Hello everyone! Welcome to my ☀Daily Book Chat☀ where I do some SERIOUS discussions that fellow book fans will get a kick out of and relate their thoughts about the subject to other book fans!
Today's discussion question is Badly Behaving Authors...do you stop reading their books?
Today's discussion question is Badly Behaving Authors...do you stop reading their books?
Okay, so I'm usually one of those people who usually avoid talking about tough subjects like this, like trying to avoid the PLAGUE. But sometimes, these kinds of subjects just pop up in your head and you just can't get rid of them until you actually talk about it with someone else. So today, I will be discussing about one of those tough subjects which is what to do when authors behave badly. So, get ready for some pure SERIOUSNESS going on in this discussion.
As you may know, there has been a lot incidents going on lately of some authors behaving badly, whether it's towards their fans, other authors or even one incident where an author plagiarized the works of other authors. So, my question to you all is: what do you do when an author behaves badly? Do you still read their books or do you stop reading their books?
For me personally, it all comes down to two things: 1) Am I reading the book for the story or for the author and 2) Just how severe are the author's actions?
For the first one, whenever I'm reading a book, I read it for the story that is being presented and I based my reviews on that. However, I have seen some cases where a reviewer judges a book based on what the author did and they would put things in their reviews like "I'm not reading this book because this author did BLAH, BLAH, BLAH" or "I just don't like this author, so I'm not reading this book." Personally, I think that if you based your opinions about a book on the authors themselves, then you might as well not read the book at all. When I'm reading a book, I just pay attention to the story, not to the person who wrote the book (although there are some cases where I want to meet the author in real life if they are nice enough)!
The second one might be a bit more complicated because while I might still read the book, regardless of the author's actions, how bad the author's actions are might affect whether or not I will read anymore of this author's books in the future. So, if the author was acting like a jerk towards their fans or other authors, I can overlook that as long as the author apologizes for their actions and makes an attempt to fix their mistakes. However, if an author is a rapist, a murderer, makes racist, homophobic or sexist comments with no remorse, don't own up to their mistakes and continue to harass people or if they plagiarized another author's works with no remorse, then I will most likely never support that author or read any of their books.
All in all, I enjoy reading because it allows me to escape from the harshness of real life and get engaged in another world that is different from my own. However, there are some cases where the real world somehow gets into your fictional world and you're forced to acknowledge these subjects head on. In this case, no one is perfect. We all make mistakes in life and the best thing to do when you make a mistake is to fix it. As long as both the authors and the fandom fix their own mistakes when they committed them, then the book community will be a better place for everyone involved.
So, what do you think about this? If an author behaves badly, do you still read their books or do you stop reading their books?
I think I'm a lot like you. I definitely won't hold something against an author if they own up to an issue and apologize. In other circumstances, it really depends on the seriousness of what happened. If it's just a comment I maybe don't agree with I can usually set it aside. If it's something worse or more pervasive than that ... I'll probably end up avoiding them. Honestly, I find that something like that would probably affect my enjoyment of their book anyway, so...
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Agree!
DeleteThere are actually some authors, who I won't read or have stopped reading because of things they have said on social media. It just turned me off so much, and I don't feel the need to support their work.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it depends on how bad their comments are and whether or not they are really sorry for what they said. If what they is just too unforgivable, then I won't support them any longer.
DeleteI definitely take the same approach as you: I don't usually let it affect my reading unless it's really bad, or they clearly aren't sorry for what they've done. I try and avoid this stuff like the plague too though, so a lot of the time I don't even hear about some of the stuff that goes on anyway!
ReplyDeleteSame here!
DeleteGreat discussion, I feel like I'd probably read a book I wanted to regardless of what the author had done - unless whatever was problematic about them had started to bleed into the writing. Like if they were a racist or a misogynist and their attitudes were kind of obvious in the way they wrote - if that makes sense?
ReplyDeleteOh yes! That definitely makes sense! It's like if the book is too racist or sexist, then I would definitely be turned off from the book, based on content alone.
DeleteThis is a very interesting discussion post. When an author acts badly, I'm always on the fence about reading her/his books. I know the most important thing is the story, but I'd not feel okay supporting an author who has said something harmful (even if his/hers views are not present in the book).
ReplyDeleteWhen I learned about what Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne Sexton did to their daughters, I could never pick a book by them.
Tânia @MyLovelySecret
I read about that and now, I'm not picking up any books by Marion Bradley and Anne Sexton. If an author did something so horrible like this, then I definitely won't read their books.
Delete