In early 2018, I sat watching my Twitter and Facebook feeds with my jaw dropped. #CockyGate was this tornado that measured 5 on the Fujita scale, and no writer was safe from the disaster left in its wake.
For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the trademark that was issued to a romance writer, effectively granting her sole possession of the word cocky. I know that might sound like an exaggerating, but the responses from Amazon and Goodreads in relation to this mess sent the publishing industry into a frenzy.
I won't go into the details of the ludicrous situation. If you are interested in the little details, just Google it. Trust me. There is a mountain of articles and information out there about it.
No, I want to focus on the effects of social media and how mob psychology works. I want to talk about how one woman destroyed her reputation and likely her writing career. And it wasn't by this trademark disaster. Granted, that didn't help in the slightest. No, in today's industry, so much of your reputation and sales rely on public perception and the face presented online.
There are lessons to be learnt from this mess, that's for sure.
