Do Personal Opinions Of Authors, Etc Dissuade You From Purchases?

[jdrakeh]

Their personal opinions don't dissuade me from buying their products, but a track record of flagrant license violations, public abuse of customers, and other inappropriate actions will. After a few very unfunny "I'm dead" and "My company's dead" April Fool's Day "jokes", there are at least three publishers whom I will never buy a product from again. That kind of "joke" is abusive (especially the "My company's dead" one, as it's orchestrated to boost the sales of products currently on the market) and uncalled for.

 

[amethal]

I suppose in theory an author could have personal opinions which would discourage me from buying a product, but they'd have to be such sick opinions as to be extremely unlikely in practice.

I have avatars, signatures etc turned off so I quite often don't realise what companies, products etc. people are associated with anyway.

And its embarrassing the number of times I haven't really read the name of the poster either. I'm there thinking "Hey, that guy knows what he's talking about", and then I realise it was Mearls, so of course he does.

I see authors posting on message boards as a positive thing. It makes me feel they are truly part of the community, and gives me a chance to show my support for them by buying their products (when I finally figure out who they are ....)

 

[Berandor]

Basically, if an author professes to an opinion that, to me, is not very well thought out, or thought through, then he might lose a sale, especially if the product in question is in line with that perceived bias. When George RR Martin votes for or against the current president, however, that won't change how I look at his fantasy novels.

In essence, I agree with Rodrigo Istalindir, but I wanted to write more than that.

 

[Rhuvein]

Yes, absolutely! Personal opinions of authors, as well as their conduct in life and treatment of family members and others is paramount in my decision making!

 

[SteveC]

Wow, talk about an oldie but a goodie...it sure is interesting to see this thread again.

For the most part, the attitudes of writers and company spokesmen have influenced my opinions on buying products in a positive way. If I see something from one of my favorite authors I'll likely give it a chance and pick it up, as long as it's reasonably priced.

Still, there have been some exceptions, which went the other way. Without naming any names, a few years ago there was a discussion on the question "does editing influence the purchase of a product and should it be a primary concern for a publisher." This was, as they say, on another board .

So I said that yes, it does matter, and yes, a company should pay attention to it, because if you get a bad enough reputation for these things, your sales will slump. Well the company reps from two different companies jumped in and not only did they disagree with me, they played the "you don't know anything about the industry if you think that's the case." It also happened that I thought a lot of their products were sub par in terms of editing, so I decided to not buy anything from them again.

Now if you flash forward, both comanies are no longer in business, and a part of their problems (not the only part to be sure, but a pretty big part) was that they developed a reputation for creating poorly edited products but also not caring about the finished product.

So I guess if you say enough things that bug people, you get a rep for it. Does it tick people off and lose you sales? Certainly. Does it gain you anything? I really don't know. I can't imagine why it would. I guess I've always thought that when I'm dealing as a representative of my company (which almost never happens, but has on one occasion) I think that "he who speaks the least, speaks the best." Or something like that.

--Steve