Sarahbeth Caplin's Blog, page 58

Mistakes of self-publishing: Cutting corners

This series began with a guest post from Kaitlyn Oruska: Self-published is not Synonymous with Shitty. But as much as it hurts to admit, there are some self-published books out there that lend some truth to this stereotype.

My first two taught me many lessons about what not to do in publishing. My impatience to publish made me careless. There was almost no editing whatsoever (silly me thinking I could edit them myself because I had an English degree…FALSE), random stock photos with no professional cover designer to spruce them up. They are what I now call my “beta books”: evidence of an author who was brand new to the publishing world.

Compared with my most recent books, you can see a huge difference in how far I’ve come (the ones pictured below are my favorite!). I’ve found an incredible cover designer who is also a good friend, a quality editor, and an increase of beta readers (honest betas are so important!).

While there are still a few copies of the originals floating out there in cyberspace (the original publisher no longer produces them, but they are still sold via third-party sellers on Amazon), I’m working on reproducing Confessions of a Prodigal Daughter and Someone You Already Know: better quality editing (I can’t emphasize that enough). Improved covers. Spruced up content. These will be marked as “second editions” and with time, the originals will fade into obscurity.

But the first time I held those books in my hands, I was blind to their faults; kind of like a mom who thinks her kid is a perfect angel when everyone else thinks he’s a spoiled brat with little to no discipline. The first time you see your name on a book cover is pure magic: I felt that high for weeks. Over time, it decreased as sales went from so-so to zero, and I didn’t know why. Friends and family tend to be more eager than anyone to purchase your book, but when you’re trying to appeal to the masses, strangers will not be so forgiving when they see the flaws that you couldn’t. Excessive grammatical errors are a huge turnoff.

My sales gradually began to increase after the release of my third book, this time with an editor and professional cover. Light bulb! Quality sells! Who would have thought.

Lesson learned: never cut corners. Cover designers and editors can be expensive (though I got great deals with mine), but you have a much better chance of earning that money back in sales if your book is actually worth buying (and if you learn the ins and outs of marketing, as discussed in last week’s post). Yes, it sucks to have to go back and start over from scratch. But my readers deserve better, and the stories in those books are my most personal ones by far. I want them read in their best light.

Not every book is “perfect.” Editors are human, too, and I’ve found errors in traditionally published books on multiple occasions. One of the best aspects of self-publishing is the ability to always go back and make changes. One misspelled word the editor missed? I can fix it and have the book back up within a day. Cover needs some revamping? Ditto (well, depending on the designer’s schedule). There is always room for improvement.

We’re not crazy, just misunderstood

At what point do you sever ties with people who don’t agree with the causes you believe in?

This question has been on my mind lately, in the wake of the Buzzfeed article on anti-feminist women. My follow up blog post was a bit harsh, I admit: I wrote it “in the moment,” while the frustration was fresh, because that’s when I write best. The supportive comments that followed only fueled my fire, which is to be expected, since most of my followers only read this blog because they more or less agree with my hardheaded opinions ☺

But then, as we all know, sharing your opinions = opportunities for backlash. The responsive posts I’ve read on Facebook, and even personal messages I received have challenged me once again to remember that everyone walks a hard road that shapes their convictions. Most of us do not develop a belief system easily. Many of us have beliefs that were shaped by personal experiences; some traumatic, or life-changing in some other way. And because people own these experiences, it’s not fair to dismiss them.

Yet we all do it. Don’t lie. Or at least admit that you’ve wanted to, when someone’s response to a cause you hold dear made you feel misunderstood, and the more you tried to explain yourself, the more tangled up you got until you eventually threw up your hands and said, “Fuck it,” and poured a glass of wine.

Yes, that was my day yesterday.

But today is a new day. I’d like to think I have good practice listening to differing viewpoints, given I am the only conservative in a family full of liberals, but I can always get better. I have to, for the sake of world peace.

Misunderstanding can go both directions, and it’s sometimes unfathomable to me that two people can go through the same traumatic experience and resurface with radically different viewpoints of the world as a result.

If patience is like a muscle, I definitely need to exercise more.

How do you “exercise”?

Privileged people don’t need feminism, but the rest of us do

Few things get my bra in a twist than articles like this one where young people – perhaps too young to have a living relative around to explain what life was like for women before they could vote, before they could work outside the home – criticize a movement they know absolutely nothing about.

I could pick apart every one of those signs and explain the fallacies behind them, but I’d be too tempted to gouge out my eyeballs before getting halfway through. So here’s the point I want to make: we continue to use labels that describe our beliefs all the time, despite the negative stigmas attached. I still call myself a Christian despite the Crusades, despite the Westboro Baptists who picket military funerals. Rational people should understand that such atrocities are not my fault, and the vast majority of well-intentioned Christians want nothing to do with them.

You would think that educated people would understand a few bad seeds don’t spoil the entire bunch. It only seems that way when the media shines a spotlight on the loudest voices that also happen to be the most ignorant.

Why is feminism any different? In college, I would have died if anyone accused me of being feminist; all I saw were the stereotypes. Eventually, I realized I already was quite feminist in my thinking. It was only the label I feared.

You know what kind of people can say they don’t need feminism? Privileged people. That’s who. But where did that privilege come from, you may wonder? Umm…

Perhaps more people would “come out” as feminists if they did a little research, and understood that patriarchal authorities never would have “given” women the right to vote if not for – you guessed it – women who decided to band together and fight for it. Male-dominated universities would never have “allowed” women to attend if not for a movement of – what you say? – women dedicated to proving themselves worthy.

If waiting on men to “come around” to handing us rights were all it took, history would not be filled with centuries of documented misogyny. Clearly, the feminist movement was necessary…and still continues to be.

Until women earn the same salary as men for doing the exact same work;

Until actresses are asked about their roles rather than where they got their gowns at the Oscars;

Until a woman can report her rape and be asked, “What did your rapist look like?” instead of, “What were you wearing?”

Until a new mom can announce she’d like to quit her job and stay at home to raise her baby and not be judged;

Until a woman can decide to keep her career and utilize daycare or a nanny and not be judged;

Until women can safely walk the streets and not be harassed by strangers;

Until women can announce they’d like to remain single and child-free and not be looked at as freaks and monsters;

Until a woman can tell her boss she’s pregnant without the risk of being fired; feminism continues to be necessary.

You don’t stop calling yourself part of a movement just because there are people within it you disagree with. That should only make you fight harder to clear its name.

Is this what you want to hear, anti-feminists? I’m sorry for the ones who hate men, who don’t want any woman in her kitchen, even if it’s her choice to be there. I am not in agreement with those people. Believe it or not, most of us just care about equality.

Slow and steady wins the NYT bestseller list (or not)

While catching up with an old college friend one day, she wanted to know “How my books are doing” (I love when the question is asked like that, like they’re my babies). The books are always “fine,” it’s just a matter of whether anyone is buying them. But before I could answer, she asked, “Have you made the New York Times bestseller’s list yet?”

I’m 90% sure this was a serious question, and not sarcasm. I could be wrong. But it’s a question I’ve heard from others before, who were serious. They ask what bookstores (not which websites) they can find my book. Or if I can buy them a drink sometime, because I’m rolling in royalties and all (I wish, friends. I wish).

I’m glad that people are interested in my writing, but these questions demonstrate complete naiveté of how the publishing industry works. Anyone can write a book these days, thanks to the advent of self-publishing. Literally anyone. It requires no skill, just access to a computer.

The challenge is how to write a good book (whatever that means), but I still think that’s much easier than selling one. With thousands of ebooks flooding the market, simply putting one out there isn’t a guarantee it will sell. That was my mistake with my first book (which, I should mention, is being re-released as a second edition soon). I thought if it was available for anyone to purchase, it would sell itself.

That is one of the gravest sins of indie publishing: believing your book has some magic power to sell itself. It’s not impossible to sell consistently without any promotion behind it, but for most authors it’s highly unlikely.

Consequently, I am now more than just an author; I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a marketer. I am my own PR firm (with help every now and then from friends with popular blogs). When you aren’t traditionally published, you don’t have these resources at your agent’s disposal (but even then, you’re still never let off the hook when it comes to promoting your work). There’s writing – always writing – and then there’s marketing. Both are full-time jobs.

My readership on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and now WordPress has grown considerably in the last year, but I had to work my butt off to get this far, and I still have to work much harder to get to a point where writing pays for more than a latte. Problem is, because I’m not at a point where I can make a living off my books, I need to supplement writing with other forms of paid work. It’s all about finding a balance, and some people give up on publishing because it’s  just too overwhelming. They become obsessed with numbers, and forget the reason they wanted to write in the first place (seriously, no one becomes a writer for the money!).

I completely get it, especially because I am the worst millennial ever when it comes to figuring out technology: and technology, whether you like it or not, is one of the best and easiest ways to market because you don’t even have to leave your house (perfect for introverts like me). But just when you think you’ve mastered one form of social media, a new one comes out and the one you use the most falls into obscurity (remember the rise and demise of Xanga and Myspace?).

Just this last month alone, I spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week writing and promoting: reaching out via Twitter (I love having a job that enables me to use Twitter all day!), connecting with readers (never neglect your readers or take them for granted!), emailing book bloggers, updating my Facebook author page. I sold 22 books that month, my best yet. But now it’s July, the sale numbers revert back to zero, and it’s time to do it all over again.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, my fiancé wanted to go on a bike ride with me. I missed a call from my mom. I just wanted a break.

Eventually I realized that earning a place on the Top Ten in the New York Times really isn’t the point. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love that, but setting the bar of success too high causes me to miss out on the joy of what I’ve accomplished so far. Twenty-two people bought my books last month: twenty-two strangers who then went and posted reviews both on their blogs and on Amazon. For someone who only started publishing two years ago, that’s a big deal. I may not be able to pay rent with my books (yet!) but a review or an email from a reader who was touched by what I wrote is pure gold.

So yeah, bestseller list or not, my books are doing just fine.

Half the Sky, Hobby Lobby, and the real ‘War on Women’

Content warning: in reviewing Half the Sky, this post contains graphic descriptions of rape and violence.

I pride myself on being a fast reader, but it took me almost two months to finish this book. Much of it is graphic and disturbing; it made my stomach churn and I had to set it down. I made a point of hurrying to finish it in the wake of the Hobby Lobby Hullabaloo, when once again the phrase “war on women” reared its ugly head on just about every social media platform out there.

My first impression after finishing, and reading a few articles on SCOTUS: the “war on women” issue isn’t an exaggeration. It is real, very real. But I think that expression is very much abused. There’s nothing like reading a book on global poverty and extreme misogyny to make me realize how much of my white, upper middle-class privilege is showing. I don’t have a fully formed opinion on the Hobby Lobby case against birth control; that’s not what this post is about, anyway. Still, it’s very much related to the content in this book, because it opened my eyes to just how much we take the rights and privileges afforded to us in the United States for granted.

We’re one of the richest countries in the world, people. Let that sink in for a minute.

You might feel some anger simmering against me already, but consider this passage from Half the Sky:

Approximately once every ten seconds, a girl somewhere in the world is pinned down. Her legs are pulled apart, and a local woman with no medical training pulls out a knife or razor blade and slices off some or all of the girl’s genitals. In most cases, there is no anesthetic. (Kristoff and WuDunn, 221)

It gets worse. There are many passages detailing the suffering of women with fistulas as a result of being raped by government militia: with sticks. Their families often can’t afford the surgery to fix it, which costs roughly the same amount as a Happy Meal in US dollars. Moreover, when these women and girls try and report their assaults to the police, they are often gang-raped by the people who are supposed to protect them.

There’s no denying that there are very legitimate concerns regarding women’s health and freedoms in the United States. But when I hear that oozing phrase “war on women” thrown about in response to a ruling on one company’s birth control policy, I just can’t buy it. Especially when almost every drug store carries condoms, a device that brothels filled with trafficked girls refuse to stock due to cultural taboos.

Imagine living in a country without a constitution guaranteeing your right to speak up or vote.

Imagine living in a family that can only afford to educate one child, and that child will be the eldest male, because as a woman your only responsibilities are marriage (to a man probably old enough to be your father, and probably abusive) and mothering (but any female children you have might be aborted or drowned immediately after birth).

Imagine giving birth in a land with few hospitals, but the ones that do exist are so far to walk to (whilst in labor), so unhygienic, and the staff so untrained, the odds of your survival and that of your child are not in your favor.

Imagine having your clitoris violently removed and your vagina crudely stitched together, not to be re-opened until your wedding night (which is guaranteed to hurt more than that of the average virgin).

Not a pretty picture, is it? Does “war on women” take on a different meaning now?

Make no mistake, our country is plagued with too many politicians who are blinded by intolerance and ambition: white, upper-class Christian men who support policies that are harmful to women. What separates us from impoverished third-world countries, where most of the human population lives, is the power of freedom. Our right to free speech is the ultimate key to persuasion. The power of the human voice is the only thing that has ever softened hearts and changed minds, which results in changed laws. Cherish this freedom; too many people elsewhere have been brutally executed over it.

End note: I personally think the Supreme Court’s verdict has greater implications on the line separating church and business, more so than the future of reproductive rights. That’s a completely separate topic.

Why self-publish?

This is the next post in continuation of the weekly Indie Author Life series, posted a day early due to Friday being July 4th.

I’ve known my entire life that I was meant to be a writer. I’d write blog posts and columns for my campus newspaper, but the idea of publishing a book seemed too lofty a goal, too “out there” for a nobody like me.

It wasn’t until I saw a woman hanging up a flyer for her book signing at the Panera where I worked that I found out about self-publishing. I asked her how she published, and she made it sound so easy. I had a manuscript written already, and I was very impatient to birth it into the world.

There are many benefits to self-publishing over traditional publishing. One is higher royalties: indie authors can set their own prices and earn up to 70% when publishing through CreateSpace, Amazon’s independent publishing platform. Self-publishing happens at the author’s discretion: it can take well over a year for an agent to pitch a book to a publisher, but indies can hit the “publish” button at any time (this is both a blessing and a curse, which I’ll address later).

For me, the decision to self-publish was more about creative freedom. The kind of books I am interested in writing don’t easily fit into existing genres, which can be a turnoff to some publishers. The audience is too mixed. Over time, cross-blending of genres can become more popular (“paranormal romance” did not exist until the soaring popularity of the Twilight series), but it’s uncommon because it’s risky. From an agent’s perspective, a book that combines genres not previously combined before may not be as popular (ie: lower sales).

Publishers are interested in books that are highly marketable, but these are not always genres I think I can write well. Fantasy is huge right now, but I’ve never been interested in that. Erotica is also huge, but I get squeamish just writing kissing scenes with my characters, so that’s out.

My most recent book, for example, is young adult with religious themes – but it’s not Christian fiction. Therefore, it would be difficult to place among mainstream YA. My first novel, also YA fiction, dealt with rape: not a highly marketable subject, either.

Of course you never know what agents and publishers will think of your work until you try querying, something I have yet to do. It could work out well, or result in a pile of rejection letters. However, I had – and continue to have – specific visions in mind for each of my books, from plot to cover design. I write stories that are meaningful to me, with very specific take-home messages I do not want lost simply because such ideas have yet to become “mainstream.”

When a book is well written, edited, and has an eye-grabbing cover, it can sell at the same ranks as traditionally published books. The only difference is self-published authors have to work harder at establishing connections that agents have, so the process of selling in droves can take much longer. Then again, not all self-published authors publish with a goal of topping the bestseller lists. Some people publish for themselves, or an otherwise narrow audience.

Come back next Friday for more on Indie Author Life: the myths, the realities, and why it’s worth it.

There is no magic Bible verse to fix suffering

A friend sent me this post from Humans of New York Facebook page last night, wanting to know my opinion. It’s heartbreaking and poignant:

“I’ve been a deep believer my whole life. 18 years as a Southern Baptist. More than 40 years as a mainline Protestant. I’m an ordained pastor. But it’s just stopped making sense to me. You see people doing terrible things in the name of religion, and you think: ‘Those people believe just as strongly as I do. They’re just as convinced as I am.’ And it just doesn’t make sense anymore. It doesn’t make sense to believe in a God that dabbles in people’s lives.

If a plane crashes, and one person survives, everyone thanks God. They say: ‘God had a purpose for that person. God saved her for a reason!’ Do we not realize how cruel that is? Do we not realize how cruel it is to say that if God had a purpose for that person, he also had a purpose in killing everyone else on that plane? And a purpose in starving millions of children? A purpose in slavery and genocide? For every time you say that there’s a purpose behind one person’s success, you invalidate billions of people. You say there is a purpose to their suffering. And that’s just cruel.”

There was a time when I would have passionately refuted everything this person said. There was a time when I was the biggest evangelist of the idea everything happens for a reason: an idea that is shockingly not found anywhere in the Bible.

What changed? I grew up a bit. Life dumped some crap on my plate. I became friends with other hurting people. I turned to a church for encouragement, allowed myself to be vulnerable, and was patted on the head with His ways are not our ways. So I went to another church, and was told “The life of a Christ-follower is never easy.” Yeah, okay…but. Always a “but”: But what about the people in my life who are suffering and aren‘t Christian? And have no desire to be? What about this past that shaped who I am today but also left me with depression and PTSD?

I wanted desperately to scream, “There is no magic Scripture verse or bumper-sticker quote for depression, pain, and suffering!!!”

There is no amount of reading anything that trumps human compassion. We are not meant to live alone. When someone tells me I just need to read more scripture, pray more, repent more, there may be some truth to that. But ultimately what I’m really looking for when I’m vulnerable is someone who will validate my experience simply by saying That really sucks. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.

Really. That’s it. On the off chance that there is a bigger reason for my suffering, or someone else’s, that’s not going to lessen the hurt I feel right now.

A better idea than everything happens for a reason is the idea of redemption, which is scriptural: a concept that says, “This shit happened and it was absolutely horrible, but God will take this awful thing and make something worthwhile come from it.” I think organ donation is the best example of this: a healthy person dies tragically, but a child on dialysis gets their kidney. It’s the idea that no tragedy is wasted, even if we never figure out why it happened. The older I get, the less concerned I am with why.

I used to pity people who left the faith (any faith) because of too many doubts. The key for my survival, I think, is not to run from them but address them with an attitude of humility. The Bible has existed for thousands of years and been read countless more times, yet we still don’t have all the answers. In my lifetime I can only hope to come close to brushing up against one truth out of millions. Many things can be true at the same time, but it’s just a matter of figuring out which truths are paradoxes.

Self-Published is Not Synonymous with Shitty

People often ask me what got me started in self-publishing, or what it’s like to be a writer in general. I’ve decided to start a series describing my journey through self-publishing, dispelling myths from realities, and also featuring occasional guest blogs from other authors (these posts will be labeled with the tag “Indie Author Life”).

To kick-start this series, I’m excited to feature my friend and fellow indie author Kaitlyn Oruska. Kaitlyn is the author of the Haven series, which chronicles the life and experiences of a teenage mother. She is currently working on a new novel, Wishing Well, set to release August 25th, which I have had the privilege of beta-reading and cannot recommend enough. Find her website here.

Self-Publishing is Not Synonymous with Shitty

“I don’t typically read self-published books,” a commenter on a blog post remarked. “It seems too risky.”

I’m a live-and-let-live kind of person. I’m rarely opinionated unless it hits on a topic I hold dear to my heart. Five books, one novella and a million ideas in, there are few things closer to my heart than writing.

Any author/writer/storyteller will tell you the same – I didn’t choose writing. It chose me. Just like musicians find themselves drawn to creating music and artists find themselves drawn to painting or sculpting or what-have-you, writers find themselves drawn to words and stories.

It’s no surprise that books are magical. You open them, read a few words, and suddenly you’re sucked into a new world where you’re a new person with new friends and a new family, doing things you never believed possible. Perhaps you like romance, or sci-fi, or maybe realistic fiction that mirrors life. Whatever you’re into, the result is the same. Reading takes you to a previously undiscovered world and teaches you things you might not learn in the real one.

So when I stumble across something that dismisses self-publishing as being less than (sometimes going as far as to refer to it as a genre), it’s difficult not to be offended. There are so many misconceptions, and as a proud indie, I feel it’s my duty to clear them up to the best of my ability.

Authors who self-publish aren’t good enough for traditional publishing.

This is one I see a lot.There seem to be a lot of potential readers who believe self-publishing is always the last resort, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I know of plenty who chose this route for their own personal reasons.

If this logic was correct, where would that leave authors like Stephen King and Suzanne Collins? Both were rejected plenty of times before being picked up.

Books by self-published authors are poor quality.

Most of the books I’ve fallen in love with these past two years were, in fact, self-published. The way in which a book is published has nothing to do with the quality of the story itself. If you read one self-published book and found yourself unimpressed, please don’t punish the community or even the author. There isn’t one book in this world that works for everyone.

Self-published authors are in it for the money.

This is something that comes with anything on the newer side. Some see success stories assume everyone who does something similar is in it for the money and potential fame.

If this is true, I’m doing something terribly wrong.

It takes a lot to write a book. It’s rewarding, yes, but it’s also stressful, occasionally devastating, and always tiring. And when you’re done, there’s no guarantee anyone is going to love your story. It’s a huge leap of faith to put your book out there, and the people who are in it for the money aren’t going to last long.

I grew up loving books, and I was always told don’t judge a book by its cover. I still stand by that, but let’s take it a step further.

If you see a book that catches your eye, give it a chance. Don’t worry about where it came from, how it came to be, who wrote it, etc. Choose your books because there’s something about them that seems interesting, that holds a promise for an adventure you’re never going to forget.

Choose your books for their characters, their plots, and writing style. Don’t judge them by their method of publication.

In short, self-published is not synonymous for shitty in the same way traditionally published isn’t synonymous for best book you’ll ever read. Self-publishing hasn’t taken anything away from the reading community – it’s added thousands more books to choose from.

Summer Time is Reading Time!

Beth Caplin:

A touching reminder that writing isn’t about fame or raking in royalties, but about building relationships with readers.

Originally posted on thoughts about my wilderness journey:

Summer time is reading time!

I recently stumbled on Sarahbeth Caplin’s blog and consequently her writing. I really appreciate how she handles difficult topics and doesn’t try to oversimplify or even solve them.  Her characters are all relatable, because well, they’re human, dealing with human issues.  Of her books I’ve read “Where There’s Smoke” and “Displays of Public Convention.” I’m in the middle of “Someone You Already Know.” While I am enjoying her work, she’s definitely not a writer for people who have it all figured out (or think they have it all figured out).  If you’re not prepared to wrestle, I wouldn’t recommend reading her work.  However, if you like writing that makes you think, I highly recommend Sarahbeth Caplin.

I also recently found Ashlee Willis, a Christian fantasy author, and I’m looking forward to reading her book The Word Changers:

Her parents’ marriage is falling apart…

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‘Obvious Child’ doesn’t take its subject seriously

Disclaimer: This is not a post about abortion rights, a subject I have strong opinions about, but will not discuss here.

This is a post about Hollywood’s treatment of young adults dealing with serious issues, and why it doesn’t work.

The plot for the upcoming film, Obvious Child, is pretty simple: adorkable young adult woman has a casual fling, and finds herself pregnant. Unlike other mainstream films with similar plot-lines (Juno and Knocked Up come to mind), abortion isn’t just mentioned as an option, but is the whole point.

This film is supposed to reduce the stigma of abortion by showcasing a normal, everyday woman who makes normal, everyday choices. Viewers are supposed to identify with her, perhaps sympathize, and cheer her on.

I couldn’t do that after watching the preview, and it has nothing to do with my being pro-life. What I saw in the preview was an overzealous attempt at creating an “average” woman, but I found her personality and actions so over-the-top that I really don’t care to follow her story.

While I appreciate movies with characters who have to make difficult life decisions, it turns me off to see heavy subjects dealt with so frivolously. I appreciate characters with spunk, but a subject as serious as abortion deserves a main character with more vulnerability and bravery. This may be a judgment made too quickly, but the point of a trailer is to garner interest. Seeing the protagonist portrayed so immaturely does not give me hope that the movie will treat the subject matter with the dignity it deserves (but okay, I did smirk at the line “I’m not the ornament at the top of the tree, I’m the menorah that burns it down.” The movie may have a few gems in it. I’m willing to be surprised).

Let’s face it, regardless of whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, abortion is never an easy decision for anyone. I can’t imagine the conflicting emotions of being unexpectedly pregnant. I can’t imagine the fear of having to tell the father, who may or may not be supportive. If I’m going to pay to see an “abortion movie,” I want to see characters taking it as seriously as I would if it were myself, or a friend of mine in that situation. What I saw in the three-minute trailer does not convince me that I will be made to think any differently about abortion than I did when I walked into the theater.

Please, Hollywood. My generation is not completely made up of imbeciles who can only pay attention to an important subject if it’s inserted with sight gags and potty jokes.

I get it; quirky characters sell more tickets. And there’s nothing wrong with being quirky. But what is the point of this movie? To make pro-lifers like me more sympathetic to women who have had abortions? Then convince me by selling me a film that appears to take its subject seriously, because I’m not getting that vibe from this one.