What does a bad review have to do with a racist statement? Bear with me here. Sometimes putting the first in a series for free helps garner interest for the rest of the series. But a very experienced author friend of mine once told me she was done making her books cheap. She said every time she did a .99 book, the bad reviews came in. Honestly, it does seem like the cheaper books get the bad reviews, almost like it’s a different type of reader. I just don’t know. But a review I got for Club Blood (which is free in the month of July) on Smashwords made me rethink ever putting my books for free during these Smashwords sales anymore.
Here’s the thing…Club Blood is definitely not my best work. It was the second thing I ever published and the first vampire novella I did. I imagine there are way too many “thats” in the manuscript. But it’s at least good enough that I like to go back and read it from time to time. And I don’t get upset by one star reviews anymore. I see very, very good books get those. But what really ticked me off, no I guess it hurt me, was that the reviewer said I made a racist statement. I’m about as far from a racist as anyone can get. I’m so tired of everyone having to be “politically correct” instead of just being humans. This thing with Paula Deen really brought that all to a head. Do I think she should have used the “N” word? Absolutely not. My kids were raised to believe that it was a bad word just like any other word I didn’t want them to use. But Paula Deen said this a long time ago. And there are people of ALL races defending her, so that makes me feel a little better about the whole thing. Anyway, I digress. This is what the reviewer said about my “racist” statement. “The author managed to throw in the racist statement that the pizza must be good as the restaurant was owned by Italians.” This made me want to cry. Seriously. Is it an insult to Italians to say they make GOOD PIZZA??? That’s like saying it’s an insult to me because I make a good burger. Wait, are burgers American or did they originate somewhere else? I better be careful! Grrrr. If a restaurant advertises that their pizza is “authentic Italian”, is that racist? It would be okay for me to say a pizza sucked because it was made by Americans, but not okay to say it was good because it was made by Italians, right? I thought it was actually a COMPLIMENT, not a racial slur. I bet if I was in Italy, it would be fine to say their pizza was good because it was authentic Italian. No, it’s here in the US where we have to watch every little thing we say in case someone takes it wrong. I’m SO tired of this. Can’t we just be people who all get along with each other and know that we won’t always be perfect and say the perfect thing? Why can’t people love instead of hate? Can’t we all understand the world would be so much better and easier if we all loved each other? That doesn’t mean we all would agree on everything. It doesn’t mean there would be no contention. But we could disagree and still love each other. I guess as long as there is evil in the world, that will never happen. Fighting and killing have been going on for as long as the world has been here. There was murder in the first family when Cain killed Abel. And we never learn. /end of rant
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