Congratulations on meeting Dean Koontz. I used to have quite a few of his books.

I remember one time seeing a famous quarterback out for dinner at a local restaurant during training camp. A young boy was thrilled and wanted to run over and see him and get his autograph. HIs father convinced him to wait and not bother him while he was eating. Finally they finished their meal and the father told his son he could go see the QB. Unfortunately as the kid walked up, the QB said “out of my way kid, we’re leaving” and walked around the kid and out the door. I still think of that kid’s face whenever I hear the word “crestfallen”.

Congratulations on meeting Dean Koontz. I’ve enjoyed several of his books.

I know of several people who have more than one Twitter account. Typically one is used almost exclusively for publicity and self promotion. Then they use a second account for interacting with people.

I am humbled and honored. And after all these years, I do remember the mirror story and still gives me a laugh.

Jim

Jane, I think you have a point there. The likability of those authors got you to give their books a chance, even though they’re not your usual cuppa. And even though this time you ended up not finding a new “auto-buy” author or genre, next time, you just might discover a wonderful surprise that you didn’t expect. 🙂

There have been a few authors that I’ve dropped over the years because either they didn’t click with me at personal meetings, or I discovered something about the author that I found personally disappointing. In some cases, not enough to make me stop reading quality stories, but enough to make me take them off an autobuy list, or skip some of their work. In a few cases, I started to see some themes in the author’s fiction that I hadn’t noticed before, but that extra context brought them to light. It changed the way I felt about both the author and the story in those cases, and it made me a little sad.

Conversely, there *have* been authors I’ve picked up just because they share something in common with me that may have nothing to do with their fiction. But even then, some of that compatible mindset shows up in the stories, because the stories touch on elements that I respond to as well.

As for actors, there are some whose personal lives overshadow their skill in roles no matter how good of an actor they are, and others whose acting skills make me pity the wreck of their personal lives.

Most of the time, I’m totally okay with not knowing anything about an author. If I like a book well enough, I’ll go seek out that author and find out more, but I kind of like not knowing, so that the work can be judged on its own merit. I’m also aware that as a writer, when I buy a book, I’m both looking for something good to read *and* making a conscious decision to support a fellow author, so my purchase is colored by that, which maybe skews my responses.

Will I buy something made by a complete a**hole? nope, I would avoid it simply on principle.

There is nothing worse than following someone on Twitter to get spam DM’s sent to you, even if they are genuine… it can actually put me off from the get-go.

Getting a “buy my book”, “check out my blog” the second that you connect with someone is an epic fail that will immediately set a bad tone.

I wish you had a comparison photo to the HALO image, sounds like quite the sight.

Your story about the comedian kind of reminds me of Eminem’s song, Stan, but is the truth for a large number of celebrities. One bad experience can put us off anybody for life, and the same can apply to social media, signings, performances (Charlie Sheen, anyone?), and beyond.

I have bought books that I would otherwise never buy because I like the author, but I have experienced the opposite in return every now and then. There are times that you build a relationship with people and they don’t reciprocate.

There is something profound which was said to me a long time ago; You can spend weeks, months, years, even a lifetime to gain the respect of others… but it only takes an instant to lose it all.

@peterkoevari