Attack of the ingrates continued

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

Blog About: 

Taxonomy upgrade extras: 

This lovely little attack on me at the FM Hyperboard.

*****

That's part of why I stopped posting free stories 3 years ago.

For me, this is exactly why posts on the Hyperboard to paid stories are not welcome, you have professed that you are no longer contributing to the community, but want us to follow your links and pay for your work.

All I want is the posts in the Hyperboard to stop. It's not right for *anyone* to come into a free community and essentially say "I'm not going to contribute to this community (anymore), but go to this site and pay me for what I could have otherwise contributed"

*****

It is persons like this who made me stop posting free stories. It is obvious to anyone I have stories posted at FM, Big Closet, Stardust, and Crystal's right this very minute. In fact there are only 9 authors who are contributing more than I at FM. This registered user has a grand total of 2 comments ever. What does that say? They have professed to not caring for my work. That's fine, but what about the authors they did like?

edit: link changed to match one given in first comment

Comments

that makes me sad

You stoped offering posting free stories because of people posting and offering their stories on pay sites?

It will not stop me and even if by some miracle my skills as a writer progress to the point that being a published writer is a real possibility, I still wouldn't do it. I want writing to remain a hobby of mine. Its fun. If it became a job, it would not be fun anymore and I would not be able to write what I wanted. Id have censures, agents and others telling me how and what to write for the publisher.

You misunderstood

I stopped posting new stories largely because of the complainers who never comment. They read author's free work, don't comment, but feel free to whine about the author not doing this or doing that etc etc.

Good luck with your writing.

Daniel, author of maid, whore, bimbo, and sissy free TG fiction since 2000

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.- Oscar Levant

Whining

Presumably you are referring to non-story related whining, because if they were whining about the story that would at least be some kind of feedback.

-
You can't choose your relatives but you can choose your family.

Yes

Whining about authors who promote their Amazon work.

Whining about authors who don't write the type of story they want. I haven't read a story in the last six hours about transgendered bimbo gerbils. One of you has to get going!

Whining about authors who write long stories

Whining about authors who write short stories

The list goes on.

Daniel, author of maid, whore, bimbo, and sissy free TG fiction since 2000

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.- Oscar Levant

Uhm...

I read FM before I came here. It is a different mindset, and I would suggest that is what the owners of this site have intended. The banner says it all, 'a friendly place etc.'

Several authors here have published their work for money. I am one of them. As I am not on the 'select' programme, I am not obliged to pull my free posts here. Clearly, I would love it if people would go and pay for my stuff. I would also be gratified for more feedback comments on Amazon; that is part of writing stuff that is offered for sale. Maddy, Tanya, Katie, Melanie, Nancy, we all do it.

On the other hand, I for one feel a duty of gratitude to the site and its members for allowing me to develop my style and any skills I have learnt. That is priceless. So when I read about situations such as you describe, I simply feel relieved not to be involved. As for the complaints about TYPE of story, well, there is surely enough to go around. I would never read your sort of tale, and I am sure mine would bore you, but that is a matter of personal taste. End of.

I'll be very blunt. I don't

I'll be very blunt.

I don't like much of the stories coming out of Fictionmania in the last year or two. There have been a few, and I'd love to give good feedback, but I'm sick of having to create a permanent registration for just about _anywhere_ I might want to give feedback, that I just don't bother. I must have three or four hundred different site registrations, most of which I'll probably never go back to - but I had to 'sign up' to perform a task. So unless forced, I don't register on sites anymore. A common site registration site might be nice to have, but the only people trying that are Microsoft's Passport, and they're too stupid to realize that people really _don't_ want to hand them even MORE ammunition.

I do try to give feedback here, especially if it's a very good story - or at least, a story that looks to have a lot of potential. I have too much stress in my life to be able to really contribute, unfortunately.

Fictionmania feedback? Until recently, I never saw a good way to leave feedback, so i mostly hoped they'd show up here.(I just looked again; it's been a long time, but there's a way to email authors and send feedback without an account - so some authors may start seeing feedback from me now and then)

Hyperboard? From what comments I've seen and heard, I'm not sure I ever want to really dig around it.

Paid stories? I don't have a problem with that. I _do_ have a mild problem with people pulling the stories that they'd given for free out _just_ to then try to get money for them. (If they're ticked off and just pulling them, that's something different) (It's even MORE irritating when I hit a story and all it says is "I yanked this story to try to make money *pbbthththt*")

I have less problem with those who say 'I'm going to try to put this story up for sale, so I'll have to remove it for at least a while' - giving at least a few days noticed so people can pull a copy. (Most of the time I don't - I just like the politeness) That's someone acknowledging that they did intend to give the story for free, but something is causing them to have to change things.

(Artie at asstr.org is one person I both understand and am pissed at/about for pulling stories. Lack of information and reasons is the reason for the pissed)

BW


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.

Registration

There is at least one standard, called OpenID, which can be used as a common registration. Google provides it, there are other sites providing it, and the best of it is that it is decentralised, so one can set up your server yourself.

OpenID support

erin's picture

Checking into it, I found that BigCloset already supports OpenID logins, the menu item just wasn't turned on. It is now. People can create their account here using their OpenID information instead of filling out the form with the same information all over again, thereby reducing how many usernames and passwords one has to remember. I'll leave this on for awhile to see if there is any problem with this feature.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I'd buy more paid stories if I knew where good ones were

Most of the paid stories I've found have been fetish stories, it seems. Those don't interest me at all. There are plenty of people of want that kind of thing - I'm just not one of them. I don't like eating curry, either, yet it's still popular.

It's hard to find stories I like other than in the free sections. I love Morpheus's stories the most out of pretty much anything out there, and would pay for his stories, but I've never seen anything like his stories at his quality level (besides grammar; he could use a second editor for technical editing =) ).

When I finally do find something, it's been very hard to determine whether some Amazon TG title about fairies by an unknown person that has no reviews is any good or a waste of time. This is why I'm reluctant to buy things.

I hope that this gives some insight. I'm not someone who is going to whine about your publishing choices, though. They're your stories. Also, people who complain about the content of a story (as opposed to the quality) ought to just go find another. That's what I do, a lot.

Kitty

me me me

I'd offer myself as a good author to buy. I don't write fetish. I have a ton of reviews. I am pretty cute on days that have a dipthong in it.

Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)

Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life

Ingrates??

Hmmm. If you're posting stories and expecting gratitude from readers, maybe you should reconsider. Your motivation should come from your writing, whatever pleasure or catharsis it provides you. No one is under any obligation to provide you with praise, and if they do, be appreciative of it.

You might also consider that some who have read your stories may not like them. The subject matter may not appeal, they may not like your writing style, or you might just be a bad writer. And maybe those people don't comment because they don't want to hurt your feelings or for any of a myriad of reasons.

I've noticed that the really good writers on this site (Morpheus, Penny Lane, Julia Phillips, among others) don't have to fish for comments or compliments. Just sayin'.

I'm not sure I'm following

I'm not sure I'm following how your reply is connected to the blog except in general terms. Daniel Thomas was not commenting about the lack of comments or praise for there story. They were blogging about negative responses to the post about their story being for sale somewhere. Since, as Daniel pointed out, they have posted a large number of stories to the site in question, it makes sense for notices of new stories that fans might like being sold somewhere. After all, where else are they going to find this information? There are plenty of authors that I would be overjoyed to learn had other stories that I could get somewhere, even if I have to pay.

Someone replying with a comment that amounts to "how dare you try to sale your stories, we should be getting them for free." can be viewed by some as ungrateful. I would call negative responses to the notice uncaring as well, since this poster wishes to stop these notices from getting to other readers, who might want the information, just because this poster is not interested in it.

I would also dispute the fact that posting stories online should only be for your own please. Each person is entitled to their own reason for posting online, and if that reason is because they enjoy praise, that is up to them, though this being the internet they should be prepared for the chances of negative comments as well as no feedback at all. And while I agree that no one is obliged to provide praise or any kind of feedback, gratitude for someone offering free entertainment seems ethically appropriate. It would amount to someone complaining negatively that the free food that is being provided with no obligation isn't to their tastes. It is free food, you can take it or leave it as you see fit. Unless the comments are meant to advice other about the food, or offer advice on how to make it better to the chefs, such comments meet the very definition of ingratitude.

I do not believe your comment about fishing for compliments is apropos to this discussion or Daniel Thomas original post.

Thank you,

First, I don't care if the OP

First, I don't care if the OP sells his stories nor do I care if he advertises that his stories are for sale, as long as such meets the accepted standards where he posts.

When an author contributes a story, they're scratching their own creative itch. They're not being paid, nor is the story directly solicited by the site where the author chooses to post it. There are authors here from whom I'm always happy to see a story, and others I'll avoid like the plague. As you said, "It is free food, you can take it or leave it as you see fit." However, I don't need to be grateful for a story I won't read nor ask for.

Posting online is a risky thing if you'd rather not receive criticism. There are people who may have an honest disagreement with you and/or your writing, and some of those people may not be tactful; and there are trolls who will flame you for the joy of watching you burn. It is what it is.

Lastly, calling people 'ingrates' implies that gratitude is due; not just due, but expected. It is not. Again with the analogy, if I set out some merchandise on the on the sidewalk with a sign saying 'FREE', do the passersby who don't partake owe me their gratitude?

I don't think of ingratitude

I don't think of ingratitude and gratitude as working the same way. I have always felt that being both a ingrate and a grateful person, (Is there a word for a person who is grateful the same way there is ingrate? I can't think of one. *thinking goes off on a tangent about what it means about humanity, or at least the English speaking part of it, that we have a name for someone that is ungrateful but we don't seem to have a name for a person who shows gratitude.*) have the prerequisite that the person be engaged with whatever they are being grateful/ungrateful about.

To take your example, a person passing by the free merchandise on the street and ignoring it is not being ungrateful or grateful, (at least that's my opinion) it's only when a person stops and interacts with the situation that either characteristic would apply. If you stop and take something and say thank you to the person giving it away, you are showing gratitude. If a person stops and starts pawing though the merchandise all the while saying how bad it is, then either takes some or leaves it, they might be showing ingratitude.

Of course it's more complicated than that. (most things I've found turn out to be) The above example only talks about showing those characteristics, not if the person actual has it or not. A person could take a item, saying nothing at all, but what they are thinking or feeling makes a big difference. You can also have the person who stops and seems to complain about the merchandise but if they are simple stating the truth, it might not be a sign of ingratitude. And of course you can have the "free" stuff actually coming at a cost of something other than the anticipated, space on the sidewalk, junk on the side of the road that makes their neighborhood look bad, etc.

All this reminds me of the 'money offer game' (I don't remember what it was really called) where one person is given $10 and they have to split it anyway they like with another person. That person can either accept the offer and both people get to keep the money, or the can reject and and no one get's any money. I don't remember the exact result they found, but a good number of people who were given low offers ($1 to you, $9 for me) refused the money, even though the act deprived them of money they didn't have before, thus "hurting" them.

Another interesting finding was some differences that had been noted between cultures. In Asia (I don't remember which parts) if a person is given too generous an offer, ($9 to you, $1 for me) they might refuse, having been insulted (I think that's the reason they came to) by the act. This reaction was much more rare in America.

...uh, I seem to have gone off on a tangent, sorry. :P

Anyways I guess we just have different opinions on what gratitude/ingratitude is and to which situations it applies. We'll probably just have to agree to disagree on the subject, but that's alright, what fun would the world be if everyone thought the same way? :)

Oh, yeah...

Submitted by Landing on Thu, 2014/05/29 - 8:40pm.

I'm not sure I'm following how your reply is connected to the blog except in general terms. Daniel Thomas was not commenting about the lack of comments or praise for there story. They were blogging about negative responses to the post about their story being for sale somewhere.
--------------------------------

Okay....

Submitted by Daniel Thomas on Wed, 2014/05/28 - 11:32am.

I stopped posting new stories largely because of the complainers who never comment. They read author's free work, don't comment, but feel free to whine about the author not doing this or doing that etc etc.
--------------------------------

I guess my reply was related to the blog in more than general terms.

Maybe its just me, but

Frank's picture

I don't get why this is a BC issue/problem. Why complain here about something that is happening on FM? This is the second blog about your unhappiness over someone at FM. No one here is getting on your case about selling stories. If someone on here attacked you for posting about a book on Amazon, we would get rid of the offending post.

I guess I understand why you stopped posting free stories three years ago, but I don't understand why you bring it up again. No one here is demanding you resume posting free stories instead of Kindle.

Thanks for the ones you have posted, and good luck with your Amazon career/sales. :)

{{Hugs}}

Hugs

Frank

No

It's not just you, Frank. Your summary is spot on. I have already said here why I stay in this place.