I’ve seen a lot of authors get attacked for not being “real.” They’re usually genre authors, and/or often mocked as writers because they are religious, or atheist, or pagan, or liberal, or conservative, or self-published, or indie, or whatever. Invariably, the mockers have never read the author’s works and simply reject them outright due to prejudicial assumption.

Lynn Shepherd is a good and recent example. In my piece on the controversy she generated, I never once attacked her writing, because I’ve never read it. However, just as she was decrying books she claimed she never read (though there’s an obscure reference in her original article that seems to prove otherwise), other people were downvoting her books and leaving one-star reviews without reading them. I find that reprehensible both times.

Well, I just had a personal milestone: getting told I’m not a real editor, that I don’t run a real business. Why? Was it because the person in question read something I edited? Was it because that person read my opinions? Did I read this person’s manuscript and said person didn’t like what I had to say?

Nope. Someone who had just been informed I was an editor declared that I’m not a real editor because . . . I don’t accept erotica.

n_fxmsIQIRSCORE!