Basically, it’s not a bad advice, only ineffective as it’s given. I doubt somebody who’s a genuine ass would stop being an ass because a nice woman on Internet told him so. He could stop *acting* like an ass and start backstabbing people instead. But that’s another discussion altogether.

Here’s an interesting blog post on romance as a genre and what do romance writers/readers “say” about social roles of people. IMO, a prime example of marketing-and-message approach to writing. I could very well imagine this sort of post being written about Axe, Dove etc advertisements, but when it’s written about books it creeps me out a bit.

Of course, it’s romance, which is very restricted by marketing (don’t ask me why), SF/fantasy, for example, can afford to be way more daring.

Also reminds me the novel “T” by Viktor Pelevin where the publisher took a loan and hired a team of writers each specialized in a particular area – action, erotics, etc. They follow what they know sells in their respective “fields of expertise” and together do the best to come up with a single novel that will be able to recover the the loan plus produce profit. Moreover they negotiate with the Orthodox church to make it pay if christianity is to be shown in an attractive light there. I was reading and thinking to what extent that’s how the industry works…

Anyway I would be hardly interested in an author who were purposfully polished to meet the median consumer like Big Mac or Volkswagen Golf.