Spill the Tea Tuesday: Do's and Don'ts for Being a Professional

Today, author Laurie Wood is spilling the tea...

Today I’m “spilling the tea” on a pet peeve of mine—professional authors who don’t act like professionals! This may be a bit of a rant, so settle in with your coffee and see if you recognize anyone you might know in these examples.

We’re all busy, overwhelmed people with deadlines, marketing to do, families with multiple activities, and pets to look after. However, just because most of us work from home, doesn’t mean we get to behave in our work life as if we’re the only ones who count in our professional lives. And I believe it all comes down to—you guessed it—common courtesy.

Let’s talk about those group writer activities we get invited to take part in, or those we might start ourselves.

Have you ever been part of a Facebook party? Check. A group blog for a few months to a year? Check. A newsletter swap? Check. A group promotion for your publisher? Check. An anthology with multiple authors? Check.

Okay, let’s look at some Do’s and Don’ts of this wonderful world of being a professional author in a professional space:

DO:

1. Be polite, and prompt with emails to the group.

2. Get whatever written material, graphics, and photos to the person in charge ON TIME. 

3. This shouldn’t even need to be said but proofread/edit/spell check your work first!

4. Follow the directions of the other author you’re working with—she has reasons she wants certain things done that way! I once had an author write to me, “I’m too old to learn new technology so I will not use bitly.com.” Ahem. If you’re too old to know how to cut and paste, then I’m assuming you’re still working on an IBM Electric typewriter, and shame on me for not checking out the quality of your books before I agreed to have you as a guest on my blog! It turned out it was a good thing I double-checked her quality because it wasn’t up to the standards I have for my blog. We canceled.

5. DO what you’ve agreed to do. If something goes wrong, and you don’t have time to write the blog, make the graphics, etc. then be up front about it and let the other author know right away. Honesty is always the best policy. 

DON'T:

1. Invite an author to be a guest for your Facebook party, and then ask her to make up graphics for the party. She’s your *guest*. She’s bringing her readers with her to fill out your party attendance. It’s up to the host to make the party graphics. If you need her to make her own graphics for her time slot, that’s a different thing. I’m talking about making Facebook headers, teasers, etc. Just…don’t.

2. Ask for a newsletter swap and want the other author to provide you with a cover jpg, back cover blurb, buy links, and her headshot, and then just put her cover jpg in as a *thumbnail* and say, “I haven’t read this book, but I thought the cover was pretty.” Don’t then assume you’re going to get the coverage you asked for in HER newsletter. Shame on you. Again, common courtesy and integrity apply here.

3. Invite an author to be a guest for your all-day Facebook party and insist that *every* post she does must include a giveaway! Seriously? Not only is she going to spend hours making up graphics and games for her time slot to entertain your guests, she now has to give away and ship prizes on her own dime? That’s just tacky, and enough said about that…

4. Forget what time zone your group blog is in. I’ve been guilty of this myself (lol) BUT I’ve always stayed the course and written my post in real time to get it up so that it hits in the middle of the night on the other side of the world. I’ve never pooched out on my compatriots and left them with a blank spot on the blog, although I know others who have…yes, life comes at us but unless you or one of your kids is in the hospital in surgery you write till you drop.

So often, I see authors who think they only need to be “professional” with their publisher, agent, or editor. But you know what? We need to be professional with *each other* as well, because when we’re between contracts and the pickings are slim, or the words just aren’t coming some days, we need our writing friends to keep us going. 

So, play nice, be a friend, and be professional! Your reputation is all you have in this business and it’s everything.

Laurie Wood has followed her RCAF serving husband across Canada, raising their two special needs children to adulthood while she began her writing career. She's a member of Sisters in Crime International and SinC Canada West, as well as Faith, Hope & Love Christian Writers. Laurie writes both romantic suspense and historical novels and is currently working on her next book. You can learn more about Laurie on her website, blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

The tea has been spilled! Who's gonna clean it up? 

Drop your thoughts in the comments!

The End of an Era

I'm one of those people who is always looking at the glass as half full. As Dr. Phil likes to say, I'm an incurable optimist. (Most of the time.) But, with that optimism comes a healthy dose of caution. Even though I'd like to believe that everyone I encounter is honest, that things won't ever go horribly wrong, I know better than that and I allow myself to see things as they are -- with a positive slant, of course.

Recently, I've encountered several things that really irritate me and I've come to only one conclusion:

Common courtesy, polite consideration, and manners in general are dead.

They simply don't exist anymore.

Trust me, it's hard to say that because it's so negative, but after days and days of trying to figure things out and wracking my brain, I simple cannot come up with another explanation.

Why do I feel this way, you ask? Well, I've made a list of reasons. (For those of you who don't know, I'm a wicked list maker. I LOVE them!)

1. I was at the grocery store yesterday and I was headed for the checkout aisle when this woman with a heaping cart of stuff literally cuts me off so she can get ahead of me in line. Now, mind you, I only had a handful of items. There was no "excuse me" or "I'm sorry, were you in line?" or even a "You go ahead of me, you don't have that much stuff." I remember a time when that kind of courtesy existed. Not anymore. Every man, woman, child, and selfish grocery shopper for themselves -- here come the claws! (Oh, and this woman refused to make any sort of eye contact with me either. Not even so much as a glance in my direction.)

2. Last night my husband gets a call on his cell phone. He's outside and recognizing the name and number as the secretary at his job, I answer it. This is how the call went:
Me: Hello?
Her: Uh, hi.
*awkward pause as I wait for her to say she was looking for my husband or to identify herself or something*
Me: I assume you're looking for John. This is his wife. He's outside. Let me go get him for you.
Her: *aggravated sigh* Yeah, I'm not used to you answering his phone.

*insert the sound of screeching air brakes here please*

Okay, wait a minute. Back up. She's not used to me answering his phone?!?! (On a side note, I rarely answer his phone, but that's beside the point.) That was her chosen response? Seriously? Not once did she identify herself to me, nor did she thank me for taking the time to walk outside and find my husband instead of simply taking a message and making her wait for him to call back. Her tone was clipped and her attitude, quite frankly, sucked. Obviously her parents never taught her polite phone etiquette because she had absolutely no manners whatsoever.

3. Unanswered emails. As an author and editor, all of my communication is via email. It's quick and it's easy. Now, I send a lot of emails. A LOT! The number of responses I get to the amount of emails I send is pathetic. And the way I see it, one of two things is happening. (A) my emails are landing in the spam folders of a lot of people or (B) I'm being ignored. Maybe it's a combination of both. Who knows? But, I do know this: people are busy. I get that. Trust me, do I get that. But seriously people, is it so hard to hit the reply button and give me an answer to my questions? A simple, "Sorry, I'd like to help but I can't" or "I don't know, but let me find out for you" will suffice. I'd be over the moon just knowing you took the time to respond to me. And I'm not saying you have to respond right away -- I can be patient and wait a day or two, but when it goes for weeks, that's when it becomes a problem. Let me just say, I'm a little less obsessive about this when it's a friendly email back and forth, catching up with an old friend. But when I'm sending a business related email and it gets ignored -- whoa! Hello, poor customer service. Sign me up as a regular.

Let me be very clear in the fact that NOT EVERYONE IS LIKE THIS! There are tons of people I interact with on a daily basis that are polite, friendly, courtesy, and professional. And it's those people who keep my faith alive, who lead me to believe that the era of manners and common courtesy stands a chance in a world where it's easier to sit behind a computer screen or on the other end of the telephone and act like a jackass.

Share your thoughts with me. How do you feel about the lack of manners in the world today? Is there anything that really just gets under your skin?