A Sad Story About a Murdered Book and Dream

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Spock
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A Sad Story About a Murdered Book and Dream

#1 Post by Spock » Fri Feb 08, 2019 10:35 am

https://runningironreport.com/culture/b ... ching-art/

I had read of this before, but it is a horrible commentary on where we are today.

As JimC says "This is the death of art."

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silverscreenselect
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Re: A Sad Story About a Murdered Book and Dream

#2 Post by silverscreenselect » Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:45 am

Spock wrote:https://runningironreport.com/culture/b ... ching-art/

I had read of this before, but it is a horrible commentary on where we are today.

As JimC says "This is the death of art."
I'm sure she will get a great deal of sympathy from the published authors on this Bored who, I'm guessing, probably didn't receive a $500,000 advance for their books. There's more to the story than what's in this article. Apparently, the author didn't react too well to the initial round of criticism and tried to single out some of the bloggers who criticized her by publicizing their pictures. She apparently wasn't aware of the cardinal rule of book marketing: don't try to defend yourself from bad reviews (or, in her case, let her publisher handle the initial criticism).
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Re: A Sad Story About a Murdered Book and Dream

#3 Post by Vandal » Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:51 am

silverscreenselect wrote:
Spock wrote:https://runningironreport.com/culture/b ... ching-art/

I had read of this before, but it is a horrible commentary on where we are today.

As JimC says "This is the death of art."
I'm sure she will get a great deal of sympathy from the published authors on this Bored who, I'm guessing, probably didn't receive a $500,000 advance for their books. There's more to the story than what's in this article. Apparently, the author didn't react too well to the initial round of criticism and tried to single out some of the bloggers who criticized her by publicizing their pictures. She apparently wasn't aware of the cardinal rule of book marketing: don't try to defend yourself from bad reviews (or, in her case, let her publisher handle the initial criticism).

Good guess! I know a few best-sellling authors and they know not to punch back. It's like trying to reason within the comments section of a news website.
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Re: A Sad Story About a Murdered Book and Dream

#4 Post by Spock » Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:24 pm

silverscreenselect wrote:
Spock wrote:https://runningironreport.com/culture/b ... ching-art/

I had read of this before, but it is a horrible commentary on where we are today.

As JimC says "This is the death of art."
I'm sure she will get a great deal of sympathy from the published authors on this Bored who, I'm guessing, probably didn't receive a $500,000 advance for their books.
What does that mean? Obviously, she reacted poorly, but is the reaction to her work OK, because she got a big advance?

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Re: A Sad Story About a Murdered Book and Dream

#5 Post by silverscreenselect » Fri Feb 08, 2019 2:49 pm

Spock wrote: What does that mean? Obviously, she reacted poorly, but is the reaction to her work OK, because she got a big advance?
Apparently, Zhao was the person responsible for elevating the controversy. A few people published negative reviews of her book on Goodreads, which is not exactly the same as the New York Times Book Review (or a Silver Screen Videos review for that matter). Zhao reacted by going after some of her critics on Twitter. Then:
"How did the Blood Heir controversy begin?
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but last week, Twitter user @LegallyPaige accused Zhao of compiling screenshots of people who weren’t fans of Blood Heir ahead of its release and harassing them: “I’ll tell you which 2019 debut author, according to the whisper network, has been gathering screenshots of people who don’t/didn’t like her book and giving off Kathleen Hale vibes: Amelie Wen Zhao.” (@LegallyPaige has since made her account private.)
Kathleen Hale is an author who actually went to the house of a reviewer who criticized her book. That's when the bulk of the negative comments started and within a week, Zhao pulled the book (although she could still publish it later).

So, what you had was a novice writer who didn't handle criticism in an obscure forum very well and decided to escalate the matter tremendously, whereupon the reviewing community circled the wagons and probably overreacted to protect some of their own. Had Zhao not started going after reviewers, this whole thing would probably have died out with a few bad Goodreads reviews.
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