Author bullying: has it happened to you?
Some authors have been bullied online. Whether by readers, reviewers, other authors or all of them, cruel words hurt. These days, most social networks have steps you can take to try to stop bullying, but at what point do personal attacks become bullying? At what point do you report the person’s activities to the administrators and stick the bullying label on it? One nasty review with a personal attack or derogatory words is unpleasant, but it isn’t bullying until that same person or their friends or cohorts make another attack. And even if they spread their dislike onto other social media networks, it isn’t bullying unless it happens repeatedly over a period of time. By definition bullying means that the attacks are sustained. Sustained is a vague word, though. At what point could you say something is sustained? After one day, two, three? Or would it require a week? The…