Awesome smackdown by Neil Gaiman on needy fans

Hat tip to Ryan Sohmer over at Looking For Group for posting a link to this on his site.

I don’t regularly follow Neil Gaiman’s journal, but I might start after reading his post about Entitlement Issues. A reader wrote in to complain about George R.R. Martin’s blog & Twitter posts not containing any information about a new book the reader is awaiting, and asking Mr. Gaiman what he thought about Mr. Martin’s lack of discussion.

Mr. Gaiman had a very eloquent description of the work that goes into writing, and some of the trials and tribulations — including the intrusion of real life.

But the most poetic part of the whole piece was Mr. Gaiman telling the over-eager reader that authors are not the reader’s bitch. Not George R.R. Martin, not Neil Gaiman, not any author. Just because a reader has read and/or paid for a copy of a book in a series, there is no contract — neither implicit nor explicit — between the author and that reader that there will ever be another book in the series. And definitely no contract that any forthcoming books will be launched in a certain time frame or will be written to the liking of that reader in particular or all readers in general.

A truly awesome smackdown to read.