

And now I have a new dilemma! As you can tell, morals are important to me. So, there is this book that I received to review for an Indie author that was absolutely fabulous! It was my first favorite Indie book as a book blogger, and I have been anxiously waiting to read her next book. I loved her book so much I have been pimping it out to many others. So, obviously, I was VERY passionate about her book. I even referred to the main character in her book as my new BFF. Everyone else I knew who read her book loved it as well.

Well, about 2 months ago I was having a really hard time getting a hold of her. I knew that the next book in her series should be released shortly and I also wanted to include her in my big birthday giveaway. When I first told her about the giveaway she was super excited. She had all these amazing ideas of what she wanted to include in the giveaway but after that she just disappeared off of the face of the earth. She wasn’t returning any of my emails or tweets. I then noticed that she wasn’t tweeting at all and she hadn’t posted anything on her blog. At that point I removed her from my giveaway. I later received a Direct Message on twitter from her telling me that she had just delivered twins and that her babies were still in ICU. I then reassured her not to worry, that I had already removed her from my giveaway and told her to take care of herself and her twins.

But I have never heard from her since. For the last month I started to get really worried about her. I was trying really hard to get ahold of her to see how she and her babies were doing and I got no reply. I then thought that maybe she purposely separated herself from the outside world and was taking care of her family. So I then decided to get in contact with a blogger I knew who worked with her quite often. My blogger friend provided an article about this author and I was completely shocked! I am still having a hard time believing it is true. But after doing some extensive research and with the help a blogger friend, I found out that the articles are truly about this author, and the story is horrifying to me.

This author is currently in prison and has been charged with felony theft for a craigslist rental scam that’s hit at least 22 victims, the majority of which were military families. She would take a deposit and the first month’s rent that ranged anywhere from $400 to $2200 per victim. The renter would then show up to the property with all his or her belongings to discover that the property was already occupied.

So here is my moral dilemma. Do I remove my reviews from my blog and from anywhere else they are posted? Morally, I know and have always known the right answer. But the devil inside me took over for a while and, after re-reading my review and pondering how much I like the book, I avoided my moral obligation. I kept telling myself, “I still feel the same about the book, no matter who the author is or what she’s done!” And it was especially easy to tell myself it was no big deal because with any author or book I read, I might love the author but dislike the book or I, obviously, might love the book but dislike the author. But I know with this author it’s more than just simple dislike because she has really hurt people, and I shouldn’t help her become successful any longer. So today, I will be going through all the websites that I can think of where I may have posted my review, and I will remove them all.

My last dilemma as a blogger is letting Indie authors down when I am not “feeling” their book. I hate to give Indie authors bad reviews because I know that they put so much time and effort into their work and a lot of their success can stem from positive exposure. So I think I have now decided that if I accept a review from an Indie author and discover, while reading the book, that I probably will not give the book a good review or rating, I will stop reading the book so I do not feel obligated to review it.

***UPDATE*** I ended up deleting my review of the author's book that stole that money from those military families.  I honestly can't support someone that would do something so horrible to someone.