Okay, here I go again with another rant, and actually it's been a while since I've been pissed enough to write something on this blog. Nevertheless, I am pissed and must vent about something, and that's the Kindle Boards (the Writers' Cafe in particular).
For those of you who have visited the site, you've got to notice how it's little more than a "look at me" and "look at what a great writer I am" circle jerk sound off. Like those people are writers anyway. Just check out how much some of them post. For the love of God, how can you write novels when you've made over 10,000 posts in the past year? You can't unless you're receiving carpal tunnel treatments on a daily basis.
Oh, and then there are the thread topics. These are a real hit. I particularly liked "I got my first positive review on Amazon!" (Seriously, no one gives a shit). Another one is "I'm in the top sixty!" (Did you hear that? Yeah, that's the sound of no one caring). Periodically, I feel sorry for some of the people that try to navigate this morass of crap in the hopes of joining a true online writers' community. Yeah, that's like trying to swim with starving sharks.
Most frequent KB posters are nasty, insecure individuals that try to promote their writing prowess by denigrating others or by letting you know how many free books they've given away. Here's an example of a typical KB response to a question someone was asking about online promotions:
Q: "I'm having some trouble getting sales. Does anyone know of some good sites to promote ebooks?"
A: "I went to Goodreads! Just a few days of promoting and I got into the top 100!"
A: "If you're work is any good, you won't need to do much. If you gotta do a lot then you might as well give up."
Yeah, this is pretty typical on that pissing contest of a message board. The Angry Writer was pretty disgusted with the conduct of some the KB regulars (Note: the moderators are also slime). My opinion of writing groups aren't much better either. Most of those are dick-hanging contests too where each member tries to offer the most critical feedback to impress everyone else. Finding someone who will give you meaningful feedback is like striking gold. It rarely happens and is quite valuable when it does.
Meanwhile, the moral of the story is stay away from Kindle Boards, unless you want to see a bunch of insecure wannabes (Trust me, they are. Just try a sample or two of their books. Badly written crap is all I have to say).
