Readers, Authors, Fans

Two great blogs about the relationship between author and reader floated across my screen today:

• The first by the always brilliant John Scalzi – How to Be a Good Fan
• The second by Brenna Clarke Gray over at BookRiot – Readers Don’t Owe Authors Sh*t

For my part I’ve not been doing this long enough, and haven’t quite the volume of feedback to have a sense of my relationship with those fans I have. As an author, all I can say thus far is that I get a few nice comments and emails on this blog, Twitter and Facebook every now and then, and my interactions with those commenters always make my day that bit nicer.

As a fan, of all sorts of stuff – I am basically fannish, I have the fan gene, I fan therefore I am – I just try not to be a dick. I mean, I went to watch them film Doctor Who the other day; didn’t vault the barrier, shout out to get the actors’ attention, or refuse to put away my camera when I was asked nicely. I don’t go up to famous people on the street if I recognise them, figuring that they’re on their own time – and working where I do, I regularly pass very famous folk on my wanderings, some of whom I really would like to get an autograph from. But at conventions I reckon they’re on duty, so to speak, and have been known to go and introduce myself and diffidently fawn a bit.

Most regularly, though, I’ll tweet something nice at an author, musician or what-have-you when I’m feeling in the mood – having received a few nice random stranger-tweets myself I know how nice it is, so I try to pay it forward.