See, there's this author who is about 7 months younger than a certain insane duck lady. \u00a0You may have heard of her - her name is Erika Leonard. \u00a0Okay, most likely you know her by her pen name -- E.L. James. \u00a0She wrote a little ole book trilogy that a couple of (Million? \u00a0Hundreds of Million?) people have read. \u00a0The trilogy? \u00a0Yes, that one - \"Fifty Shades of Grey.\"<\/p>\n
To me, it sounds like all the hulla-boogby- balloo caused by the bombshell effect of these books has had the same effect on the life of the author - catapulting Ms. James past fame and right into infamy. \u00a0 It must be a hell of a thing to deal with, particularly for someone who wasn't out chasing fame. \u00a0One day, a little later in life than some others, Erika Leonard sat down at a computer and started writing a book. \u00a0I get that - I totally get that. \u00a0I, too, did all sorts of other writing before I (finally) sat down at a keyboard and wrote my first book. \u00a0\"Brotherly Love<\/a>\" didn't catapult me into fame, fortune or infamy. \u00a0It was the first book I wrote and it quietly convinced me that I wanted to write others - and so I did.<\/p>\n I'm not sure what would have happened if \"Brotherly Love\" had hit the publishing world with even one-thousandth of the impact of \"Fifty Shades.\" \u00a0I hope I would still have written more. \u00a0I hope that I would still be writing. \u00a0I hope - but I don't know. \u00a0Think about it. \u00a0Imagine it for a moment. \u00a0You write a trilogy that becomes the \"E.T.\"<\/a> of the romance genre. It's not a book that's shoved down readers' throats by a massive publicity campaign. \u00a0It's a book that becomes a phenomenon because readers discover it on their own and they turn it into a phenomenon. \u00a0Some readers love it and others hate it but very, very few who've read it are unaffected. \u00a0The initial discovery and your growing sales numbers at first delight you -- but then -- the numbers keep growing and growing. \u00a0Those sales ramp up the discovery factor and soon the media takes notice. \u00a0And you wake up one day to find you can't remain happily in seclusion behind your keyboard any longer. \u00a0You can't because you're \"it\" and your it-ness changes the way everyone looks at you and thinks of you.<\/p>\n And you know -- you bloody well know - <\/em> that the next time you sit down at a keyboard you're expected to produce more than just your next book. \u00a0You're\u00a0\u00a0expected to produce a next book that will do better than that trilogy. \u00a0I'd love my trilogy - I love all my work - but I think I'd grow to resent it a little too. \u00a0In a way, the trilogy would become a great golden albatross or perhaps a snipe that I never meant to chase.<\/p>\n Suddenly, then, the world expects that trilogy author to morph into a cross between the late Princess Diana and the late Margaret Thatcher. \u00a0And all I'd want to be would be the same insane duck lady that I've always been. \u00a0What else could I be but me? \u00a0I don't want to be anyone else - and I'll bet Erika Leonard doesn't either. \u00a0I wonder if she ever resents her E.L. James persona? \u00a0Erika can be whoever and whatever she chooses - but she must now do it within that bubble of fame, bearing the vast weight of those expectations. \u00a0No matter what she does or how she does it, she'll always give some people reason to find fault. \u00a0IMHO, the world is far too full of folks who aren't happy unless they're finding fault with someone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What prompted me to imagine myself if Ms. James' shoes, is the controversy that erupted when the author traveled to Kansas City, Kansas this week for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention<\/a>. \u00a0Apparently, Ms. James wasn't even there \"officially.\" \u00a0She was there to support a friend, author Abbi Glines. \u00a0It sounds like a good deed, right? \u00a0And we all know that no good deed goes unpunished. \u00a0Because she was there for a friend, Ms. James registered \"under a different name\" according to reports<\/a>. \u00a0(I wonder if she had the nerve to actually register under her given name? Imagine - the daring of assuming she's entitled to retain her identity!)<\/p>\n Smart Bitches says:<\/a><\/p>\n James identified herself as the YA panel was discussing\u00a050 Shades of Grey<\/em>, self publishing and New Adult, and the correlations between them. James stood to identify herself, and corrected the suggestion that it was self published. Any reports of flouncing, pearl clutching, table throwing, ninja turtles, archery tournaments, Gallagher-esque watermelon smashing, fist fights, and wild west showdowns are false. She didn't tell people to stop talking about her book, from what my sources tell me***. She identified herself and corrected an inaccuracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ms. James corrected my impression - I'd also thought that \"Fifty Shades\" was first self-published. \u00a0It was first published<\/a> online on a Twilight fan fiction site and was titled \"Master of the Universe\" and Ms. James called herself \"Snowqueen's Icedragon.\" \u00a0After fan comments about all the sex, Ms. James took it down from the fan fiction site and published it on her website. \u00a0Later, she re-wrote it as a fully original work of fiction and published it as an e-book and POD paperback via \u00a0an Australian virtual publisher, The Writer's Coffee Shop. \u00a0It went on to be picked up and published by one of the bigs - Vintage Books, a division of Random House.<\/p>\n I suppose it's that mixed history - the chain of incarnations - that make me think of \"Fifty Shades\" as self published. \u00a0In its first incarnation - as fan fiction on a Twilight fan site - it was self published. \u00a0Yet, later, it was removed to the author's on site before it was taken down, re-written and published through an Aussie virtual publisher. \u00a0My work is self-published. \u00a0These days, some of the biggest names in the biz are electing to publish their own books - keeping all the control and all the money. \u00a0But back in the olden days (6 months to a year ago) - being self published did carry a certain 'taint'. \u00a0If one could claim either conventionally published or self published - well, no contest. \u00a0While those days are largely a distant memory, it is likely that Ms. James still recalls the 'taint' and prefers to shun it - which is a shame, really. \u00a0 A conventionally published book going on to sell big numbers speaks largely to the talents of the editors, publicists, artists and distribution folks at the publishing company. \u00a0When a self-published book grows into a phenomenon - well, that's due to the talents of the author in writing, promoting, designing, distributing - it's all on the author. \u00a0(Except in my case, where any modest success could be due to Mr. Duck's skizzels at graphic design - book covers, websites and all). \u00a0But there's no big company - if you're \"indie\" or \"self published\" then your success or failure is yours. <\/em><\/p>\n As for the \"stop talking about my book<\/a>\" comment, \u00a0if Ms. James said it, I have to believe it was out of that resentment I was talking about before. \u00a0I get that. \u00a0I also get that the easiest image most of us have is of a watermark of fingers without end poised over the buy button superimposed of a photo of Brinks' trucks backing up every hour to Case de Leonard (James) to drop off another load of money. \u00a0I understand that can lead to a certain amount of jealousy - but still. \u00a0The Tweets cited by Smart Bitches -- and the comments left at their site - smack of a rich vein of something much, much uglier. \u00a0To all of those folks I say - try, try, for a minute to push aside that picture of the mountain of money that's not at your house, and imagine yourself in Ms. James' shoes for a moment.<\/p>\n It's not all \"champagne wishes and caviar dreams\" folks - no matter what Regis might say. \u00a0There's stress. \u00a0There has to be a mountain of stress that ranges as high - or even higher - than that mountain of cash. \u00a0And Erika Leonard is not a modern-day blend of Princess Di and Margaret Thatcher. \u00a0She's the same lady who sat down at that keyboard the first day and dared to type that first word. \u00a0So - let's give her some consideration, some space and yes - some respect. \u00a0She knocked it out of the park on her first try -- maybe we can even cheer for that accomplishment.<\/p>\n To Ms. Leonard\/James I'd say - \u00a0acknowledge the caterpillar, thank the cocoon and celebrate the butterfly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" See, there's this author who is about 7 months younger than a certain insane duck lady. \u00a0You may have heard of her - her name is Erika Leonard. \u00a0Okay, most likely you know her by her pen name -- E.L. James. \u00a0She wrote a little ole book trilogy that a couple of (Million? \u00a0Hundreds of ...continue reading \"E.L. James – Fifty Shades of Controversy\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3199,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions\/3199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}