Battle of the books

Frank Wilson of Books, Inq. has linked to a most fantastic battle of the books. Lee Goldberg of A Writer's Life (not to be confused with Ian Hocking of This Writing Life) received an email from Steve Clackson, of Sandstorm. The email contained a link to the first couple of chapters of Steve's novel (also called Sandstorm). Lee was annoyed by the "teaser" style of Steve's email -- and when he got to Sandstorm he didn't think much of Steve's novel extract either. So he said so.

Cue a wonderful chain of blogging vehemence, of varying degrees of coherence as more and more people pile in with their lances and swords -- all a great read whatever view you take of Steve's writing and tactics, or Lee's reaction to them.

At the same time, on Sandstorm, is another set of comments which starts out as a few constructive criticisms to Steve's chapters from my friends Bonnie Calhoun and the Wicked Witch of Publishing, but soon enough the knights in armour arrive and the invective starts. There's a good bit of it in the comments on the Books, Inq. posting also.

My advice, publish it all as an article in a national newspaper and Lee/Steve split the proceeds.

Incidentally, Sandstorm must be a classy blog as it lists Petrona on its blogroll. Thanks, Steve.

Comments

[minx]

Doncha love a bitch fight! Keeps everyone on their toes and looking to their dictionaries.

[Debra Hamel]

Hey, Maxine. You need to fix that "Cue a wonderful..." link. Meanwhile, I'm blogging about your post over at the deblog right now.

[Maxine]

Thanks, Debra, I have fixed the link, and also Steve's surname, which I had spelt wrong.

[James Aach]

I had a similar experience to the Sandstorm author, though without the wide distribution. A few months ago I encountered a published writer's online Journal where he noted he would be on a panel discussing web publishing. I provided a brief comment using my site as an example. A little cheeky, perhaps, but not much. He proceeded to publish on his Journal site a brutal attack on my first chapter that had nothing to do with its contents and everything to do with his joy in making fun at an unpublished writer, with graphics of professional wrestlers for emphasis. A sizeable number of his friends jumped on the bandwagon with additional comments. Apparently I had fallen in with a very negative, very goth crowd. A few attempts on my part to defend myself lead to more abuse and a suggestion that my editor be killed. At that point I signed off. I also checked with an internet etiquette guru, who said I had done nothing wrong (particularly because my site is free.) In addition to providing more examples of a strong bias against unpublished authors [admittedly deserved in some cases], I learned two things from this episode: 1) there are nasty people in all professions and the internet allows you to be safely exposed to them - and it you shouldn't let it bother you, and 2) published authors may choose to guard their high status very jealously. When they make an extra effort to do that in public, they only bring discredit to themselves.

"Choose your words carefully, and fill them with a sense of grace."

[Maxine]

Jim, all I can say is that some people should be sacked, or failing that, shot. I am really sorry that you had such a bad experience. Personally I think it is great for authors to have the opportunity to promote their books using the internet, particularly if they haven't (yet) found a publisher. Steve Clackson now sends emails with headers along the lines of "don't do a Lee Goldberg....". As I said to him, I think he came out of the experience looking good to everyone else as he kept his cool throughout. Maybe he'll get some publicity out of it. Perhaps one approach you could take is to start a blog and "name and shame" the perpetrators.