Hi Elizabeth! Thanks for your comment. I think there is a wonderful place for activism on social media. But while an immediate angry response may temporarily inflame, I do believe a reasoned response has more power to influence. Our emotions tell us a boundary has been crossed; our intellect adds the logic and context that can shut down objection.

I want to say, though, that anger on social media can be a good thing sometimes, just not in regards to your writing. I'm involved with groups who are upset about racism, sexism, and homophobia in literature. We say angry things about the lack of diversity and representation. It's something that our followers appreciate about us: that we're publicly upset and are working for change. I do post positive stuff ("___ book has great representation of ___!") but sometimes you need to voice the crap that goes on too.

I think folk don't realize how they sound on social media. They're so hungry for attention that they forget they're on a party line instead of just speaking to a best friend. At least that's how it seems to me, and I always want to pick up the phone extension to suggest those thoughts would be better voiced in private. Or not at all. (Of course, you young things may not remember party lines. My grandmother was on one when I was a girl--she always spoke very carefully when calling someone.)

I read one post in which the woman said she wanted to be "real" and so wasn't going to talk about how happy and upbeat she felt. She'd decided to tell the "truth." Truth is a fine thing, but I'm not sure she realized she was plastering her words across a billboard for those who didn't know her and couldn't relate to her issues. And what were they likely to remember if they saw her name on a book? Not her happy moments, certainly.

Sarah, I love that laughter works for you. My husband is my own personal medicine man: he can always make me laugh at myself, which is invariably healing when I start to take myself (or what others think) too seriously.

Amen.

Hi Donna, I read your post and you have some good advice there. Your chances of a great review by any reader are also increased if title, cover, back jacket copy, and opening all situate your project recognizably within your genre and therefore beckon just the right reader to it. Still, not everyone will appreciate what you've done. This is as it should be in the land of the free!

I know that I wrote the book I loved and I'm happy to have many more good reviews than bad. And I also know that a book is such a personal experience and we all bring our own experience to reading it - which means every single person will have a different reaction to it: good or bad. What I DO try to do is find best-fit reviewers which means finding those folks who may like my book based on their tastes. I wrote a post on how to do that here: http://www.straightfromtheauthorsmouth.blogspot.com/2014/08/straight-from-mouth-of-hidden-element.html

Good luck getting good reviews and laughing off the bad ones!

I'm glad you've found what works for you, Sarah, and I'm sure the suggestion would work for many. I think learning how to rebalance our inner gyroscope it's one of the most personal and important explorations we make in our lives, and we owe it to all the others we interact with to figure it out.