Re: Excerpt from Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness

In message <1193221409.983271.322480@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Nicky <nicky.matthews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On Oct 24, 4:44 am, Joy Beeson <jbee...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:51:50 -0700, David Friedman

<d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I don't think it's "obviously not." He could be a great person, trying
> to do his best, and failing--great people can still be clueless.

Nonetheless, if I were the victim of such "help", I'd be frisking my
sieve-like memory to see whether I might, somehow, have mortally
offended the "great person".


I think you overestimate the netsavviness (?) of your average person.
I first starting looking at this group because someone on usenet
posted something nice about one of my books. As I was still under the
naive impression that I could influence sales I began reading this
group with that in mind, but then I found that Mary Gentle was here at
that time and I had finished reading Ash only a month or so before so
I quickly forgot about all that. I am a bad human being and I never
knew there was an FAQ, I was ignorant of the concept of netiquette and
I had no idea what this group was and am not the kind of person to
lurk...Horrible I know, but I can't be the only example of this kind
of debased humanity can I?

The book promoted here is a legitimate reasonably successful book
which probably would be of potential interest to readers here, some of
whom are opinion formers. I can see why the publicist thought posting
would be a good idea - and why he might have been somewhat surprised
by the backlash. The publicist didn't do quite enough homework but
there is no reason to suppose his motives were dishonourable.

I'm with Nicky on this.

Anyhow, I believe other folks have set a precedent of coming into this group with hob-nailed boots, trampling all over people's sensibilities and then redeeming themselves and becoming good contributors.

Kaza, if you're still out there listening, thanks for at least responding to the spam accusations. I know it would be awfully easy to get defensive and say things that you'll never be able to go back on, but there are a lot of published authors on this group and you might just find that hanging around with a group of your peers will be A Good Thing.

Zoborah is right... when we know you we'll be overjoyed about the Amazon/4000 thing. Some of us might even become fans of your writing... we do read as well as write. But the main purpose of this group is to discuss the nuts and bolts of writing SF and matters that concern SF writers.

Yeah, we go off topic sometimes; yeah we can get arsy if someone jumps in with both feet without sussing out the basic ethos of the group, but mostly we're a very humane group and we let people's posts and actions speak for themselves. You may find disagreement, but you won't find flamewars here.

Pull up a virtual armchair. Have a virtual bite of chocolate and a slurp of the beverage of your choice with us and tell us why you decided to put your book in the hands of a publicist. This is relevant to what others are currently doing, so your reasoning process and the success or otherwise of your strategy would be very interesting.

Jacey

--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

.

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