Monday, June 20, 2011

Kindle posters Can Be Mean

I have learned the hard way that even though I have felt much love on face book from many, many fellow authors, there are apparently, authors out there who are not happy to share the spotlight in any way with an up-and-comer.  I mistakenly posted on kindleboards over the weekend about SPELLBOUND, not knowing that only recently, like in the last month recently, has Amazon ended the practice of self-promotion on the kindleboards and lumped the authors into one heavily populated, dare I say, overcrowded discussion forum called Meet The Author.  Mere seconds after my post appeared in a general forum for paranormal readers, I was admonished, nicely at first, to repost in the Meet The Author forum.  I apologized in writing, and immediately reposted there. I had not done enough, it seems.

Several more posts appeared, even after it was clear I did report in the appropriate forum, accusing me of violation policy, breaking rules deliberately, intentionally not doing the right thing, and two self-righteous "whistle-blowers" even "reported" me, whatever that means.  I was even taunted to delete my original post.  Which I never even knew about, because right after I reposted in the appropriate forum, I stopped tracking the discussion.  A friend had to alert me about how I was getting skewered.

I went in today and deleted the post.  But I can't help but wonder....are the people who were so concerned about it really worried about me breaking the rules or something else.  Are their own books doing poorly in sales and they are worried about healthy competition?  Could they be other paranormal authors and I inadvertantly stepped on their toes?  Aren't there enough readers out there for all of us?  A message for them:  I could never imagine someone like Amanda Hocking begrudging me a sale or two because of an innocent posting.  They should rethink their strategy a bit.  What goes around comes around.  I just thought it sad.

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