BookTok: Authors in Reviewer Spaces
Because of the pandemic, it seems many people are now victim to the epidemic of being chronically online. This means that any previous social skills or morals are reduced, and their ego, confidence and concept of boundaries have diminished due to the amount of time they’ve spent in comment sections. Comment sections rarely have consequences. You can freely watch your enemies’ Twitter page without them knowing and write posts directed at them and play innocent when you’re accused. You’ll see these kinds of people with a fully traceable digital footprint because they cannot comprehend that they’d have consequences to their actions.
See here for more about the term “chronically online” : https://later.com/social-media-glossary/chronically-online/#:~:text=The%20term%20'chronically%20online'%20refers,internet%20memes%2C%20culture%20and%20slang.
Many decided to start publish books during Covid, which is wonderful. I mean, what else was there to do except sit at a computer and make something? I personally am all for that and should’ve done this myself. However, in relation to my opening point I’d like to draw attention to the fact a lot of new authors have advertised and pushed their stories themselves on social media and constantly track their audience responses. Years ago, an author might’ve hired a copywriter or a publicist or a personal assistant to handle the social media part of their career. Now, a lot of authors have taken on the challenge themselves. This means they are interacting directly with reviewer spaces. Replying to comments, stories; responding to negativity in general. They ignore boundaries, cross lines, and they even go so far to make fake accounts to monitor all content in relation to their books. Their behaviour borders harassment, and they use methods of intimidation to suppress anything bad that’s being said about what they produce.
Pre-Covid, it was normal to write an in-depth review about whatever book you were reading, or talk about it in a video essay. You’d get people who would agree and disagree with you, and though at times it could get rather heated at the end of the day it was reviewers interacting with one another. Authors seemed to understood that their works weren’t one-size-fits-all.
BookTok is a place full of drama ,just like any other community. Fans bicker and babble about which stories are worth buying and which aren’t, people get offended in comment sections, etc. Recently, there has been a bit of a situation. There has been multiple authors who’ve had bones to pick with the people who disliked their work, and aren’t discreet with the way they handle criticism online. There’s a certain higher-than-thou attitude they present, and even though they may have hundreds or thousands of fans hyping their work, one negative reviewer is enough to get their egos in a twist. I’ll get more into that in a moment.
I talk about TikTok a lot on here because it’s a revolutionary media platform that acts as Google, Reddit and YouTube all at the same time. You can directly talk to the people interacting with your content, when before you were simply talking at them in a Tweet or Insta post. This means that authors with TikTok accounts can directly interact with those who talk about them. Sometimes, someone has something not so nice to say about the work you spent a long time creating , and that would make anyone feel a bit rubbish, however the phrase “don’t feed the trolls” applies to anything that makes you upset: do not interact. Reviewers spaces are for them to express how they feel about writing they read. It’s not always for the author to see. If they wanted the author to know what they thought directly, they’d write a letter or a DM. I’m not sure if legally I can mentioned names without being sued, since I’m genuinely afraid at the dedication some of these authors have to try and ruin the lives of their reviewers, so I’ll be brief.
About six months ago, a female author went viral for all the wrong reasons. Someone left a slightly (yes, slightly) negative review on her new book and she wasn’t having that at all. Very publicly the author began harassing, insulting and trying everything she could do to ridicule the reviewer. She then went on a social media tirade insulting anyone who gives her work 2 star reviews but also saying at the same time she didn’t care, so what did the internet do? Bombarded her with 1 star reviews. This same author did a fundraiser based on fabrication years prior, and combined with this recent situation, this basically ended her career. She still has a small group of fans, but before she acted this way her new book was one of the highly-anticipated releases of the year. She built herself up and tore herself down, all because she couldn’t accept one bad review.
Another author literally dedicated a book to a negative reviewer and compared her to a Nazi. What did this reviewer do? Simply state that men in the extreme horror community should stop writing women in the first person because it’s unethical and it gives the impression the male writer wishes harm upon women and enjoy putting their female characters through torture, a sort of self-gratifying kink, if you will. This author didn’t take well to this point of view at all (struck a nerve, apparently), and like the previous writer doubled down and even sent his fans to harass this reviewer. Many women in the community realised a pattern of behaviour from this author, and found old posts of his which confirmed that he had a history of using real women he didn’t like and putting them in awful situations in his stories, and are warning other women just to stay away from this author. He had a poor reaction to women telling him he makes them feel unsafe, and that’s all the internet needs to know.
The third author is still has her platform and many fans. She has a specific niche that her audience finds interesting (including myself), and gives off a lighthearted, motherly vibe in her videos. However, her actions surrounding her books have said otherwise. She herself said she’d rushed one of her books, which some claimed was obvious, and when creators would make videos saying anything bad about her writing she’d have fans mass-report content, getting videos and accounts taken down. This wouldn’t be so bad if some of those creators who got banned used TikTok as their livelihood. She quite literally destroyed peoples’ sources of income. She later apologised for her behaviour, specifically about one incident which blew up on BookTok, and admitted a particularly low review triggered a lot of bad feelings because the book in question was very personal to her. This was something that could be sympathised with, and a lot of her audience was willing to forgive and forget, even the original reviewer. Not for long, though, as this pattern of behaviour continued and there has even been evidence suggests she has one or more burner accounts and is still actively trying to silence people who dislike her books.
It’s understandable to be protective over your content. It’s understandable you’re proud of what you make, and that you think it’s as perfect as can be. But as I mentioned, books are not one-size-fits-all. Some people won’t like your writing style, but like the story. Others won’t like the composition but enjoy the potential. You cannot please everyone and this is something some authors need to realise. Just because everything is accessible on the internet does not mean that you need to lose self-control. You don’t need to get yourself angry and send your fans to harass or even dox these people. Your job is to write your stories your way, and let the review community share their thoughts. I recently got my first negative comment on an article on here and I’ll tell you, I got so excited to see that my work made someone heated enough to call me names. My natural reaction was not to harass this person, or stalk their social media (which was under their full legal name), it was just to delete the comment and move on from my day. Am I upset someone didn’t like my writing? Of course, but for maybe five minutes and that’s it.
Newer authors need to set a better example on the internet. While it is tempting to interact with fans and content people make to do with your writing, it is important to remember that reviewer space is a completely different realm that is not for you. And also, nothing is secret or hidden on the internet.
