After being told for years that my books don’t have enough examples, I publish a book that covers basic concepts and then spend two hundred pages giving examples for various contexts. Of course, I get roasted for stuffing the book with examples and get accused of using the examples to show off my creativity. I suffer from an audacious amount of hubris.

(Shrug.)

Not everything is for everyone, and it shouldn’t be. I create things for the people that get it. If you don’t, you don’t. There are other things for you, go enjoy them.

The FAQ in the Lightspress Handbook explains why there’s no art, but that continues to really, really piss some people off, and frankly, that just amuses me. We live in this world of pain, sorrow, and hate, with these issues that make life varying degrees of difficulty for everyone, and the thing that sets someone off is a book with no pictures in it. That’s funny to me. Anyone who gets mad about roleplaying games or other nerd stuff, like a Star Wars movie or Marvel flick ruining their childhood, it’s ridiculous, and that tickles my sense of the absurd.

I’m happy for them, that those are the worst things they need to deal with right now. 

Most of the time I don’t read reviews, because they’re not written for me. There’s not much an author or publisher can do after the book is released. Most people won’t leave feedback at all unless they’re huge fans or they have beef. If all of the people who tell me privately how much they love my stuff would leave a rating, I’d have much higher scores. Understandably many can’t because they’re also writers and publishers and are barred from doing so because it’s a conflict of interest.

Someone called this to my attention, and it brought me back to my days as a blogger, columnist, and reviewer and why I hated it. Writing good reviews is an art form and a delicate balance. I was also reminded why, for the longest time, I kept my name off the covers of the Lightspress books and eventually left social media altogether. Ironically, this review keeps referring to “the authors,” plural, but my name is on the cover, another recent change for The Simple Approach era for reasons known to insiders and long-time followers.

Nah, I’m not going to link to it. I’m just woolgathering here, and trying to share a chuckle. 

But at least my spelling and grammar counted for something. The book sucked, but I put all of the letters in the correct order, so I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

I hope you’re doing well today.