"Open Letter to Chris Bores" by Chico Edge

No videos again this week. Back to old habits huh Chris? Once again, I am left without content.
However, Chico Edge has provided something he wanted Chris to see.
Chico, I know I promised I would get this out earlier in the week, but Chris' big plea for attention, plus real life matters, delayed it a bit. Hopefully you understand.

To everyone else, enjoy.

I bring greetings to all of the readers of this blog. I have been a lurker for quite a while but I was not active in the comments section until recently. The catalyst was Chris publishing a book- Ghost Hunting 2.0. You may not know it from my errors in the comment section but I write a lot. I wouldn’t call myself a great writer but I get paid to write and my clients keep coming back with more work for me so I suppose somebody likes my content. If Chris had simply published his book and collected the revenues from whatever sales he makes then I would likely have forgotten about Ghost Hunting 2.0 by now. However, recent events have compelled me to write something in the hope that Chris sees it. He will likely ignore it but I feel I should not use that as an excuse to do nothing. I hope you will bear with me.

Dear Chris Bores,

You do not know me. If you did you will probably disregard whatever I try to tell you because you have shown a tendency to disregard practical advice even when it could be very helpful to you. I may never have had the 55th most subscribed channel on all of YouTube but I know something about writing, editing and publishing. I sincerely hope you will consider my words.

I installed my first broadband Internet connection in 2007, signed up for a YouTube account that same day and searching for one of my favorite hobbies- video games- lead me to James Rolfe. I discovered your channel soon after and I was aware of the controversy around your videos but I did not get involved in the drama. I think some of the things you did were deplorable but I bit my tongue as you deleted other peoples’ videos, had channels taken down, encouraged people to use that horrible Deal Dash website and somehow I managed to refrain from speaking out against your incredibly childish “shout out” and “parody” videos. I simply do not like Internet drama.

Things are different now. By publishing a book you have become a part of something that is very near and dear to me. I am a gamer but that is a hobby. Writing is a livelihood for me. You are now in my playground, so to speak.

I will give you some credit first. Writing a book is incredibly difficult; much harder than most people realize. You managed to become a scheduled guest on  Coast to Coast and your book at one point reached respectable levels on Amazons sales lists. That was largely due to Kindle Unlimited but hey, relatively few people accomplish these things so kudos to you.

With that out of the way, something else needs to be made clear. You have no respect for writers or what it takes to write a book. I read the entirety of Ghost Hunting 2.0 and it is clear to me you have no interest in developing a great book.

You see, Chris, some people want to be seen as a successful and published author while others simply want to write. You are part of the former group. You want the fame and recognition. You want to be seen as some kind of visionary who came up with a unique approach to solving mysteries that have stumped others for ages. You want to be credited for developing a new branch of psychology and you want to be acknowledged as the creator of the Bores Spirit Classification system. You want all of the accolades but you don’t want to work hard for it and you don’t want to go through the process of having your work peer reviewed or any of the other steps required to actually move science forward. I personally think ghost hunting is ridiculous but I am respecting the fact you consider it to be valid and worthy of peer review.

The final slap in the face came when you resorted to having fake reviews for your book posted on Amazon. It is evident that you are very unethical; how is it that you don’t even care that you are misleading people into buying your product? Can you honestly tell me you do not feel bad about this at all?

For many writers publishing on Amazon’s Kindle platform is their sole source of income. When I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree I lived on the money made from my writing until I found a job suited to my skills and experience. We may not always like getting unfavorable reviews but we accept them, learn from them and try to be better next time. For your own sake I suggest you have those fake reviews removed. They are so blatantly obvious and while they may provide you with a better star rating now in the end the fake reviews will only work against you and your efforts to establish credibility.

Part of me wants to leave you with constructive criticism. Something about developing a cohesive outline, working with an editor or at least a ghost writer and removing those painful bits of ego stroking in your book. I won’t do that because I know you won’t even consider it. As I noted before, you have no respect for writing. However, I will tell you that this endeavor if yours will have the same results of your other failed projects. Whether your ideas are good or not is open for debate but your problem lies in the execution of your projects. You are lazy, have no respect for the work of others and you lash out when offered constructive criticism.

Until you change these things then all of your future projects will be just as mediocre. Your biggest claim to fame will be having the 55th most subscribed YouTube channel several years ago. Is that what you really want?