Has anyone else's work attracted trolls?

[E.M.DuBois]

Anyone want to hear something funny? While I was marketing my novel across Twitter, someone took issue with me. Not because of the grammatical and spelling errors in my novel, or even the subject matter of my story. “She” took issue with my name. And not even that it’s the same as an author of erotica who is also on Twitter, or anything else connected to writing or authorship. But because of the fact I capitalized both the D and the B in my name, she said I was impersonating royalty.

I kinda liked the troll. I mean, my novel hasn’t sold a single copy yet, and I’ve already got haters. I thought that’s only happen if I made it big. Isn’t that when others are supposed to feel resentful of my accomplishment? I find this encouraging, personally. Instead of going after my story or my amateur writing-voice, she went after me personally.

I understand not many of you may agree with my feelings, and might chastise me for giving this troll the time of day, and bad-press isn’t what publishing is about, and success shouldn't be admired or measure by the amount of "haters" one lures. (My mom gave me somewhat the same lecture when she showed me how to sign-up for a roleplaying site she had joined over a decade before, and I had gotten into a competition about who knew more about Star Wars force-lightning.)

Please share your stories with me. Anyone else on here felt backlash of any kind for publishing your work? What did you do to overcome it, if it was worth overcoming instead of outright ignoring? Or maybe you just want to give me the same lecture as my mother did years ago, that’s fine, too.

[E.M.DuBois]

And it's only now I realize I should have posted this in "Writer's Corner." My bad, guys.

[darryl]

You need a thick skin. Twitter particularly is full of trolls. Not of course that they are exactly rare everywhere else. I haven't read the exchange, but from what you posted perhaps she is not a troll but simply a pedant.

You can't please everyone, and shouldn't try to. Some may love the very aspects of your work that others hate. Just don't take it to heart and try to distinguish any constructive criticism which you should consider from the rest which should just be background noise. Having said that it doesn't look like this particular twitter er had anything genuinely useful to say. I have no idea if what she said is true, and am not interested enough to look it up. If so, the only relevance is the somewhat amusing fact that what may have cost you your head in the past is now completely irrelevant.

[HarryT]

Moved to the Writers' Corner.

[JustinThought]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Anyone want to hear something funny? While I was marketing my novel across Twitter, someone took issue with me. Not because of the grammatical and spelling errors in my novel, or even the subject matter of my story.

//snip!//

I kind of look at it as, some people hate themselves, so they externalize it by hating everyone (and everything) else.

I don't usually give these people a second thought. And I've been on the internet long enough, I just kind of have a built-in filter.

[crich70]

I remember (yrs ago) I was in an email based Flash Fiction workshop and one of the other members was unpleasant. The other guy exhibited 'troll like' behavior of some sort (I can't recall the details) and he met a troll worthy fate by being banned from the group. As others have said you need a thick skin at times and most trolls are eventually hoist on their own petards in the end.

[E.M.DuBois]

Originally Posted by darryl

You need a thick skin. Twitter particularly is full of trolls. Not of course that they are exactly rare everywhere else. I haven't read the exchange, but from what you posted perhaps she is not a troll but simply a pedant.

Alright, I'll admit I left out a few key details for the sake of keeping my post short. Here are a few things to clear up her personality: she said that I'm a peasant and my family had betrayed France generations ago, and I have no right to capitalize the B in my name. Clear up the notion that she was anything other than a troll? Of course, when asked for proof of the "research" she said she did, she offered nothing but insults.

And trust me, I know all about thick skin. One ting I've noticed about Twitter is that 140 characters is not enough to express the most significant of thoughts.

[darryl]

You've cleared that up. Sounds like a Troll to me.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Alright, I'll admit I left out a few key details for the sake of keeping my post short. Here are a few things to clear up her personality: she said that I'm a peasant and my family had betrayed France generations ago, and I have no right to capitalize the B in my name. Clear up the notion that she was anything other than a troll? Of course, when asked for proof of the "research" she said she did, she offered nothing but insults.

And trust me, I know all about thick skin. One ting I've noticed about Twitter is that 140 characters is not enough to express the most significant of thoughts.

One ting you gotta have is thick skin.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Anyone want to hear something funny? While I was marketing my novel across Twitter, someone took issue with me. Not because of the grammatical and spelling errors in my novel, or even the subject matter of my story. “She” took issue with my name.

What others said - pay no attention to that sort of thing.

On a tangent, though, I strongly encourage you to have both your book and your online writing properly edited. (Copy-edited at a bare minimum; and if you haven't had a copy-edit, I'm guessing you haven't had any other kind of editing either.)

The front page of your blog has at least one glaring grammatical error, and there's a, well, catastrophic spelling error on the front page of your book preview ("copywrite"). That's how you advertise yourself as an indie writer - and, just speaking for myself here, I wouldn't go past that. It's like turning up for an office job interview in torn jeans and flip-flops.

Not trolling: genuine advice.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meeera

On a tangent, though, I strongly encourage you to have both your book and your online writing properly edited. (Copy-edited at a bare minimum; and if you haven't had a copy-edit, I'm guessing you haven't had any other kind of editing either.)

The front page of your blog has at least one glaring grammatical error, and there's a, well, catastrophic spelling error on the front page of your book preview ("copywrite"). That's how you advertise yourself as an indie writer - and, just speaking for myself here, I wouldn't go past that. It's like turning up for an office job interview in torn jeans and flip-flops.

Not trolling: genuine advice.

Definitely. Spell-checking is no substitute for editing. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and the impression at the moment is, unfortunately, one of "I can't be bothered to take the time to get it right", to which my response is "... so I can't be bothered to read it".

[BookCat]

I had a strange experience recently. I have a youtube channel where my username is 'muskndusk'. A few nights ago, I was idly googling muskndusk (after doing a search for my real name) and came across several sites which had pirated my videos. The muskndusk name was credited, and they had the vids available as downloads, either as mp4 or mp3. Success! Thinks me. I've made it! I doubt that any site would pirate something they thought no one would want. I felt really happy about this.
On the other hand I've had some youtube trolls who can get quite nasty and I stick to this motto: Don't Feed The Trolls. I delete the comment and block the user, then think no more about it.
The exception to this was a troll who said I was a man in drag. After dealing with her (delete and block) I asked a few friends if I looked like a man in drag, every one of them said no, but they would, wouldn't they?

[arjaybe]

I wish I had trolls. I feel left out.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I wish I had trolls. I feel left out.

So what are you? A jay bird who wants to be a writer? With a name like that, no wonder!

(Was that OK? This is my first trolling post. Please be kind in your criticism.)

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

So what are you? A jay bird who wants to be a writer? With a name like that, no wonder!

(Was that OK? This is my first trolling post. Please be kind in your criticism.)

I'd warn you to be careful or they'll sic the moderator on you, but well you know..