Author Meltdown? Pull a Charlie Sheen

I promised myself I wasn’t going to get sucked into Jacqueline Howett’s drama. I was going to ignore her and go about my business. But it’s like a car wreck: you just have to look. As long as I did, you should have the benefit of the lessons learned.

1. If you are going to self-publish your book, put out your best work. Study your craft (reading this blog is a good start) and hire a great copyeditor (you could hire me). Sentences like this shouldn’t make it to print:
   

   Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance.

2. If you publish a book, be prepared for bad reviews or even lukewarm reviews, like BigAl’s. BigAl’s review of the story wasn’t bad; it was actually good. His complaint was that the typos and errors made it difficult to read.
3. If someone reviews your book, be professional and polite. Otherwise, you could turn off all your potential readers.
4. Most important, if you’re going to act childishly and rudely, go all out and pull a Charlie Sheen. If you’re going to lose book sales, you’d better have another plan for making money.

In the parlance of Twitter: #fail.

Tagged as: jacqueline howett, Writing Tips