Let’s Talk | That Time a NYT Bestselling Author Came @ Me: Mackenzi Lee Edition

I think one of the most important things that I’ve learned while being in college is to speak up for what you believe in, otherwise how will anything be changed — how will you make a difference? I mean, that’s one of the core parts of humanity, being able to speak up for what you believe in, right?.

One thing I believe in, or, should I say, have been against for a very long time now is publishers releasing these very tiny works of, like, 50 pages and then charging fans upwards of $10 for this practical chapbook of something.

Note, that I am not one to usually voice my opinion on social media about things, but when I saw this post by NYT Bestselling author Mackenzi Lee, I felt the urge to say something:

I think the main thing that made me upset about this was the fact that this was a pre-sale incentive for people who decided to buy the novel early and now they’re gong to be selling it? To me, that just made me a little upset.

Now, if you scroll through my twitter, I hardly, ever post anything on there anymore (besides the automatic posts from my blog), but I decided to reply to this. For everyone who knows me off the blog, they know I hate getting into confrontations, I hate hurting people’s feelings and I hate to see others hurt. So, when replying to the tweet, I knew I had to do it in a way where it didn’t seem I was coming off harshly, or in a rude way. But, I just felt the urge to say something about this:

Someone replied, and I replied back:

And I thought that was that. I thought I had made my point, respectively.

Well, two days later, I get out of my Shakespeare class and am having lunch with my friends when I see this:

• 

• 

• 

Okay, first off, WOAH . . .

Not only do I feel this response is a slight (if not huge) overreaction, my first point of criticism is that she seems to want to be addressing a wide variety of “harassers” and people who are “coming at her,” yet, I seem to be the only one tagged in this.

Later, on her Instagram story, she posts things like:

• 

• 

• 

These really made me upset. While she didn’t directly call me out in this one, we definitely know what spurred it.

I had this nice reply to my tweet later on:

Considering I literally said in my tweet (let me quote here), “I know you probably had nothing to do with this decision . . .” (where she later said she kind of did), does make me slightly . . . very angry.

In my opinion (and this will be the last one I state about this, because apparently stating any kind of opinion to someone with a large following will make them retweet it and complain and have tons of people blindly come to their defense . . . or maybe that’s just one person. Idkidk), when you post something on social media, it is then out of your control. If someone doesn’t like something you say and politely tells you so, do I think someone should have the right to push back to defend themselves? Abso-freaking-lutley. But Lee’s complete disregard for the power of her platform, the way in which she addressed the issue — i.e. specifically re-tweeting my specific tweet — and the overall rudeness of this entire thing has made me lose all respect for this author.

So here I am, retaliating and expressing my anger on my own, much smaller, platform. But I love all of you guys and am thankful every single day for everyone of you.

It deeply disappoints me to see such a blatant disregard from someone I used to have respect for.

One person out of 20k+ to stop supporting someone isn’t really much of anything. But I feel this was inappropriate on her side, and I just cannot support something like this.

You’re welcome to check out this whole conversation for yourself, as I will leave a link at the end of all of this (I had to get sassy with a couple of people trying to fuel this very unnecessary fire, so please excuse that).

Here’s the link: https://twitter.com/themackenzilee/status/1115269391111921665

Also, I will admit, I made a slight mistake . . .

• 

. . . it’s actually $14.99.

P.S.

P.S.S.

This one’s a bonus, just for fun! She didn’t tweet this directly @ me, but it’s neat, so I thought I’d share:

Now, whoever Mel is talking about I am sure is, in fact, an “entitled little asshole,” and I’m sure Mel did all of her research before deciding to bring hate speech into things. Since Mel must have forgotten to tag the person she was talking about, I decided to help her out:

Thank you, Mel . . .

---

I would really like to get your opinion on this! Let’s chat in the comments!