By Don Vaughan, www.donaldvaughan.com

Triangle Association of Freelancers (TAF) was formally established in 2003. But the organization’s roots run much deeper.

I had been teaching a class for novice freelance writers through Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, and quickly realized a need for additional mentoring among some of my more promising students. We started meeting monthly to discuss their work, and as our numbers grew, I wondered if other area freelance writers would be interested in getting together regularly for networking and camaraderie.

The answer was a resounding yes. Once word got out, our roster quickly filled with writers working in all forms and genres, eager to share their experiences and help those new to the profession. Although we are a professional organization, TAF also became a tight-knit family, celebrating each other’s successes and offering solace when works were rejected.

Our mission quickly became one of networking, education and mentoring. We hosted our first Write Now! conference in 2008 (incorporating as a nonprofit in 2017). Throughout the next decade, we continued to expand, and Write Now! became an annual event. Although we were originally a nonfiction freelance group, we changed our model to invite all genres of writers to join us. We added writers of literary fiction, poetry, science fiction, romance and other genres to attend meetings, and added a new slate of sessions at our conference to accommodate them. We found we were enriched by the presence of other types of writers. As well, information gleaned from one area can inform others, and categories often overlap. Many of our writers work across genres.

When the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a stay-at-home order in North Carolina in 2020, TAF was hit hard. We were forced to halt our monthly in-person meetings. But we pride ourselves on being a creative and nimble organization, so we pivoted, and started holding our meetings via Zoom. It was heartbreaking to have to cancel Write Now! conferences since they represent the highlight of our year. It’s a joy to gather together to listen to inspiring speakers, share information about the craft and business of writing, and encourage each other on our projects.

But the pandemic didn’t stop TAF members from writing. In fact, it sparked a surge of creative thought. Over the next three years we published two anthologies. You can check them out here. All proceeds are returned to the organization, and the money is used to pay speaker honorariums for our conferences.

In the next few years, we held a few online workshops and created “TAF Talks,” in-depth interviews with authors, editors and agents. Their success inspires us, and they seem to enjoy the experience of sharing their lessons learned with our group.

Once a regional organization, we now have members from a number of other states. We have continued our meetings via Zoom to accommodate our members who have moved out of the area over time. We hold in-person socials periodically so we can enjoy each other’s company in person, since writing can be a lonely profession.

Finally, this year we are resuming our in-person Write Now! conference, which is being held on April 27, 2024. I could not be any more excited about the level of our keynotes and speakers. We’re in for a real treat. Click here for details.

We’ve all worked hard over the course of many years to make TAF the success it is today: one of the largest organizations in North Carolina dedicated to all aspects of freelance writing. I see us continuing our mission of offering networking, education and mentoring to writers in all forms and genres. We’ve been incredibly lucky regarding the quality and prominence of the individuals we’ve hosted as meeting and TAF Talk guests, and the Board of Directors will continue to reach out to writers and others who are well-published and have something important to say about the art, craft and business of writing.

As we move beyond our 20-year celebration and look toward the future, I’d like to thank all our members and volunteers, supporters and friends of TAF, and the amazing guest speakers we’ve had over the course of our history. I never dreamed that my desire to meet with other freelancers to discuss our work would lead to the organization we know today. We are well poised to continue our growth, welcoming new members into the TAF family.

All the best,

Don

Don Vaughan has been a full-time freelance writer since 1991. During that time he has published more than 2,500 articles and columns in an eclectic array of publications, including Writer’s Digest, Encyclopedia Britannica and MAD Magazine. Don is the founder of Triangle Association of Freelancers.

By Don Vaughan, donaldvaughan.com

Last year, I lost one of my best friends. We’d known each other for eighteen years, and had grown extremely close. We visited almost weekly, and shared innumerable stories on topics both intimate and far-reaching. I miss my friend a lot.

This special friend wasn’t a person, but the McKay’s Used Books & More in Raleigh, which suddenly and inexplicably closed its doors in April 2017. When Nan and I moved to Raleigh from South Florida in 1999, McKay’s was one of the first stores we visited. It was weird and funky, offering everything from books and vinyl to video games, posters and DVDs. Whatever your media/pop culture needs, McKay’s probably had it.

Over the years, we followed McKay’s to three different locations, finally landing at 3514 Capital Boulevard, where it shared a shopping strip with a furniture rental store and a Trade It!, the latter also now closed. Our fondness for McKay’s was such that our preferred Friday night date became dinner out and a visit to McKay’s, where inevitably we would add to our ever-growing library of books and movies.

McKay’s felt like home. We became friends with many of the young people who worked there, sharing common interests and checking out each other’s latest tattoos. There were always a lot of tattoos at McKay’s. Piercings, too. All of which added to the store’s unique bohemian vibe.

Though it sold an eclectic array of stuff, McKay’s was, at its core, a bookstore. And what a glorious bookstore it was, too, its bookcases comprised of old wooden crates stacked high and bent by the weight of the tomes within. Unlike a lot of used-book stores, McKay’s enjoyed a steady turnover, so there were always new books in stock when we visited. Nan and I have different literary interests, so we would separate upon entering the store, do our own thing, then meet again at the check-out counter. More often than not, we would bring in older books to trade for store credit, which helped power our literary pursuits.

I eventually developed a theory that if I waited long enough, everything I wanted would eventually show up at McKay’s. My patience paid off many times with the delightful discoveries of titles long on my list. Nan also added mightily to her collections, often stumbling across multiple volumes in a particular series or by a particular author. Every Friday visit became a treasure hunt.

As regular patrons, we were privy to a lot of the craziness that went on at McKay’s. Encounters with crazy homeless people were an occasional hazard. You had to request a key to use the rest room because one time someone was, shall we say, less than adult when using the facilities. A burst pipe once flooded a portion of the store, causing significant problems. But through it all, McKay’s persisted.

It’s been almost a year since McKay’s closed its doors. We’ve moved on to other book stores, but still experience a pang of longing when we pass McKay’s still empty storefront. We hadn’t really realized just how important McKay’s had become in our lives until it was gone.

Maybe some day someone will take over the old McKay’s and open another book store. I would definitely visit, but it likely wouldn’t be the same kind of weirdly wondrous experience it was at the height of McKay’s popularity.

So one year after your passing, allow me to say farewell, old friend. You are missed by all who love to read.

By Jeff Davidson, breathingspace.com

An insidious trend is impacting authors, writers, poets and all creative individuals everywhere. As a result of the Amazon.com review process, virtually anyone can post anything about any intellectual property at any time. Such postings can be made independently of whether or not one has actually, say, bought and read the book, or has anything coherent to say about it. In Amazon’s quest to provide a “forum” for users, all reviews, those thoughtfully written as well as those that represent vicious attacks on the book or author himself, are considered fair game.

Amazon’s belief is that a diversity of opinion benefits all. Does it? Suppose you have written a book that’s taken you months or years of your life. You’ve painstakingly researched and/or experienced everything that goes into every page. On a bright, sunny day, your book is finally listed on Amazon.com for all to see. Several reviews begin to appear. Suppose they’re all favorable: you receive ten 5-star reviews.

Online Axe-grinders
Along comes someone who, for whatever reason, has an axe to grind. This person gives you a one-star review, saying that your book is garbage, offering nothing of value to readers, and shouldn’t ever have been published. “Okay,” you say, “this is one nutty reviewer out of 11. My average is still five stars. How much can it hurt? Other site visitors will see that this person has some hidden agenda.”

If only it were that simple. First, you no longer average five stars. Worse, Amazon has a feature associated with its reviews called “The most helpful positive review” and “The most helpful negative review.” When visitors click on the reviews to your books, a box pops up. On the left they see the positive review that people have deemed “most helpful.” On the right, they see the one scathing review that somebody posted about your book.

Why does this one negative review appear when there are 11 other highly favorable reviews? Because the only negative review, by default, serves as “the most helpful” negative review. Amazon essentially gives equal weight to all of the good things said about your book and the one bad thing said about your book, so that site visitors can have “an informed opinion.”

Oddity and Curiosity
It gets worse. Many site visitors who see your book and look at the posted reviews reflexively will click on the 1-star review to see why one person’s opinion is at great odds with everyone else’s. Then, site visitors can cast a vote: “helpful” or “not helpful.”

A scathing review about your book that has little merit, posted by someone with a hidden agenda, is going to make a greater impression on many visitors than 10 other sterling reviews – it’s simply human nature, and people love gossip. People like to read fan-zines to see what celebrities are up to, and what dirt people have dug up on them. Likewise, people want to see what dirt there is on your book.

In some cases, the one scathing review begins to metastasize. Your book could have as many as sixty 5-star reviews, and perhaps the most prominent among them includes 20 people who comment as to whether or not the review was helpful. Oddly, the one scathing review, often, will end up having more comments.

“Your Book is Useless”
Suppose your book is 250 pages and is self-help in nature, with at least two or three tips on every page. Over the course of your entire text, you’re offering readers more than 700 tips. A reviewer comes along and says that all the tips are useless. Can this possibly be true? Or, the reviewer says “nothing new here, it’s all been said before, none of this is practical,” etc. Such broad sweeping “critiques” of your book’s information and tips are unfair to you and all subsequent site visitors.

Yet, Amazon will take no steps to police agenda-driven reviews unless there is foul language, an ad hominem attack on the author rather than the book material itself, or extenuating circumstances. Meanwhile, agenda-driven reviews remain in place not merely for this week, this month, or this year, but forever.

The more people who click on and indicate that the review was “helpful” or “unhelpful,” the higher the probability that the review itself will appear in the Google rankings when someone enters your name or the name of your book.

Loose Cannons Online
Who exactly posts such inaccurate or irresponsible reviews, and why do they do so? Hopefully, rival authors and publishers aren’t resorting to such tactics, but in some cases this has proven to occur. For most authors, however, scathing reviews come as a result of someone who:

• has personal issues
• is at odds with your publisher or your topic
• objects to your credentials or affiliations
• has a personal vendetta against you.

A personal vendetta could arise from an employee who you let go last year, the lover you broke up with, someone who wants something that you have, someone who feels slighted by you, or someone who is simply jealous of your success. I am not making this stuff up–you only have to visit a handful of books on Amazon and follow through on the observations. The more popular a book or its author, the greater the propensity for agenda-driven reviews to appear.

This Amazon-fostered process of being able to post a review regardless of merit, and then allowing others to vote–“helpful or not helpful” or “like or dislike”–obviously has been mirrored all over the web and is now a standard feature on tens of thousands of shopping sites, blogs, artistic reviews, and social media sites.

So, everyone gets to “vote” about everything, at any time, with few barriers to entry. You can create an anonymous email account and begin posting away. The Tower of Babel has been re-built online, and it’s not pretty.

No Remedy In Sight
Suppose you want to address the agenda-driven reviewer who, without merit or conscience, has completely gutted your book. If you reply in the comment section, you are likely to start a chain of counter-replies that will actually increase the Google ranking of this particular review. Your name and the name of your book generally rises and falls based on how many others link to it, regardless of the quality of what others might have to say about you.

As long as anyone can anonymously post reviews regardless of merit, particularly on the world’s most popular websites, even if the comments border on libel and defamation, they stay.

I don’t advocate that all email addresses be verified and that no one be permitted to have an anonymous email address. Reasons abound for having the ability to make inquiries without revealing oneself. Yet, Amazon, Google, and all the other top vendors ought to be more rigorous in what they allow to be posted. The ramifications of even one mean-spirited, agenda-driven review are global and, as far as we know, eternal.

Jeff Davidson is The Work-Life Balance Expert® and the premier thought leader on work-life balance issues. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the work-life balance of their people. He wrote Breathing Space, Simpler Living, and Dial it Down, Live it Up.