I'd like to belong here. Do you think that I could?

Do you need cute now? I need cute now. Have cute. http://deireh.deviantart.com/art/Untitled-365320338?q=gallery%3Adeireh&qo=0

I will join you in shameful self promotion.

Personally I think Hugo Kvetching is a great name for a second-string villain.
Also, every time I read someone talking about "Seanan's noms" I imagined something epic involving candy corn/

That said, I was also puzzled when I started to see those comments. "Umm - as I recall, her 'excessive self-promotion' consisted of a single blog post - which I did go back and find because I'm utterly incapable of remembering the difference between a novella and a novellette"

Then again, I'm also apparently one of 14 people to submit my nominations on actual paper, so who knows..

Bless your heart... I like the way you self-promote. Hell, Scalzi does it the same way, and I like that way too. But putting aside the gender issue, I bet if Scalzi had been nominated for as many things as you have been, people'd be bitching about his "excessive self promotion" too. But seriously: you've gotten WAY TOO MUCH FLACK this year for various reasons, and even Scalzi points out, in his blog, that's it's undue and unfair.

Which, let me clarify, even if Scalzi had never stated as such, the flack and criticism you're receiving would STILL be undue and unfair. But even before I started hearing the bullshit, I saw you and Scalzi as peas in a pod: both of you have a strong online presence, both of you have tons of fans who are excited about your work and will promote you, and both of you campaigned in pretty much the exact same way on your blogs. Hence, why I'm even bringing him into the conversation.

But let me stress, even if he hadn't said a word in your defense, the criticism you're getting is undue and unfair. But there's a part of me that's stupidly optimistic and thinks that Scalzi'd be getting the same criticisms as you are if he'd gotten as many nominations as you did. But I think you also have a point: some people don't have a problem until it's a woman, and then suddenly, it's a BIG DEAL.

It's not the only thing at work, of course, but it's part of it, for sure.

I'm going to shut up now, before I talk myself into a hole I can't dig out of. :) In closing, GO YOU!!!!!

Hard to add much to what has been said, but please stay true to yourself. Don't change because the whiners get way more air time than they deserve (their own form of self-promotion). Send the kittens with machetes after them if you wish, but spend your time producing your wonderful works and being with your many friends and admirers.

I'm hoping that some people who see the whining wonder about your work, and pick up one of your books when they wouldn't otherwise have done that. And then tell all their friends to read them too because they are SO worthy of the nominations.

I’m trying to figure out what criticism you’re talking about, which is hard, because you didn’t link to any of it. First, though, let me make clear that I don’t think it’s a problem for authors to self-promote in general. When it comes to self-promoting for the Hugos in particular, I think it’s only a problem if they do really egregious things. A wealthy author buying memberships for people to get their votes — that kind of thing.

The posts I’ve seen:

• I saw Justin Landon’s “Can we stop talking about the Hugos now?”. Landon doesn’t actually accuse you of self-promoting specifically for the Hugos. He does say that your success is due to your having “a dedicated fan base”, which strikes me as a perfectly fair statement. He also claims that your fan base is “skewing the nominations”, which I’m not sure makes sense. Is he claiming that you have fans who somehow exist only for nomination purposes? But anyway, he doesn’t seem to be claiming that you self-promoted specifically for the Hugo, while he does make such a claim about Larry Correia and Brandon Sanderson, both men.
• And I saw Cora Buhlert’s “Hugo Nomination Reactions or Why the Fuck is the Controversial?”. Buhlert says of you: “Nor does she strike me as particularly in your face about self-promoting – John Scalzi is a lot more blatant IMO.” Buhlert’s post links to a lot of other posts, but I haven’t read them all. Just skimmed her summaries, looking to see if they addressed the question of self-promotion.
• James Nicoll had a post linking to Buhlert’s piece, and in the comments under that, Nick Mamatas points out that you do self-promote a lot, but makes clear that he talking about “generally training one's online audience to feel that they have a stake in your success”, and not specifically promoting just for the Hugos. He also says Scalzi does the same thing.
• While googling for more, I found Jonathan McCalmont’s “My Draft Hugo Ballot 2013”. He’s got you in a list of people allegedly trying to attract Hugo nominations while not recommending other people. (Note that this claim, in your case, is directly contradicted by Landon’s post, which credits you with Mark Oshiro’s nomination.) Anyway, his list also includes Aiden Moher, Paul Cornell, Larry Correia, and three publications. I think those are all male names.

So that’s four commentators, two of whom say that you (and one or more men) self-promote in general but not specifically for the Hugos, one of whom says that you don’t self-promote a lot (but a man does), and one who does accuse you of self-promoting for the Hugos, but also accuses three men.

Almost all the Seanan-hate-spewing I've seen has been on Twitter, which could be why it's harder to track down. People are much more willing to be nasty in a short, difficult to trace medium, rather than in highly-searchable blogs.

Either way, this kind of comment isn't helpful, except that it speaks to the larger theme at work here. Whenever a woman writes about this sort of thing, people immediately jump in to say she's wrong and/or exaggerating and/or overreacting. Most men don't get this kind of response, and even if they did, denying someone's experiences because you personally couldn't find verification of them doesn't do anyone any favours.

One thing that really irritated me about all this self-promotion SMOF Hugo bitching was the fact that I was offended. I nominated you because you were the best of what I read last year not because of your promotion or because you who you recommended. I nominated one of the people you recommended but that was because I was a fan of theirs. You are Awesome and you have my thanks and gratitude (for what little it means)!!

This frustrates me so much and I'm sorry you're running into this. I sometimes get this as a self-published author where there's this bizarre outrage that I dare to put out a book because the person expressing the outrage feels the book isn't worthy of being read and so of course, all of my positive reviews must be faked or written by my mom. I find it ridiculous because I'm not holding people at gunpoint to get them to read the book. I'm not faking reviews (and if an author were to fake reviews, really how much is that going to sway a potential reader, unless the review comes from a trusted source?) or doing anything to try to trick people into reading my $2.99 ebook. I simply wrote a story that I felt strongly about and put it out there. Whether or not people choose to buy it is up to them and they have both the description of the story and the sample offered through Amazon to determine whether or not it's their cup of tea.

I personally don't feel like you're self-promoting in excess. Those of us who are following you on LJ or elsewhere want to be kept in the loop about things going on, whether it's a new book for sale or the potential to nominate or vote for you for an award. This is why we follow you. (That, and you have some extremely insightful and entertaining blog posts as well!) I don't really understand how any of this is excessive self promotion. Nor do I really think that self promotion is a negative thing. If you aren't getting the word out about the things you're doing, then who will?

What really saddens and angers me is that as soon as I got to the part of the post where you mentioned the complaints about your "excessive self-promotion," my mind went to the exact same place (anger that this outrage isn't directed at male authors, even those who might do more self promotion) even before I read the rest of the entry.

I cherish your voice; that's why I pay for your words. I don't understand someone who dislikes the fact that you write what you do, and feels the need to tell you so unasked rather than (figuratively) walking away. Or, for those public reviews not addressed to you, why on earth your trusted friends would send them to you!

Maybe it's because I attended a poorly-funded, pretty lousy high school 'back in the day' [graduated 1975] - or that there were a lot of dumb people in my standard classes, but my teachers recognized that I read the material [and more], understood it and wasn't shy about answering questions. My hand would be raised - and I could get away with reading whatever I wanted in class because I could still follow the course and take useful notes about it.

*If* the school had offered a 'gifted' program, I might have done better and been pushed to excel. As it was, I coasted along, getting A's and B's and enjoyed my classes a LOT more than I enjoyed the social interactions -outside- of classes. But all of my teachers -then- knew they could count on me to speak up - and the problem was getting me to shut up. With few exceptions, I was also encouraged to speak up. Compared to some of what I've learned since then, this is possibly the -only- benefit I gained from high school.

Hilariously enough, the only people I've ever unfollowed on Twitter for aggressive self-promotion were both men. And yet, the only people I ever see apologizing for self-promotion are women. Oy vey.

same here, come to think of it.

There's a great book by Deborah Cameron called The Myth of Mars and Venus which looks as all the supposed differences between how men and women communicate, and after debunking them with lots of evidence, address the fact that it is power relations rather than differently wired brains or evolution that makes people tend to pay attention to what men say and dismiss what women say.

TL,DR: You are awesome and many peer reviewed studies support you in email journals and books.

Hi. Have a kitten in a teacup.

(Icon is tongue-in-cheek and used for a bit of humor to this sorry state of affairs.)

The whole brouhaha around the Hugos, and fake geek girls, and women in sf still getting shit, is incredibly depressing to me.

I grew up in the 90s, watching girl power cartoons and media. I noticed, though, that there was less, well, girl power in the books I read. I stopped reading YA and children's almost entirely at a young age because save for some rare and spectacular authors like Tamora Pierce, most YA SFF did not feature girls like me. (I'm going somewhere with this, I swear.) I was also an aspiring writer, and I discovered some of the feminist authors of the 70s and 80s like Marion Zimmer Bradley in my mom's bookshelf.

I read Marion's work as much for her non-fiction essays about SFF and women and feminism that she included in many of her books and anthology collections. I remember her talking in detail about the treatment she and other women received from the genre. I remember some of the arguments she recounted about women being nominated for awards -- perhaps unsurprisingly, very much like the same arguments we're hearing now.

And I remember thinking, well, things are different now. How foolish I was.

I met S.L. / Sheila / Lynn Viehl in 2001ish. She participated in a writer's community that I was part of and we chatted at some length. She discussed the difficulty she was having with the SFWA, and the various awards, and that her books and even herself were derided and considered "lesser" because her SF dared to have romance subplots in it. Tamora Pierce wrote in a LJ post in 2005ish about how she was leaving the SFWA because of the old guard who derided her for wanting to promote young adult SFF and even more importantly, encourage young writers. The old guard thought this was ridiculous and "girly."

And I remember, at times, being hopeful that things would get better. As I saw more women being published, I thought, maybe our voices will be heard more.

But it's 2013, and we're still having the same arguments. We've proven them wrong, but they're still saying the same things. It's not about "excessive self-promotion". That's just an excuse. This has happened before, and it will happen again, until... I don't know when.

Seanan, I am heartbroken at the way that people have been attacking you, in particular, for having a large and vocal fandom, and for writing things that people consider award-worthy. This whole mess highlights that even though some things have changed -- many have stayed the same.

Anyone who has made this criticism surely creates a brag-worthy resume when they go job hunting and asks all of their friends and acquaintances, blog readers etc to be on the lookout for a particular type of job, right? I don't do well at self promotion either, I hated writing my resume and I hate to have to promote things I've written but I'll be damned if people criticize me for doing something that is part of my job--or my effort to get a job. Women tend to feel guilty for self-promotion and we need to get more comfortable with it.

That said I've never felt you were doing too much in that regard, that's just crazy talk.

AMEN my friend. amen!

Well said. I really hope you do win a fiction Hugo, because you deserve it.

I tried REALLY HARD when I was teaching to hear from the girls in the class as much as the boys.

Sigh, can't believe that you've been accused of that. At all.

I don't actually live inside a bubble of good feelings and kittens with machetes

I note from Twitter that you have now actually managed to remedy the latter omission. Even having had the pleasure of meeting Lilly, if not the other cats, that did surprise and amuse me :-)

It's shit like this that makes me wonder why every writer doesn't have a gender-neutral pseudonym. If I were a penis-bearing successful author and saw this and the many other articles like it, I'd be terrified that I really sucked and didn't deserve a single accolade.

And yeah, I have more to say, but it would come out as a 3000 word block of profanity. So I will say that I love most of your books, hope desperately for more, and if you need more than a few kind words of encouragement let your rabid fanbase know and we'll be happy to deliver.

I was just reading ursulav's journal, and she happened to mention you! I would dearly love to see a collaboration between you two. I'm sure it would be slightly twisted and with excellent art. In other words, wonderful. http://ursulav.livejournal.com/1537823.html

*sigh* I agree, greatly. Sucks. I'm lucky enough to be in an industry that is weighted heavily toward women, but even with that, the few men seem to advance faster, and they tend to hold at least half the top positions, if not more. So... many women up to a point... then while there's still more women than in other industries in top positions, it's not proportional.

As a teacher, I must deliberately put into place systems for equal talk time (Think! Pair! Share!) with freaking timers so that each student has one minute of talk time, first one talker, then the other. Then, on a flip of number one or two, I pick a person to share out from the pair on something they discussed. OFTEN, I must shut down the boy if he wasn't picked to share out because he'll try to talk over his partner.

Girls talk to one another fine in the classroom. When boys are present, I spend a lot of my attention on behavior or attention-seeking behaviors from them. And I do see active behaviors of blurting, or standing up and posing when I spend more than a few minutes gleaning thoughts from girls. At least until classroom norms are established. And I worry that if I'm not constantly paying attention, it reverts back so quickly.

Thank you for not only busting down the walls of a perceived boys' club, but pointing out the barriers. BECAUSE of you, more of us women are getting more recognition. It can be difficult to be the banner waver, because then you're a bigger target. But I feel more and more Geek Girls are being recognized for their own merits, not just as the girlfriends of the geeks. Keep up the good work; we'll keep following you!

Last I checked, nobody forces anybody else to nominate (and/or to vote for) people's works. Maybe if other people were as prolific and had as many fans who loved their work, they'd be on the ballot as much as you are? And telling people "I am eligible" in your own space where people choose to view your words? Is not in any way bothering anyone who didn't CHOOSE to be bothered.

In conclusion, people who think women shouldn't self-promote... can go get stuffed. I want to hear what you (and many other women) have to say, and my opinion matters. :P

For what it's worth I like it when you talk/write 'cause you tend to have interesting things to say, even on topics that I'm generally not interested in, so my reaction to seeing a post with one of your icons is never "she talks too much".

i'm late to the ballgame, as usual. but to say you YOU you self-promote too much? and what you were doing was wrong? i wanted to take myself into a corner and cry for both of us. there's none of this that makes a whole lot of sense. there's always been that line of thought that people bully others because they're just jealous. while i can see some truth in that, i just can't buy it. you are who you are. you do what you do. and you're good at both. don't let the assholes drag you down - you know the drill; we all do.