I was doing some blog hopping earlier, and I came across Alison Kent’s Blog

. Her most recent blog caught my eye. Basically, there’s been some discussion over what is deemed as unprofessional behaviour from authors, and get this, apparently, authors shouldn’t criticise each other’s work for fear of getting black-balled by publisher A who publishes Author B’s work, whom you un-wisely criticised. What?

I wasn’t sure if I’d got this right, so I went back and re-read the blog to find that I’d read what I thought I’d read.

Here is a sample from the discussion in question:

What the heck is up with authors who insult and demean my work and/or me (or other authors!) either to my/their face or on Amazon or on their own blogs? Don’t they realize that by criticizing people’s work that they are potentially shooting themselves in the foot? I may not be a New York Times bestselling author, but I sure as sugar know more than one or two of them. And I sure and sugar don’t mind telling them EXACTLY who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. And so when the time comes for that cover quote, do they think they’ll get it after hearing what I have to say about them? Or what about that anthology deal someone trying to put together? Do they honestly think their name is going to come up as an author who should be included? And what about when I’m having drinks with my editor and we’re chit-chatting about authors we’d like to work with. If Insulting Author #1 is mentioned, do they think I’ll say to my editor, “Oh, yeah, she’s a sweetie.” Hah!Not all writers are savvy enough to realize that bashing ANYONE can come back to bite them in the ass, especially if they’re not NYT bestselling writers.

I was absolutely flabbergasted by the above excerpt, who knew that there was such narrow minded ejits within the romance writing community? As If it’s not bad enough that the rest of the literary world snub their noses at you cuz you write ‘those kind of books’, you have to fight between yourselves too?

Are there really authors out there who are so sensitive that they cannot cope with constructive criticsm from a fellow author? Really? Wow…

Just my opinion of course, but isn’t it almost better to receive feedback from somebody who knows exactly where you’re coming from? The comments may be negative, but only insofar as what didn’t work for that particular author. How are you supposed to improve if you only hear glowing reports about your work? Especially if in reality it’s absolutely pants!

Are publishing houses and authors that shallow and hyper-sensitive? If so, I suggest you need to get a grip!