mollyringle:
Something I wish I’d grasped in my 20s (at which time I was a much snarkier person...
Something I wish I’d grasped in my 20s (at which time I was a much snarkier person online and off):
If you often blog and/or review books online and also are a published writer or hope to become one, it is IMPORTANT to be courteous in your posts and reviews. When you approach a publisher or agent or another author for assistance with your book, they’ll likely look you up. And if what they find is a lot of reviews where you’re using your snarkiest all-caps language and lots of eyeroll GIFs to shred other authors, guess what: they’ll probably decline to work with you.
You can definitely write unfavorable reviews. That’s fair! As an author, I don’t mind too much if I get a two-star review that says “This wasn’t for me. I found it too melodramatic/slow-paced/flippant/etc.” That’s courteous while reflecting the fact that some books aren’t a match for some readers.
But throwing all the shade at your disposal to burn some book you didn’t like, while it may amuse your friends and yourself in the short term, is likely to hinder you from getting what you want in the long term.
In fact, this is relevant advice even if you aren’t planning to be a published writer, because being pleasant to work with is basically going to advance you in every job on the planet. Whereas being someone obnoxious to work with…isn’t.
