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| Publishing Experts James D. Macdonald and Debra Doyle |
The truth: AW is a valuable resource, one of the largest and most active writers' forums on the Internet. (As of this writing, it boasts nearly 60,000 members, over 8 million posts, and anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 users active at any given time--scroll down to the bottom of AW to see these statistics.) At AW, you can discuss every aspect of craft and genre, learn about the ins and outs of publishing and self-publishing, share your work-in-progress, get your query letter critiqued, connect with beta readers and writing buddies, commiserate about rejection and rejoice about success, and participate in discussions about culture, music, art, politics, and just about anything else you want to talk about. AW members include writers at every stage of their careers--from just thinking about publishing to multi-published--along with a wide variety of publishing industry experts and professionals: literary agents, publishers, editors, illustrators, designers, and more.Our response to the above "truth" as follows. btw, something to consider: how does an amateur writer know whether they are receiving good advice or not? If a phony doctor puts on a lab coat and tells a naive patient to take a valueless vitamin supplement, the patient will do what he or she is told.
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Relevant Links
- Insightful Reviews of iPredators
- Absolute Write Hoax Continues
- Hell is Real - A Pattern of Abuse
- Is Criticism Possible Without Bullying?
- Examples of Really Bad Writing Advice
- How Many Terrible Reviews Does it Take?
- The Consequence and Sad Truth of Hate
FYI, you probably know this but Strauss is still pretending all negative criticism of Absolute Write is the work of one person. She reminds me of Fidel Castro in this regard. The Tariq Aziz comparison is accurate also. She pushes her own books on there so much she can't risk the place getting trashed. If they lose, so does she. I'm not the first to point this out.
ReplyDeleteLike many have said, she has everything to lose if AW folds or loses credibility.
DeleteOh even if you were to go the route the board condones (trade publishing), even then more often I see the board "calling out"--a well known term in social media, well known authors that aren't even members of the board to use as part of the dirt factory to encourage their fan base to boycott authors who happens to politically disagree with them.
ReplyDeleteEven if it were a valuable writers resource, because more often there are posts like "AWers who went onto to make a living from their writing", or trashing Stephen King, Lemony Snicket, Orson Scott Card, among others. Let's not forget how politically diverse this group is. I find it highly ironic that they don't want authors trashing AW, and yet apparently trashing and slandering "public figures" is perfectly OK.
Like it or not, AW is a public figure. Especially egregious them being a group of vile and vicious authors, who do far more damage to peoples reputation than Stephen King ever has in apparently trashing Twilight.
Does an amateur writer know whether they are getting good advice or not? Of course not.
ReplyDelete