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How Building Relationships Almost Ended My Writing Career

and Caused Me to be Bullied Relentlessly

By Jade M.Published 3 years ago 7 min read
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Photo Credit: Yan Krukov via Pexels

As an aspiring author, I was told that building relationships was one of the most important things I could do to ensure my success. I was told to start making friends with authors and readers well before I was ready to release my book, so that’s what I did. I participated in follow circles, I did writer lifts, I even added famous authors hoping that they would take notice of me. Unfortunately, one of the famous authors I followed did take notice of me and it almost ended my writing career before it started.

Relationships with other authors have always seemed somewhat superficial to me. There seemed to be unspoken rules you had to follow. If they wrote a book, you couldn’t rate it less than five stars, you couldn’t publicly disagree with them (unless they did something immoral, or you wanted to cut ties with them). I was guilty of doing the latter, but I never planned for the events that followed to happen.

One of the authors I added as a friend on Facebook was “famous.” She wasn’t popular, like Stephanie Myers or J.K. Rowling, but she was well known and had a loyal fanbase. Her books were never adapted into movies, but they were traditionally published. I had seen whispers online that she copied another well-known author (one that I like). I hadn’t read this author’s work until I added her, but her writing wasn’t my cup of tea. Despite this, I followed the golden rule of not rating her book, although she probably didn’t know of my existence.

I didn’t interact with her much, aside from the odd like here and there. That changed one day when I logged into Facebook and was horrified by what I saw. She’d posted an ad for a friend’s book, stating that it was the perfect read for a hurricane. I was dumbfounded at first. I couldn’t understand how anyone could think it was a good idea to use a hurricane to promote their writing, especially after the events of Hurricane Katrina. Those feelings soon gave way to anger and annoyance at the author’s ignorance.

I had a blog about my writing journey at the time. I’m pretty sure that my blog still exists, but I don’t update it anymore. I wrote a quick blog entry about why you shouldn’t use a hurricane as a promotional tool, and I educated non-Louisiana residents on the dangers of hurricanes. Many people lose their lives and homes during hurricanes. I lost my home and most of my possessions during Katrina, so I didn’t see anything wrong with this blog. I later posted a link to it under this author’s ad, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

The author thought I was attacking her, and I admit my tone may have skewed more towards anger. I never thought I was attacking her, only educating, but she made a Facebook post about me. I didn’t know much about power dynamics at the time, but the one she had over me soon become obvious. Her fans began to fill my inbox and blog posts with threats that mostly pertained to my writing career. They bragged about the connections this author had in the writing industry. Some told me this author was also from Louisiana so she could talk about hurricanes any way she wanted to (she lived in a part that rarely got affected by them). I replied to some of the more civil messages I received, stating that I’d meant no harm, but that only seemed to enrage her fans more.

I had a Facebook page that I’d made to promote my writing, and they started spamming it. One woman kept posting pictures of her middle finger and telling me she’d never read my books; she also shared my page with her friends and told them not to read my work. Multiple other women told me that I was too young to write in the urban fantasy genre (apparently, they didn’t read anything written by anyone under 50). Women my mother’s age and older picked apart my appearance, intelligence, and even made cruel remarks about a breakup I’d recently gone through. Whenever I deleted their posts, they’d only grow more livid.

A friend of mine jumped in to recount an experience she’d had during a hurricane where she was terrified. She stated that the walls of her house were moving inward, which is something that sometimes happens due to the wind pressure of a hurricane. I was grateful that she was willing to defend me, but I quickly deleted her message so that the angry mob didn’t turn their rage on her.

During this time, an indie author also made a post using the hurricane to promote his book. Someone quickly left a message letting him know why that wasn’t cool, and he respected the person who posted and left a polite reply. He didn’t try to fight with her, but he just accepted her words and apologized. It was during this exchange that I realized indie authors were regarded differently. Some of the women attacking me said such. They said my work wasn’t good enough to be traditionally published, despite lots of authors opting to self-publish so that they can take control of their journey. To them, self-published authors were trash, and they’d never read their books.

The mob’s actions were already affecting me mentally when they found my amazon page. The only thing I had on that page was a novel I’d self-published before it was ready, and they attacked it. I was considering taking it down to edit it when they pounced, but their actions cemented my choice. I took the book down, but the page remained. I was disgusted because this meant a blow to my writing career. Anyone who decided to read my books in the future would see the page and the negative reviews. I did manage to get a handful of them deleted because Amazon has a rule about authors leaving negative reviews on other author’s pages with the sole purpose of hurting the competition.

The author, who had been making posts about me the entire time, finally called off her fans. She sent me a personal message saying that she had been upset because the health of her dogs was declining, but she didn’t apologize. Her tone was that of someone who thought they’d taught me a lesson and didn’t care about the personal cost to me. At the time, I apologized to her for her taking my words the wrong way, but she didn’t reply. I don’t know if her posts are still up, but the content from both her and her fans can only be described as petty and nasty. Some of her fans even claimed that they’d make sure my career never took off.

I realize now that her actions were wrong. She had a large audience, and she should have deleted my comment and let things go. She should never have encouraged this behavior, let alone take part in it. One of the many posts she made claimed that her husband said she should leave it alone, and she should have taken his advice. If she thought I was wrong she could have spoken to me privately, but she was a person in power and she could have stopped her fans from attacking me at any time. She allowed them to bully me for a day and a half, and when she finally stopped, she decided to donate books to a library that had been affected by the hurricane. It’s also worth noting that many of her fans were rushing to buy her books during this time, so she may have been exaggerating the ‘beef’ with me to further promote her books.

For a day and a half, my hands trembled every time I reached for my phone as vicious things were said about me. I have since deleted this author, but there’s still a nagging voice in the back of my head that says they’ll be back when I release my next book. Maybe that’s why I haven’t yet. Despite this, I’m not going to give up on my dream.

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About the Creator

Jade M.

Jade is an indie author from Louisiana. While her first book failed, she has plans to edit and republish it and try again. She has a senior min pin that she calls her little editor, and a passion for video games and makeup.

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