‘How to destroy your career as an author in one tweet’: Writer turns his own fans against him with terrible take on libraries

Who doesn’t love a good library? It’s a quiet space to access knowledge and literature literally for free. Well clearly, author Rob Copeland isn’t a fan, which has incurred the wrath of the TikTok community.

The drama started over on X (formerly Twitter) where a user made a post about how they’d enjoyed Copeland’s book, also mentioning that they’d borrowed it from a local library. Well this didn’t sit well with the author, who decided to remark snidely, “It’s even better when you buy, not borrow, your copy.” It’s not clear whether Copeland thought that his fans and book lovers in general would side with him on this one, but if he did, he was sorely mistaken. People all over the internet began dragging him for his rude and entitled response to someone who was actually complimenting his work.

People weren’t happy with Rob Copeland’s attitude

TikTok user ms_dish gave a summary of the drama providing the screenshots of the exchange as well as poking fun at the author for his attitude, “I just can’t imagine reading a tweet about someone enjoying your book and getting all “but you didn’t buy it though.”” She makes a good point, it’s free promotion, this is a good thing but Copeland doesn’t seem to see it that way.

Another TikTok user known as marshalljmooreauthor (or just Marshall) is also an author, he gave his two cents on the situation stating that “there is no greater honor than seeing your books on library shelves.” He also points out that libraries do pay for copies of the book, and usually buy multiple. On top of that, it’s pretty beneficial to an author to have their book in a library, because it brings their work to a whole new audience who might not have read it otherwise, and if they really like it then they’re more likely to buy a book from that author in the future. Most people have known this about libraries for years, but apparently Rob just sees it as lost income, it seems.

Someone on X did jump to Copeland’s defense, claiming “he’s just being a goofy,” to which Rob replied seemingly confirming that the response wasn’t meant to be taken as seriously as it was. It’s possible that is the case, but there wasn’t really anything to indicate that he was joking.

Either way, there’s a lesson to be learnt here, and the lesson is: People who enjoy reading books also enjoy libraries. Who would have figured? So, if you’re an author, remember: Libraries are your friend, don’t start beef with them, because you’ll only end up losing.