News Alert; Time For Honesty

Hey Book Talkers, 

So I've never done what I'm about to do. I wasn't even sure if I was going to, but I can't stop what is about to happen. 

You can either hate me or love me after this post, at this point I no longer care. 

My stomach is in knots. I'm sick, literally sick over what I've been seeing. but this morning was only the icing on the cake. No, I'm not going into details, I'm not rehashing or sharing what happened. I made one post on our Facebook page, you can find it and do your own research. This is about me. 

I've always been honest. I pride myself with letting y'all into my world. I respect and love everyone who reads my posts and reviews. Every email, every Facebook message, every retweet. I love it all. But things are changing. And they have been for a while. 

I've been blogging for over two and a half years now. I started in 2014, when I was only 17 years old. I was a junior in high school. I had a million other things to do, I still have a million other things to do. But I love to read, I love to share my love for books and authors. I love to blog. 

I first became aware of the indie world in 2011 when I got my first kindle. That was five years ago. And in those five years I've seen the indie community explode. And I've been proud to be a part of that. So damn proud. 

No, however, I'm not as proud. Of course, with every new book, every new author, every new blogger, there is something to celebrate. But there is also something to mourn, becasue there are the assholes. There are the ones who will bash us, they will call us out, they will post passive aggressive posts and think we won't notice.   

I keep a very tight hold on the authors and bloggers that I love. I try to ignore the drama, but when it's right there day after day on my timeline, when it happens to one of my favorites. I can no longer ignore it. 

I've seen so many good things come out of this community. Big name publishers picked up many of my favorite authors, movie rights have been sold, signings have happened many foreign and amazing countires. 

I've also seen the bad. I've seen pirating, which I can do a whole other post one, I loathe pirating so much. I've seen author bashing. I've seen plagiarism, I've seen blogger bashing. I've literally seen it all. 

I don't share all the bad things I see, becasue I want this blog to post the things that we love. I don't want the negativity to take away from what were are here for. Books. 

We're here for books. We're here for the authors who write those books. 

But not everyone is. 

And it's sad. My heart breaks. My stomach turns. My brain works overtime trying to process it all. 

I blog becasue I want to share with everyone else who loves this community. I blog because this wonderful thing called the internet allows me to. 

To be honest, if networking wasn't such a big part of what I do, I wouldn't be on the internet. Not after what I've seen. 

I don't know how to process everything. Especially since I've seen screenshots of what has been said. This is not just a "He said, she said" thing. I've seen proof. 

I've seen blog posts, Facebook posts, screenshots, messages. And it makes me wonder if this is what the book community is now. 

One person, one blogger, one author, trying to get ahead of all the rest. 

If you have to shame those around you, if you have to create drama becasue you have nothing better to do, go do it somewhere else. Because I use this world to escape the hell I live. I use this world to escape my own drama, I don't need or want yours. 

I blog because it used to be fun. I used to love sharing my favorite books and authors. I still do. But when I see my favorites being bashed every other day, it makes me hate this world. 

Instead of going up, we're just going down. 

I never wanted to bring this to Real Talk Book Talk. I wanted this blog to always be fun. I wanted this blog to always be about books and authors and that's it. 

But the rest of the community, the rest of the community no longer allows that. So here I am. Giving my truth to all of you. 

Lei, and Deeps, and I. We're always doing what we think is best. We're always talking about how we can improve the blog. We're always coming up with ideas. 

But is it worth it? Is all this hard work really worth it? Because keeping up a blog is hard work. All these posts we do. It's hard. But we do it becasue we love it. I love all of you. I love blogging and reading and writing. I love Lei. I love Deeps. But is it still worth it? 

Is the stigma worth it? 

I'd like to think it is. 

I don't want this to impact what we do. I don't want Real Talk Book Talk to get lost in the chaos. I don't want to stop doing this. But if I have to I will. If I have to, to get some peace, I will. 

Reading used to be the only thing that helped me through my depression. It used to be the thing that helped me survive my shitty life. 

Blogging was just an extension of that.  

Now, I have to ask myself if it is worth it. Because I honestly don't know. 

-Abri