Hi everyone!
Creating this post since I’m fairly new to the community and I wanted to shine some light in the unfortunate things I’ve come across when meeting other authors, especially those who are bigger. I wanted to know if anyone has had an experience when they’ve gone above and beyond showing someone with support and love as a fan, and then the same author they’ve been praising turns around and treats them terribly.
I unfortunately experienced this recently as there is an author who considers themselves small, however has over 10,000 reads who I admired dearly. When this author followed me on IG it truly meant a lot to me. I told this author over and over how much I loved and admired them and how talented they were, how I loved their story and at first they seeemed really nice, but then this same author later revealed they were doing reviews, so I submitted a request for one since I was excited that they’d read my story and this person turned around and posted the review with not much of anything good to say.
When I talked to them about it they said they’d change it, said they were glad I spoke to me and worked it out, however later on that same author turned around and unfollowed me. It hurt me cause there was even a moment when this person came up with a hashtag that people were questioning and I took it upon myself to speak on their behalf and defend them.
When I noticed the unfollow, I thought to myself how could you do that to someone who claims their such a big fan and admire you, so I got a little in my feelings and unfollowed them as well lol l, then this person turned around and blocked me…this actually had me in tears…I guess maybe because I’m sensitive and I never thought that an author would actually do that to someone whose had nothing but love and respect for them.
I say this because there are many of the bigger authors who’ve unfortunately seemed to develop an ego as if they weren’t once considered small or smaller themselves when they’ve first started out. Sometimes this experience makes me a little insecure when it comes to promoting and talking to other people in this community.
This community seems to be filled with people who don’t try to look out for each other or only look out for the ones they consider to be “on the same level as them.” So I wanted to ask where is the unity?
Luckily, I’ve meant several authors, way, way bigger than me, with over 100,000 reads who are humble and down-to-earth. I wish as a community from the bigger authors to the smaller, we could all help each other and be kind. Has anyone had an experience such as this? Care to share?