I’m not a big user of most social media apps, but I did settle into Twitter back in 2016, primarily to connect with other independent authors. To this day, I find the community exceptionally supportive and positive – an anomaly, but that’s another story for another day. From that time, I managed to follow and be followed by a few thousand authors. While it’s nearly impossible to interact with all of them, I do take some time to scroll through the feeds and give a like to some of their posts. Of course, as many of you can relate, there are nested spheres of people whom you end up interacting with more and more. Those individuals end up on my timeline more frequently and that provides me with a window for more detailed interactions.

Over the years, I’ve been very supportive of my fellow authors, anything from liking posts as a way to support their announced words per day accomplishments, to retweeting their new book releases along with signing and/or media events, to congratulating them on a host of milestones such as signing with a publisher or releasing a new book. In all cases, I know how important it is to receive encouragement at every stage of the process. Being an author can be extremely frustrating and your ego will take quite a bashing from time to time.

And that brings me to this little rant. When I decided to publish my first book, I took a very practical view of my life at that time. I had to consider exactly what I wanted to put into – and get out of – this endeavor. Given my phase of life (56 at the time) and the fact that my primary motivation is to share my tales in the hopes that they might brighten someone’s day (meaning, definitely not doing it for the money), I opted to become an independent author and investigated the options.

I’m not going to delve into my past research into independent publishing as it was a very different world back in the day, filled with shady characters. However, in 2016 I was surprised to find options which were as simple as sign-up, click, publish. One of those options was a company called CreateSpace, eventually subsumed by Amazon. And therein lies the problem.

A number of my fellow authors have been quite vocal regarding their hatred of Amazon, and I not only have no issue with this but can easily understand their point of view. So I’m fine with someone not wanting to buy my book because it in some way supports a company they view as evil. Please don’t. I make similar purchasing choices based on my personal views. That’s one of the few strengths we have as customers. In fact, I’ve also made my books available in other outlets which artificially raises their prices across the board – something I strongly prefer to avoid – primarily to give people who do not wish to support Amazon other alternatives.

What has been exceptionally distressing has been the public shaming and vitriol (by a small number) directed at authors, such as myself, who opted for the Amazon route. It’s exceptionally disheartening when I’ve done my best to be supportive of these very same authors. Actually, it’s quite hurtful.

It’s also a bit hypocritical. As I stated and wish to emphasize, we all should be free to take any factors into account when deciding what we wish to buy and to declare our opinions on this; but publicly shaming other authors is a bit elitist and self-centered to say the least. I would like to ask these people, do you believe the companies who made the car you chose to drive, the gas you chose to use, the clothes you chose to wear, the games you chose to play, the food you chose to eat, heck – the social media platform you chose to post this on, are all out there doing god’s work? Are these companies paragons of virtue whose business practices have been spotless? You decided to draw a line with the company hosting my books and that’s your prerogative, but consider your other life choices before throwing stones at other authors.

Being supportive means building others up and not ripping them down. We’re human. We’re engaged in a difficult field. We could all use the support. Driving your fellow supporters away won’t help you in the end.