#susan meachen

[capesandshapes]

As someone who is part of the indie romance community I need you to understand that part of the problem with Susan Meachen is that she was disappointed by a lack of sales and had been informed as to the reasons why (bad covers, unappealing blurbs, plain language in stories that didn't fit her genre) and took it as bullying instead of valid criticism.

Like people tried to help her and instead of listening to them she thought she knew better and for some reason decided to turn around and instead of improving her books and taking the ideas she obviously had to make something better, she decided to fake her death?

That being said, please for the love of God if you want to write professionally... learn how to take criticism.

[frozenoj]

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: The Funeral

Stephen King: hey what’s going on? It looks like there’s some commotion happening over at the romance writers campfire Poe: hmm King: you think we should go check it out? Poe: no I don’t think that would be a good idea Poe: things can be a little, uh, volatile over there

King: what? Barker: they’re all deranged Poe: now clive, that’s a little unfair Barker: I guarantee anything that happens over there is 100% lunacy Poe: now clive VC Andrews: oh it's not so bad there actually Barker: Poe: King:

[at Circle of Love] Nora Roberts: today we gather to pay our respects to susan meachen Roberts: a fellow romance writer who left us too soon [susan meachen walks in] Roberts: who Roberts: Roberts: Roberts:

Susan Meachen: hey guys whats going on in here Roberts: Meachen: Roberts: Meachen: Roberts: I don’t know susan Roberts: what IS going on in here

Meachen: you guys doing a funeral? Cool Roberts: yeah Roberts: it’s Roberts: it’s um Roberts: it’s your funeral Roberts: we Roberts: we thought you were dead Meachen: oh yeah Meachen: well, I got better Roberts:

Roberts: your family said you were dead Meachen: oh yeah about that Meachen: they just made that up Meachen: they thought it was for the best Meachen: I can’t fault them for that Roberts:

Roberts: we all thought you were dead Meachen: yeah, and this funeral you’re doing? Great stuff! Roberts: there was a memorial anthology dedicated to you Meachen: oh yeah, I read that Meachen: pretty hot stuff! Roberts: Sandra Hill: hey can I still give my eulogy?

Sandra Hill: can i still read my eulogy? Hill: or like Hill: is it gonna be weird now? Meachen: no no you should still do it Meachen: I want to hear it Roberts:

Sandra Hill: ok so uh Hill: “now we can just hope that susan meachen is in a better place” Hill: “a place filled with oiled-up Vikings and sexy army rangers” Jude Deveraux: oh yeah Vikings Deveraux: that’s the good shit

VC Andrews: I like to imagine heaven as a locked attic Andrews: filled with all the sexy blood relatives you can imagine

[thebibliosphere]

Y’all, there’s even more Susan Meachen drama going down on Twitter.

Turns out the Twitter account that gave that wild, unapologetic interview over the weekend might be fake, but the Facebook account is real???

At least that’s what is being claimed. It could be a desperate attempt to avoid being sued for multiple counts of fraud after she (or whoever is running the accounts) realized they weren’t getting the welcome they thought they would and that people are angry enough to take legal action.

Absolutely wild. It’s the 9th of January. How is this the level of book drama we’re already at??

[theladyofbloodshed]

Susan Meachen’s “daughter” announced that the writer had killed herself.

Her PA announced it was her last wish for her final book to be published on her daughters wedding day.

People preordered the book and donated to gofundme accounts to support the family.

Two years later the author announced she wasn’t actually dead and was bored so wanted her life back, and has done the most narcissistic interview known to man.

[merchymynydd]

W h a t on earth is going on in book/author world that Susan Meachen faked her own death and now two years later blithely posting that she's ok like bit bored think I'll come back around as me instead of this alternate identity I've been publishing under? "Let the fun begin" ???!!

what.

[readskiesatdawn]

Okay but about the author that faked her death I have one big question.

Who the fuck writes an explicit romance novels for their kid? As a wedding gift? Like I know the "daughter" here was an adult but seriously she was claiming her mother was essentially writing smut for her? Or is this one of those "clean" romance deals?

I am so confused. Did...did no one question a mother making sexual content for her child??? I feel like that would have been a read flag. Or is this my asexual side showing?

[lezbi0nic]

We, rightfully, like to drag Booktok through the mud, but i feel like underestimate the absurdity that is Facebook authors. What if I told y'all that someone faked her suicide back in 2020, accepted donations for her "funeral", then came back to the Internet this week?

[thehussy]

first the #receptiogate drama and now romance author pseuicide, it's like we're living in the mid-aughts fandom_wank era.

[voidingintotheshout]

I almost don’t want to even summarize this article about a romance author, who faked her own death, and then kept up the ruse for two years before jumping back online as if nothing happened. Romance novelists are a different breed. This is my favorite quote, in the form of feedback:

"Gonna read susan meachen’s books now," tweeted user @negaversace. "I’m not a romance person at all but I must experience the workings of this mind.”

[ralfmaximus]

“I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it’s right or not,” Meachen wrote in her back-from-the-dead return to the group on Jan. 2. “My family did what they thought was best for me and I can’t fault them for it. I almost died again at my own hand and they had to go through all that hell again. Returning to The Ward doesn’t mean much but I am in a good place now and I am hoping to write again. Let the fun begin.”

“Not sure if it’s right or not” hmmmmm.

Any Susan Meachen fans out there? 

I want to be outraged but honestly don’t know who the woman is or what she wrote. 

[bylillian]

OMG, what a shitty human being

[mothseatinghumanflesh]

I wanna create as much drama as susan meachen created without doing what she did just to get my fp s attention and i think that s a problem

[thehobbem]

Susan Meachen: This year we lost our dear friend and fellow author Susan Meachen...

The indie author community: Quit telling everyone you're dead!

Susan Meachen: Sometimes I can still hear her voice...

[cicadabooks]

https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/not-dead-yet

I’m surprised this wonky book world news about this author (Susan Meachen) hasn’t made it to Tumblr more yet. Tldr: faked her own death two years ago and then popped back up recently.

[caffeine-n-words]

So, I got a very oddly bitter article in my inbox this morning, from a person I normally enjoy and usually talks about fandom drama. Except this wasn't about fandom drama, this was about indie authors.

Note: I am not a romance author. I write mainly fantasy, and a few forays into soft sci-fi exist on my hard drive. However, some of the best writing advice I've seen and the most encouragement I've gotten has come out of romance circles.

Before I continue, please read the article here. Like I said, normally I like JD's fandom takes, so if you read a few of her other articles and enjoy them, I'd say she's worth subscribing to.

JD opens with Susan Meachen's scam, which has been two years in the making--the indie romance author faked her own death, got free crowd-sourced editing on her last manuscript before she "died," received donations for her "funeral," and then popped up on Facebook two years later. Someone claiming to be her daughter had posted to the group originally, saying she had been bullied into suicide.

I'm not going to go into the whole thing. JD's article links a few articles, including a Buzzfeed one about the whole thing.

JD talks about Meachen's victims looking into what, if anything, they could do, and then veers into how scams and drama are not uncommon in indie romance.

Okay, yeah, that's true. It's the law of numbers--there are more indie romance authors than any other genre, so scams appear more often. What JD does not acknowledge is that there are also scams in the other genres. Maybe she felt it was unnecessary?

JD clearly doesn't like romance as a genre, because she calls trad pub romance "comfortingly predictable and soothingly boring." Which. I hate to be the one to point this out, but. That's a pretty recent development. And ignores trad pubbed erotic romance entirely. Because apparently, according to her, that's the realm of indie romance.

I'm going to point out here that both the "comfortingly predictable and soothingly boring" books and the "just on the edge of acceptable" books are in both trad and indie.

JD then goes on to say indie romance is also where we go to see some "major foot-in-mouth disease," and lists things like "spend more time talking about writing than actually writing," "filing the numbers off fanfictions, full on plagiarism scandals," and "trying to explain the legendary romance novelist Nora Roberts." And that trad romance has its drama, but it "doesn't hold a candle" to what indie romance comes up with. She ends by saying the only writing community with more audacity and bullying is fandom writing.

Let's break that down a bit.

The law of numbers, again--yes, those things appear more in the romance genre. But again, they appear anywhere. It looks like there's more of them in romance, because technically there is...because there are more romance authors than any other genre. And they also all happen in trad with astonishing frequency, they're just better covered up.

That said, the only bad thing on that list (disregarding "major foot-in-mouth disease" for a moment) is the plagiarism scandals.

"Spend more time writing than actually writing." Heaven forbid they talk about writing? I'm not sure why this is being lumped in with everything else. Writers share writing advice. That's not a bad thing. They talk about things they did, what worked, what didn't, suggest what you can try, and they don't necessarily care if you're also a romance author. That doesn't mean they aren't writing, which is the very strong implication JD gives.

"Filing serial numbers off fanfictions." Again, this also happens in trad romance. Actually, the worst examples have been barely-edited trad books. Usually when I see fanfics being indie published, it's both plagiarism and an obvious scam--they've stolen someone's fanfic and are looking to make a quick buck--and they're not just romance. But downloading and re-uploading someone else's book doesn't make you a writer or an author, and again, since it isn't just romance, I'm not sure why this is being laid at indie romance's feet. It's not exactly super common for indie authors to reskin their fanfics as their mainstay; they do it with the one they think people would like the most, and then write original stuff from there.

"Trying to explain the legendary romance novelist Nora Roberts." This one was...eyebrow raising. Because if you read the article, you'll see JD calls someone who does this a "blithering Karen." It's not unusual for indie authors, especially indie romance authors, to try to figure out how to write more and/or more quickly. Successful authors need to keep their books in front of readers' eyes, and they need a backlist. This is widely acknowledged, and the best way to do both of these is to write, edit, etc., the next book and get it up there as quickly as possible. It's called "rapid releasing" (and if you would like me to explain that in more detail, let me know!). Nora Roberts is trad, but she writes quickly and has more frequent releases than anyone else. Honestly, I can't think of anyone who might have written and released more as a trad author of any genre, romance included. But also, I don't think I've seen anyone try to "explain" her success so much as share her own writing advice. There's nothing wrong with sharing that advice, so I'm not sure why JD's so offended here.

"Major foot-in-mouth disease." Yes, people will clash in the indie romance community. There's more of them so of course it's more visible there. These clashes happen in every writing community and every genre. Actually, there's a lot of drama that happens in the sci-fi community; you just don't usually see it because there isn't as much interest in sci-fi.

It's pretty clear that JD doesn't like indie romance. There's nothing wrong with that. But blithely ignoring the same problems in trad romance, or other genres (indie or trad) is a little unusual. There's also a lot here that aren't actually problems, but are being presented as such. And considering that she ignores these things happening in trad circles and other genres, I can only conclude that these are standards she only holds for indie romance authors.

And that? Is a problem.