I’ve been thinking a lot about personal interaction/”mob mentality.” And definitely the “nice/mean” factor. People are nice, until you disagree with them, or they disagree with you. Then it’s not a simple difference of opinion, it’s personal attacks all around. Very curious, although the internet makes it easy to do that.
I always wonder if people would act the same in real life. (And often I’d prefer not knowing.)

Limecello – I’m always happy to be invited to comment, I love to talk about books so I was happy to do it. But when authors do it too much I think it has an overall effect on that blog or loop because readers may feel less freedom to comment honestly.

As far as preferences – well you’re damned either way. Which is why I just try to take it all with a grain. Not everyone is going to like the things I like. Not everyone is going to like my books, which is more personal, but still, that’s life.

There will always be people who want to read into a throwaway comment and be offended. There are people who feed off the drama to make their own blog hits higher. The longer I do this, the less I participate outside a few places. I don’t have the time I did before and there’s just a level of scrutiny I don’t have the time or patience for so I remain quiet unless and until it’s something really important to me.

You should have been able to say ‘I like print books better’ and it’s no one’s business what your reasoning behind it is. You should have that right without people jumping down on you.

As an ebook author, I don’t get offended if someone says they like print books better, that’s just their preference. It doesn’t make them evil and it’s not my job to change their mind.

But I’m of the opinion that people like to be offended and I’ve learned to try my best to ignore them.

@limecello: Wow. Well, I prefer reading print to reading on my computer, it doesn’t mean I think ebooks are bad, it’s just my preferred method of “ingesting” them…! Sheesh.

And yes! I’ve been having the “authors are public figures” discussions with a few people – and yes, in context to reviews.

I also think a lot of people forget the online filter. I find myself deleting a lot/most of comments I leave.. and I’m sure there are still things I’d like to take back or out.

And Lord. I’ve recently commented on another blog post. Yes, things on the internet will haunt you. FOREVER. It’s why I have a love/hate relationship with it. I think there’s a great community for romance readers and writers. But yes. The bad outlasts the good. I once made the throwaway comment that I preferred print books to ebooks. It’s how I felt at the time, and I had also recently been in a car accident, so reading off my laptop (no e-reader available) was just not ideal. It was nearly a year ago, and anyway, some people blew up at me, and still give me shit over it. I regret ever making that statement.

It took me aback and I wanted to be an utter b*** to her and not respond and ignore her but I thought, no, she did something nice. Regardless of our past crap, in that one moment, she did something nice so I should acknowledge that. So I replied and said thank you and it felt like I did the right thing and I felt better about myself than if I had resorted back to the past drama. It would have made ME look like the bad one.

I would never ‘blame’ an author for writing a genre I’m not into. I mean, if I don’t like a genre, I’m not gonna say I don’t like the author personally. We have to keep it to the work and be respectful about our own preferences.

About the condoms, I had this decision to make with the latest short I submitted whether I was gonna mention condoms or not. Because it was a contemporary and these two characters were just getting into a relationship they had been wary getting into before so I felt it would be important to show that careful-ness extended to the condom use. Thankfully, I felt it fit with the tone of the story and didn’t jar as it can sometimes.