Below is a post written by Stitch, his one and only post, published on July 5, 2012, explaining the GR bully culture and how it works. In the post, Stitch expresses his distaste for the bullies and how they operate.
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Above is a Goodreads post written by an author that will remain anonymous. In case you’re wondering, the image of the post is cut off abruptly in order to exclude the author’s name (enough damage has been done to her.) This author was a victim of a GR bully attack. Actually, several attacks. In the end, she was so disheartened by what she experienced, she left Goodreads and quit writing altogether. When she did, the GR bullies rejoiced in her exodus and reveled in her misery. I would include screencaps of this, but again, I do not want to reveal the identity of the writer. I just want to use her as an example of what bullying on GR can do and the irreparable damage it can cause. Sadly, this kind of abuse to writers kills confidence and stifles creativity to the point where the writer cannot even bear to continue. This is expressed in her words:
“The third and fourth books, I’ve loved… and yet the world seems to hate them. No, not hate them—I’ve seen hateful reviews. These people don’t know how I’ve managed to be published. I’m starting to wonder, myself. Because it’s obvious that my opinion of my books, and the public’s opinion, is so different… I’m scared. There is such a big disconnect there that I am seriously doubting my ability to estimate what a reader will like. I thought I knew… now I realize I have no clue. And I’m tired… so tired. Two young kids, full-time job, writing on the side. I feel like I don’t get a moment to breathe. And during the few times I do, I am reminded of my failures as an author. Each time I try to pull myself up again and get out of this hole, someone comes along and pushes me back in. So, because I am not made for this business, I’ve decided to pull out. As much as I once loved writing, I honestly don’t anymore. That means no more posts on this blog. No more interaction with other writers and no more groups, no more events. No more books.”
No person, writer or otherwise, should ever be made to feel like this. What is so sinister about this kind of bullying is that the victims of the attacks are too afraid to stand up against it for fear of what the bullies will do to their books, their reputations, and their careers. I’ve been watching them for months now and I know that the GR bullies are famous for twisting people’s words around, making them look bad, ruining their reputations with lies, and destroying their careers even before they have begun. This is why we are here. To be the voice of those who have been bullied, forced, and otherwise coerced into silence. We are here to be their advocates and to expose those who are tormenting them.
I don’t usually write posts. My job is to search the web for any and all related information that goes into our articles. However, I felt the need to write this post, because in my observance of these bullies, I’ve come to notice several similarities to modern-day urban street gangs. In a book called, Common Characteristics of Gangs: Examining the Cultures of the New Urban Tribes, G.W. Etter Sr. says:
“Modern urban street gangs have evolved into tribal organizational structures. These new urban tribes have developed into a subculture in the streets of the urban jungle. They claim territory, are self-supporting, have their own language and customs, and establish their own rules and codes of conduct. Their customs are passed to new members by rites of passage from generation to generation, thus ensuring the continuance of the gang. Gang members identify themselves as a people that is separate from the rest of society.” (Etter, 1999, p. 261)
How is this similar to the GR Bully culture? These bullies have organized themselves into a hierarchical structure that we will reveal on this blog, slowly, with each post. Each bully falls into one of several categories: ringleader, instigator, stalker, or minion. As for how they claim territory, here is a clipping to illustrate their mentality:
For the record, we have evidence that Shannon, The Holy Terror has visited author blogs and left rude comments. So the statement she is making here is false. But notice how she says “OUR spaces”? This is claiming territory. Unfortunately, this is the mentality of the whole group. They claim certain spaces as their territory and anyone who approaches them has to play by their rules. Their rules (codes of conduct) are:
1. There is a distinct line between authors and readers (separating themselves.)
2. Reviews are only for readers.
3. Authors must remain silent while the reviewers can behave any way they want toward them.
4. Authors are not allowed to comment on reviews of any kind.
At STGRB, we do not play by these rules, nor do we agree with them. First of all, there is no distinct line between an author and a reader. All authors are readers and many readers are want-to-be authors. As authors are readers, reviews are written for them as well. As we see it, reviews are publications that are subject to public scrutiny, as are all publications. All people, authors and readers are therefore allowed to comment on them. Lastly, reviewers are not allowed to behave any way they want to toward anyone, that includes authors. On this site, we do not allow author bashing of any kind.
Another aspect of the GR bully culture that I have noticed is that reviewers exercise self-promotion and in doing so, snark has become a status game where reviewers attempt to score points. Whoever can write the nastiest, most author-bashing, disrespectful review becomes the winner. Whoever can get the most ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ on their reviews is the winner. It becomes a status game of getting to the top and staying at the top. It doesn’t seem to work with 5-star reviews. It only works with the scathing one-stars.
This bully culture seems to think the problem stems from authors who are behaving badly. They do not see their actions as the cause of the conflict. They blame the author-reviewer war on self-publishing, stating that if it wasn’t for the self-publishing revolution, they would never have to tolerate authors talking back because agents or editors would keep them in line:
The only problem with this argument is that the bullies have been known to start flame wars with many traditionally published authors thus disproving their assertion (read The First Five Days on Goodreads at Cuddlebuggery Book Blog.) No, the conflict does not stem from self-publishing, nor from author behavior. It stems from the GR bully culture that has evolved on the internet.
Sadly for this group of people, the future does not hold good fortune. Self-publishing is not going away anytime soon and is only going to get bigger as more and more successful self-publishers come into the spotlight. In the future, we will see bookstores closing, e-books becoming the dominant form of reading, competitive pricing by Amazon putting many publishers out of business, and a tsunami of self-publishers putting their work out into the marketplace. Goodreads will more than likely grow, being flooded by waves of self-published authors looking for readers and the bullies will have to make a choice. They will either have to change their behavior and get along, or they will continue as they are. If they continue, they will only bring more trouble and heartache onto themselves. And that’s the truth.
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I just want to add one final thought. I’m talking about the last bit there where Stitch says:
Goodreads will more than likely grow, being flooded by waves of self-published authors looking for readers and the bullies will have to make a choice. They will either have to change their behavior and get along, or they will continue as they are. If they continue, they will only bring more trouble and heartache onto themselves.
Now, considering he wrote this on July 5, 2012, this statement is rather prophetic. This is exactly the kind of trouble Ashleigh Paige brought onto herself by shelving an anthology on a BBA shelf and then sending the bully squad after the authors who spoke up about it. For more on that, read our recent post Ashleigh Paige Throws a Hissy Fit.
Wow! You really do have everything backed up. Question. How come you didn’t just apply the new theme to your old site? Transfer the material over and click “apply new theme”? It just seems like it would be a lot faster. I mean, I get the idea that you want to show your new readers the old posts, but they could always just go back to the beginning and read them.
You’re right, Alex. Thanks for asking. It would be a lot faster. We decided not to do that for several reasons. The main one being that we wanted to change the format of the content. Like for example, our screenshots before were jpgs and we discovered that using them was causing all kinds of problems. They took a long time to load and sometimes after we posted them, they would just disappear. So we’re changing all screenshots to a different format. Another reason we didn’t apply the new theme to our old content was because sometimes the transition doesn’t work well when two themes are very different and it causes bugs. After days of talking about it, we decided starting from scratch was the best way to go.
Ok, fair enough.
Out of curiosity, did the author from the top of the post ever start writing again? Any update on that? I guess I keep hoping that people who are dog-piled by the bullies get enough support from others around them that they keep writing. Like Nadege Richards, who once she spoke up was deluged from readers and other author to keep going (to give more weight to all the positive feedback instead of focusing on the handful of negative).
Yes, she did start writing again. Athena knows more about that because I think she actually contacted her and talked to her about it. The author said that she had had friends and family supporting her and they convinced her to keep going. We would have posted about it but the author asked to remain anonymous. We didn’t blame her in the slightest.
Thank you for the answer. I completely understand the author wishing to remain anonymous, so I’m fine with not knowing that. I’m glad to hear they went back to writing.
Reading the post at the start that the author wrote is heart breaking. There is so much hurt and upset in the her words. How could anyone be so cruel? How could someone live with themselves knowing that they have hurt someone as much as this? I’m so upset for that author, she seems striped bare in that comment that she wrote…..
Things are going WAY too far. As I explained before on-line bullying is constantly in the news in Ireland because there have been a number of suicides here that are strongly linked to on-line bulling. Our government has promised to do something about it because it has become so serious. They say that there will be a lot of court case this year, the bullies will be held accountable for their actions on-line. Sadly a lot of teenagers have taken their lives because they couldn’t handle the constant on-line bullying, and more recently one of our politicians took his own life after he was relentlessly bullied on-line.
Bullies never know when to stop. I’ve seen bullies on Goodreads admit that they enjoy bulling, they call it “fun.” I’m so glad that this site takes on-line bulling so seriously, someone has to stop these bullies……
Here are news reports about just some of the on-line bulling that lead to recent suicides in Ireland:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fallout-from-budget-and-cyber-abuse-troubled-late-minister-3334469.html
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/third-suicide-in-weeks-linked-to-cyberbullying-212271.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/erin-gallagher-irish-teen-commits-suicide-battle-cyberbullying_n_2040850.html
The Irish government hopes stop on-line bulling: QUOTE; “The aim is to produce a report that will help the Government if it wants to draw up legislation or regulations to deal with the issue.”
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Government-makes-move-on-cyber-bullying-in-wake-of-shock-Shane-McEntee-suicide-185035481.html
Thank you, Gill, for sharing those links! Yes, online bullying has gone way too far. It seems as though your country is more on the ball about than ours is.
I think the self-published authors vulnerability comes from the fact that they have no corporation (e.g. PR machine) backing them up. I frequently find librarians– the gatekeepers of literary world–praising work of established authors while denouncing the value of the self-published ones and so the cycle of greatness if reinforced. These gatekeeprs say they are merely being “objective,” but the truth is, people’s “objective” perceptions are coloured when they see “Random House” vs. JingleHouse Press on the side of the book. Furthermore, part of what people think is “good” is provided by social cues such as a) Is it in a bookstore or library– the only place by definition where you find “real books” or by reviews, whether done by sock puppets or otherwise. Perhaps we are in a period of transition as people begin to believe that they can choose for themselves what constitutes a “good” book, but I think at this particular historical juncture, a lot of people in power come to self-published books with a view to finding something wrong with them and I think this is what people construe as “bullying”–a lack of open-mindedness toward the material that would have been bestowed to a more “legitimate,” published author. I don’t really know how you can fight against it other than to try to make self-publishing more mainstream by having your own book centres, blogs, etc. But I think calling individuals out on “bullying” is not really addressing the root of the problem which is that self-publishing is seen by most gatekeepers, or people who prop themselves up as gatekeepers, as defacto inferior writing–an attitude which helps fertilize the seeds in which “bullying” can contine to take place. So be brave indies as there are always those open-minded folk who WILL give you a chance. I am so heartened by the fact that for every batch of excoriating reviews I see of an indie author that I will see one glowing one written just underneath it. This indicates to me that not all people are not cowed to the views of the majority or a tyrannical “expert”, and that if indie writers keep supporting each other and proclaiming the value fo their work (e.g., to promote critical thought, to introduce new perspectives), that they will eventually escape some of the haterful words that are merely directed at them because have been designated as a special class of writer. Yes, not all indie writing is good, but neither is published work either–a fact which conveniently forgotten by those with poison pens. And many indie books have become literary masterpieces (e.g. Thoreau, Virginnia Wolf). So if you are being bullied, you are in good company! And perhaps finally, and most importantly, you must question why you are in the business of writing anyways. If it is to make a million, there are easy ways to do this that to become an artist. But if you are there to make a difference, then consider the criticism, not the one star with no comments which really are of no value except for the reviewer to vent on the author and to pull their ratings down, but the REAL criticism as a badge of honor –after all, someone took the trouble to actually buy your book and write about it. How many people in the world can say that they have so much influence over so many people at one time? People hated Van Gogh’s work in his lifetime, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t great. So if you can’t find inspiration in the present to keep going, look to the courageous literary heroes of the past who took it on the chin and said, “I will prevail regardless.” Use the legitimate criticism to help you improve your work. Networking sites like Goodreads often will give you FAR more reviews than you will ever get on amazon so try to be thankful that your book, again if it is legitimate criticism and not the one star troll deal, is getting any air at all. Without those blogs and other social media, indie authors would have NO CHANCE whatsoever, so be careful not to be ungrateful to those sites, because they will usually be far kinder to you in their criticism (if it is legitimate) than what you will get from an independent paid reviewer or a gatekeeper “expert” who only favors the “winners” of the literary lottery. God bless.
“Yes, not all indie writing is good, but neither is published work either–a fact which conveniently forgotten by those with poison pens. And many indie books have become literary masterpieces (e.g. Thoreau, Virginnia Wolf). So if you are being bullied, you are in good company!”
Beautiful words, Sophie! I completely agree with you on the bias against indies in the book community as a whole. It is unfair and I’m really hoping it will change someday. I’m not an author but I have a lot of friends who are independent authors who suffer from this bias all the time and many of their books are just as good if not better than traditionally published works.
As for bullying, there are so many people who get confused as to what our site is really about. We are about fighting against bullying. Not against negative reviews, not against traditional publishing and not against readers/reviewers. On our Who We Are page we say:
“The bullies are under the impression that any reaction to them is about critical reviews, using the argument that they have a right to express their opinions. We are not here to fight against critical reviews. That is not what our campaign is about. It is about their bullying behaviour towards others which is becoming increasingly disturbing. We are here to expose that.”
On our What Is A GR Bully page we also say:
“We do not consider honest, critical reviews of books to be bullying. However, we do consider attacks on authors and other GR members to be bullying. We also consider attacking an author’s book for revenge and/or rating and reviewing an author’s book without reading it first to be bullying behavior as well.”
What we are doing with our blog is calling attention to GR members who stalk, harass, and libel not just authors, but other readers as well. These GR bullies are not just readers, either. Many of them are authors. And these bullies ARE the root of the problem. Since we’ve started our blog, we’ve heard from hundreds of people that it has made a big difference. A BIG difference. Before our blog, abuse was rampant on GR. Now, it’s not as bad. Many of these people have retreated into private groups where people can’t see what they’re doing or saying, which for us is a good thing. Much of their nonsense has disappeared from public view. This is what we wanted.
Soon we will be re-publishing many of the old posts we have of bully attacks on authors. In these posts, we show our readers how these authors were personally attacked and libeled by these GR members. This is what we consider bullying. Not negative reviews. If you want to see what I mean, take a look at these posts:
http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/category/bully-attacks/
I hope what I’ve said here makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions.
The problem with your initial assumption is that it is not only self-publishers who are targeted. Traditionally published authors are also targeted, and have been from the very beginning.
As for marketing, unless you are getting high 6-figure advances or above, thereby ensuring that the publishing house has to put push behind you to make back the money, the authors are the ones doing most of the promotion. The publishing houses do very little, if any, any longer. Which means traditional authors are out there pounding the pavement, as well (I’m a firm believer in writing more than promotion, but that’s just me. Without a product to sell, a career writer is nothing). Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. Just what the bullies love to jump on and scream that doing so makes them a ‘badly behaved author,’ and off they go on another rampage.
And the attacks continue even if the author realizes they did something they shouldn’t and apologize.
As for making self-publishing more mainstream? Self-published books are making it onto best-seller lists. Traditionally published authors, including best-sellers, are going ‘hybrid’ and putting out works on their own to augment their backlist. These are big names who sometimes contract out editor and proofreading jobs to the very same people the big publishers contract out to. That’s pretty mainstream. The small minds of reviewers who are a little behind the times are simply small minds who will soon be left behind if they don’t adapt.
I said all of the above to illustrate that we are seeing bullies being bullies. Bullies saying or acting like they are ‘gatekeepers’ is a lie they tell themselves to make themselves feel important. The fact is, they are no kind of gatekeeper at all (except to their own personal taste. Um, do they ever read any books they actually LIKE?)
The librarian part of your post, yes, it’s an issue. But, it’s been an issue before self-publishing became a viable option for most. It’s simply a problem that has carried over into the new world of publishing.
The point you make about continuing, yes, writers need to keep doing that. Keep writing. Keep releasing. Keep growing in craft. Put out better and better stories.
And sorry, but I agree with so many other big writers who advise other writers: stop reading reviews (yes, even positive ones). I have seen no long-term writer of 10+ years with more than ten books under their belts who are still in the business who say to read your reviews. Instead, they advise to keep writing. Don’t let those other voices in your head. You cannot write to a committee. No book will ever please all readers (all readers bring their own viewpoints, history, preferences to every story they read), so the writer needs to please themselves first. They need to write the best story they can. The readers who like that vision will see the writer’s love and attention to the story and respond to it.
Those who don’t? Well, that’s okay. With all their back-history and baggage the reader brings to the story, the story didn’t resonate. Doesn’t necessarily mean the story was bad. It was only bad FOR THEM. If they want to leave a negative review because of it? That’s fine. As I said before, not every reader is going to like a story. Won’t happen.
But, that’s not what this site is about. Nor what they report. Negative reviews and bully reviews are two different things, as Athena pointed out.
Sorry for the rambling. I’ll just finish with this final comment:
The greatest revenge against these bullies is success.
The small minds of reviewers who are a little behind the times are simply small minds who will soon be left behind if they don’t adapt.
I couldn’t have said that better myself.
Good comment all around, Booklover!