812 words
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The author community is on fire, and we’re the ones holding the matches.

Last week Vellum introduced automation. You could choose to connect Vellum with an AI assistant to take tasks off your plate, such as updating back matter among a series or your entire backlist, change a formatting choice like texts that are italicized to the text bubbles, or checking to make sure all your graphics have an accessibility description. Those are some of the examples that were included in the email that Vellum sent out on November 4th.

To me, it wasn’t a big deal. Like a lot of Vellum’s updates, it included things that I didn’t care about or need, and I put it in my Vellum folder in my email and forgot about it.

Then I went on Threads.

This blog post isn’t about AI.

This blog post is about basic human decency toward someone, in this case Brad Andalman and Brad West, who founded Vellum in 2012.

I have never seen so many F-bombs dropped in one place, or so much venom, vitriol, and I almost want to say, pure hate, that some authors spewed at them over their newest formatting software update.

I have never been ashamed to be an indie author until now.

How on this earth can someone think it’s okay to start off an email with “Fuck you” to a publishing partner who has done nothing but support the indie publishing community for well over a decade? You’re writing to a professional business as a professional author running your own business, and then, after having the nerve to actually hit send on a piece of correspondence like that, you post a screenshot of that email on Threads, loud and proud, just to hammer home how despicable you are. And that’s only email. We really don’t need to get into all the Fuck Yous I saw on Threads in response to their announcement. (You can go on Threads and search Vellum yourself to find all the trash posts.)

Have we all forgotten that we can disagree and make our opinions known with kindness and respect?

What has turned the author community into such a den of snakes?

I lost so much respect for so many of my peers that day, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.

Because what’s sad is that Vellum’s announcement isn’t an isolated incident. I see this kind of behavior whenever people talk about Amazon, and I saw it when Draft2Digital announced their $12.00 a year maintenance fee.

The kind of behavior I saw, and often see, goes beyond simple disagreement. There’s anger, and I can somewhat understand where it’s coming from–it’s tough out there and I feel that every day–but it’s being directed at people that it shouldn’t be directed at, and maybe it shouldn’t be at all. (Therapy, anyone?)

Brad and Brad, and Katharine, part of their team I didn’t know about until they sent out their email saying they walked back that feature, are real people who read those emails and posts on social media. They have feelings and mental health they’re protecting. Just like the team at Draft2Digital, and just like the poor Amazon reps who answer your chat and get blasted because your dashboard doesn’t look the way you think it should.

Honestly, I’m heartsick over this, and I wrote them an email and apologized for the behavior that was aimed at them last week. And you know, changing their minds and taking the automation out of their update wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for a lot of authors and it’s sad that over a decade of goodwill can be obliterated by a choice that not everyone agreed with. It’s not about AI or a difference of opinion. It’s about treating people with kindness and being a member of a community that prides itself on professionalism.

I saw very little professionalism on Threads last week.

And I hope that if you were one of the people telling them to fuck off, that you are afforded grace at a time when you need it.

This isn’t a very long post today, but I don’t have anything else to say. Authors have every right to criticize Vellum, stop using it, or disagree with Brad and Brad’s decisions. What they don’t have is a free pass to abuse and bully the people behind a software that has made hundreds, if not thousands, of authors’ lives easier.

The things I saw last week brought tears to my eyes, and I can’t imagine what that poor team went through over a development that some authors actually said they wanted.

There is no excuse not to be kind.

There is no excuse not to be respectful.

Do better.

I’ll see you next week! (Or…not. If you don’t agree with what I’ve said in this post and decide to move on, I wish you the best.)