While I would prefer that people following #notchilled stopped engaging TiNut, the hashtag is still a great source of previously unknown to me snippets of wisdom from Tina Engler/Jaid Black.
For example, back in early October, EC author Sedonia Guillone wrote about how proud she was, being an author for Ellora’s Cave, and…no, let me quote, lest the post gets memory holed and then readers may suspect I made this up. (Screenshots at the end, click to embiggen).
Here we go:
I have communicated personally with Jaid Black and she has always been kind to me, responding to my concerns and queries promptly.
Jaid Black has been kind, people.
It’s not like this is a business relationship where what is essential is professionalism or anything. Kindness is always good–who wants to deal with assholes? but where there is no professionalism, overt kindness may hide all sorts of assholeishness.
She is not the first intelligent person I have seen become the object of people’s hostilities online and the mood behind what i see as yet another witch hunt feels again like a mass hysteria in which the truth gets buried.
The other thing I find upsetting is the clamor by some to boycott EC books. Whatever the rationale for that action, I can feel nothing but upset. One cannot try to break the publisher without injuring its authors.
Yeah, because fellow authors, plus editors and cover artists, speaking up about not being paid is a witch hunt. It’s not like facts backing up the allegations matter, right, so long as you’ve drunk the EC Koo-laid.
I, course, cannot leave out this:
We authors work hard. We have written our hearts and souls into our books, praying that readers out there will buy them not only so we can earn a living but so that the reader will enjoy them. Now there are people trying to get others not to buy these books and make an already difficult career to make a living in even more difficult.
Hearts and souls…can “my babies!” be far behind? And oh, look, the whole “we need to make a living” thing.
(This makes me angry for a whole ‘nother host of reasons, so I’ll leave it alone. Expect: many an avid reader also would like to make a living doing whatever it is, and many don’t, no matter how hard they try.)
Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it many more times (and I believe most readers agree with me):
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