Rude authors... do you still read their work?

Inspired by the thread about readers leaving rude fan mail, I’ve seen authors being rude or obnoxious to their readers too. Have you come across this and does it affect whether you read their stories?

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Yup. Any other who comes across rude, mean, and/or problematic to me and my friends, I completely stop reading their stories and stop supporting them with zero remorse :relieved:

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I dont read the fanmail or the follow them. reading is about the story not the author. though I did stop read a story with one who I did r4r with because she ghosted me, which suck because it was a good story

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I don’t like to read from rude authors. Their story has to be really good to make me continue to read.

I understand sometimes the questions readers ask can be annoying and tiresome… but they’re your readers. They support you and just happen to be curious about the story. There’s no reason to be rude to them!

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There have actually been a few authors that I full stopped reading their stories and refuse to read anything else by them who were rude, mean, hateful, or bashing readers or other authors. I don’t care if you have a million reads, it doesn’t give you the right to treat others like crap. There are also ways to handle rude readers or other authors. You don’t have to call them out publicly or bash them.

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I want to say yes, because there’s a lot of stories I’ve quit cold turkey after seeing another side of an author I once respected… But truthfully I can’t always just give up on a story I’m already reading.

For example… One particular author who had a lot of readers asking her for updates in her fanmail, was replying was swear words and cussing them out to the max and I kept reading the story of hers that I was reading because I was in way too deep to give it up. But I avoid reading all her other stories after seeing that’s how she was treating fans.

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I don’t have Instagram nor do I read fanmail lol, so I’ve got no idea whether an author is rude unless they include that in their actual chapter. Their personality would probably affect the way I see their work, though, so if I knew that an author was a bitch, I’d be reading their stuff with that in the back of my mind. So it had better be good enough to drown out the background thoughts. “Support” from me doesn’t mean much anyway, I don’t do anything except read it once, and maybe put it on the recs list if it’s good, occasionally make those fake gem choices if they actually get me something. :woman_shrugging: I don’t really feel like I’m encouraging the behaviour by reading.

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If it’s a one-time thing, like they become overwhelmed with everyone asking the same questions and they snap, probably not, but if it’s their general attitude and they make rude posts on Instagram or the forums, then most likely, yes. Especially if they aren’t just borderline rude, but nasty, vulgar, and insulting as well.

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I am reading if author is mean or not!

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i go into the fanmail and debate whether or not i read it

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Hmmm if their stories get too boring for me then of course I would stop reading. There are certain authors that can be awfully unpleasant these days or say some really stupid things. Not sure about rudeness because I can be very rude at times. Especially when certain people won’t get off my back!

But I understand why authors can get rude if certain people pester them about when is the next update and all that. Writing a story isn’t a walk in the park! People need to realise that authors have a life too. Plus, advanced directing takes a lot of time so it’s not necessary of people to pester authors in the fanmail or PM.

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I only know this one author that was so, SO rude to her readers. Her most popular story had mostly minor readers (and she knew it, i mean she said it herself) yet it never seemed to stop her to cuss at them in her fanmail and IG comments.

I was never much into OC stories but I was reading hers because it was really good, but she was so gross, I just had to stop. And I don’t regret it at all.

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I mean it depends, on some cases I have full on stopped reading authors stories due to their problematic and un-remorseful selves. But in other cases I still may read stories if it interests me

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I’ve come across two.
Fortunately for them their stories were good. I continued to read their stories despite their rudeness.

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of course, you can usually tell in their writing anyways tho

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It sort of depends. I mean, as an author I completely understand the frustration with certain fanmail. I’ve had to turn my own off in the past because I started getting really snarky lol and I didn’t want to embarrass myself :sweat_smile:
So I completely understand why an author might come across as rude if they’re continuously getting the same questions. Also, sometimes fanmail is rude itself yet people expect authors to respond nicely. I snapped on another app and the person who left the rude fanmail then came back with a bunch of insults telling me they’d never read my stories again lol.

But if they’re consistently rude not just on fanmail but also on social media and are coming across as a major twat? Then… well it kind of depends. If I’m already reading their story and enjoy it, I’ll probably finish it, but I might not read their future stories.

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No. And thts hard to do because my reading list is so low and its rare I like a story but still >->

Idc how good ur work is u dont treat people like that. Its hurtful and you dont put passive agressions in ur work directed at ur readers either(ive seen tht done a lot by ppl)

I think it depends a lot on situation. Am I going to stop reading a story because an author got a bit snippy in the fanmail to someone being rude? Probably not. I mean, I’ve started getting fanmail about updates and glitches (nothing super rude, though!) and I can definitely see how having to deal with that constantly would get extremely annoying after a while.

Am I going to stop if they call someone out (anonymously) for sending rude fanmail/dms? Also, probably not. Though, to be honest, I always find this a bit weird, though it might just be that I’m awkward and really can’t imagine calling someone out (even with their username blacked out). Though, I can’t say I never would because I have yet to deal with some of the stuff I’ve seen other authors deal with.

However, there are some people whose stories I don’t really have a desire to read anyway (like a bigger author who I’ve seen not be very nice to people and who also blocked me on Instagram in spite of the fact I’m 99% sure I’ve had no interactions with her :sweat_smile:).
There have been other authors who I just don’t agree with whose stories I’ve tried, though. I think at the end of the day there’s a certain point where I need to separate art from artist, but only to a certain extent.

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Would you continue to read if the authors are unnecessarily rude and snippy though? To innocent questions - not the repeated kind like ‘will you continue this story?’, ‘when will you update?’, or to constructive criticism.

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It would probably depend on how invested I was in a story. How “problematic” an author is is subjective. Luckily, I’m new enough as far as discovering a lot of authors/I’ve read back enough on forum topics that I already have a general idea of who to avoid.

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