Occasionally I become far too entertained by the Internet. After barely touching it for weeks, I'll start compulsively checking customers_suck to see what new atrocities are being perpetrated on the workers of the world and stupid_free to watch human train wrecks in general.

The granddaddy (or perhaps grandma would be a better word in this case) of human train wrecks -- author train wrecks, even -- I've seen lately is this thread about an author who stalked a fan for giving her a three-star Amazon review. You can make fun of romance writers if you like (I've never read a romance novel myself, so cannot comment fairly one way or the other), but judging by the comments here, these ladies are far tougher than I. I wouldn't actually stalk a reader, but I have violated several of the rules they seem to have little trouble following. I've commented, sometimes snarkily, on Amazon reviews here in my journal and (very occasionally, always briefly, almost always in case of factual error) on the reviews themselves. Twice, I think, I've asked readers to post good reviews if they felt so inclined: once right after Liquor hit the stores and I was nervous and wanted to see something up there; once because somebody had just posted a borderline-troll review, and while I didn't think it should be removed, I hated to see it just sitting there at the top of the page. In retrospect, both of these were probably mistakes. I don't think I've ever asked readers to go and vote that bad reviews were unhelpful (or, in the nauseating parlance of the reader-stalking author discussed above, asked for "clickies"). If I have, I shouldn't have. I've never asked for a review to be taken down simply because it was unfavorable to the book, but I've had obvious troll reviews (e.g. personal slams; one-sentence "This sux" jobs; people who admit they haven't read the book) removed. Of course all of these violate Amazon's reviewing rules and technically it is their responsibility to remove such reviews without anyone having to ask, but I don't see how they could ever get to all of them, and I'm not sure I see anything wrong with giving them a heads-up. Does the fact that I did this somehow make the good reviews less valid? Was I "gaming the system"? Twenty-three years after my first fiction sale, am I still hideously unprofessional?

In related but far less wankish news, there's an interesting discussion on greygirlbeast's journal about the possibility of authors offending readers with our opinions. I always figure that somebody is going to get offended no matter what I say (witness the recent hate letter posted by officialgaiman, whose journal is at least 95% nice, informative, and non-confrontational), or whether I say anything at all. There are a few topics I try to stay away from (veganism, fanfic) because they're just not worth the hassle, and I have trained myself off the bad habits of railing about Amazon on a weekly basis and hectoring readers to buy my books because I'm so fucking generous as to provide this wonderful free blog. I particularly regret ever having done this last, both because it's rude and presumptuous and because, after living through the past three years, it seems so utterly unimportant to me whether any one person chooses to buy my books or not. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it tremendously when they do, but it's hard to believe I once took such umbrage when they didn't.

Anyway, we're having our former neighbor over for dinner, and I'm making crawfish etouffee, so I better make like an amoeba and split.