Author Safety Survey

After speaking to some of our members and finding a trend that I found rather disturbing, we've been discussing setting up a survey on author safety and the issue of harrassment and other problems. CIAS has set up the software for it, and I think Bookangel might have the reach to be a good platform.

Is this something that people would have problems with if we did?

 

What disturbing trend!?

 

This one? I thought I was immune to hate comments
How common is this stuff?

 

You could have asked before I set the survey up for you...

but yeah, I think that says that I am onboard with it. I know everyone;s heard about Misery, Stephen King, Mercedes Lackey, JK Rowling, etc. but the straw poll I saw said that it was something like 98% of all authors who get to be on the receiving end of that. To me, that is really worrying.

ETA: Just checked the results on the test survey we put up. Some of the questions need revising, but so far 75% our test group have experienced this. Pretty bad.

 

Holy f**k. Yeah, I think this could be really interesting.

 

Wasn't aware you'd had anything to do with it. Someone was supposed to be finishing the newsletter.

Anyway, I've just lost my entire notes on this due to a &*(&^&^&*&*** computer crash, so I am going for a walk. No, online backups won't help when the servers changes have to be made and finalised in memory before being commited...

 

One of the writers in my book group got a rather unpleasant message over christmas, and the others seemed to think this was just something authors had to get used to. I really don't think that threatening writers or creatives is something that should be normalised.

 

OK, we got the first round of feedback, and it looks like it is a common problem. I'm revising the questions before going onto wide release, so if anyone wants to give feedback now's the time. I've dropped $35 on better survey software so if someone says a section isn't relevant they can skip that section.

One question: I found out that a lot of respondents who answered no to "do you know of an author who was harrassed," were simply not thinking of people like Stephen King. I was going to add a question with authors from various genres, asking if the respondent knew of them, and then a question below of whether they knew that person had been harrassed. I'm not sure whether to put it before or after the section that goes into detail about 'know of' as it would get that to nearly 100%, but the responses would be more accurate.

Survey design is not my field.

http://bookangel.co.uk/author-safety-survey/ - ask me for the password, or just post updates in the thread, or DM me.

 

That looks good. I know CIAS has started contacting people, and I could see this being a very useful tool for author groups. Aside from our own mailing list, who should we send it to?

 

Can we ask fanfiction.net or one of the fan places like AO£, that might be right up their street.

 

Mistype or dis-type?
There gotte be indie groups we can talk to.

 

At the time of writing we have just under 100 results already. What can I say. JFC.

The thinking they were the "only one" is horribly, horribly, common and I was far too unimaginative about what some people get subjected to.

<modedit> figures removed at posters request </modedit>

I'm keeping this off the main thread to avoid biasing the results, but I think right now it is 'can open, worms everywhere'.

 

Well I never. That is certainly an eye-opener and I suppose far more widespread than people actually think.

I am now very curious about the outcomes from this.

 

I've spent the day putting this into order and talking to some more people to get this out.

We have preliminary figures, and it is bad.

I'm not giving specifics, and I'd be grateful if bookangel could wipe the figures I put out above. I would strongly, strongly advise getting this out to as broad a range of respondents as possible.