Well, well. It looks as if the bully crowd is trying to tell authors how to behave… AGAIN! A couple days ago, we received this comment from Maya:
Well, since this site is always about how readers are so mean to authors on GR, maybe this thread will interest you; readers sharing stories of great interactions they had with authors on GR: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1210998-dos-and-don-ts-for-gr-authors-blog-post. It’s the “other side”, so to speak.
To which Good Belle responds:
Are you fucking kidding me? Took me all of five seconds to get pissed off reading that thread. Who the hell are readers to tell authors how to/how not to behave?? And check boxes for authors before being ‘granted’ an GR account? Do we live in communist times? This ain’t Russia, China or North Korea – time for us to stop telling authors what they can and cannot do.
And Karig says:
All this does is confirm that places like Goodreads are (currently) useless for authors, particularly authors who aren’t already famous. The clique there (and at other places like the forums at Amazon) react with outrage if an author so much as mentions the name of his book (which is apparently considered “spamming”). Hell, some people there get seriously put out with you if you even mention that you **have** a book without saying what the title is.
I can understand that authors should avoid the “hard sell” and shouldn’t try to get the word out about their books by dumping blurbs and ad-speak onto a forum thread, but Heidi Belleau’s list of rules is offensive. She’s going to tell us that if you’re an author, you can’t talk to your fans unless they talk to you first, and that when that happens, you can talk about other people’s books but NOT your own? Give me a freaking break. Is an author a second-class citizen who needs to be reminded of her place? Is she supposed to shrug and accept lots of one-star reviews from people who haven’t read her books because somebody online with a chip on his shoulder thought she was getting uppity?
These rules are ridiculous, and they make places like Goodreads useless if not poison for writers just starting out and struggling to get fans in the first place.
And then Maya:
Well… you could also ask who the hell are authors to tell readers how to behave. I think everyone simply needs to behave with class and politeness, both authors and readers. I shared because an author wrote the article and I read some successful stories of reader/author interaction in there.
I must have missed the post where they wanted check boxes before allowing authors on GR.
Well, Maya, I think she was referring to this comment on the thread. It’s right on the front page:
Do you see the last sentence there? That “some people” just like causing drama? Of course, she’s referring to authors. But we all know, by the evidence we’ve shown over and over again on our blog, that these “some people” are none other than the bullies we have named on our BBG page.
So, here it is again! The bullies causing drama and then blaming authors for it. It NEVER ends.
Now, the author Maya is referring to, who wrote the blog post, is Heidi Belleau. We’re not going to post what she wrote here. We’d rather not soil our pretty new theme with her self-righteous excrement, but we do agree with her on one thing – don’t ever wrestle with pigs. This is why we always tell everyone what we wrote on our Do’s and Don’t’s for Victims: DO NOT engage with the bullies. They are nothing more than a herd of smelly, foul-mouthed swine who relish in dragging authors down into the mud that they live in and love so well.
What we fully disagree with is Heidi’s statement that recommends authors interact with their fans only if they engage them first. This is just utterly ridiculous. Karig is right. Authors are not second class citizens. They have a right to correct factual mistakes in reviews without being bullied by these assholes. They have a right to be offended when they are personally attacked in a “book” review, that is actually an author review. They also have a right to be annoyed when their books are attacked by an infestation of trolls who leave one-star flybys without even reading the books in the first place. And yet it seems that all of this is allowed on GR and the moderators are just fine with it. This is why we alert others (particularly new authors) as to whom and what they need to avoid. Because their GR experience can actually be rather pleasant if they know the ropes and are warned in advance.
And speaking of warnings, here are couple Anons warning our readers about Heidi and her circle of friends:
The person (author) who wrote the so-called rules is not exactly the person anyone should be taking advice from. Just my observation from reading her on Twitter and various places online over the last year or so.
And then from Anon3:
That disclaimer by the person who started that thread, stating that she doesn’t know the author is a complete lie, and the author who wrote that blog post is best buds on Twitter with some of the worst bullies out there.
Anon3 is referring to this comment on the thread:
Anon3 is absolutely right. Willaful (one of the BBG) is lying. Check this out. Recognize anyone?
If you didn’t recognize one of our Biggest Offenders, go here.
Or how about this shot? Recognize any names?
Public enemy no. 1? Hardly. But Heidi is rolling in the mud with the pigs. Does it give you the impression that she wrote the post for attention? Hmm… *scratches chin* More than likely. What’s hilarious is the fact that these people are constantly writing up rules for authors. Because, you see, they always end up breaking them. For this reason, we’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on Heidi. If she’s anything like her friends on Twitter, she’ll end just like Looney and her “code of honour”.
Everyone remember that? You know, the code that she broke TWICE. If anyone is missing our posts on that, showing how she made a complete ass of herself, don’t worry. Within the next month, we’ll be re-pubbing them, so stay tuned…
Somervile supporting a rules for authors blog. Jeez… you couldn’t make it up.
LMAO! Exactly!
Hmm, I hadn’t seen that post, no. Still, I think some posts are positive. They do show instances where readers and authors interacted positively. Plus, I don’t think most posters are trying to say what authors should and shouldn’t do but rather how they see and what they expect from interactions with authors. I don’t think the posts are impolite or demanding, they are simply presenting the reader’s point of view… you may or may not agree with them but I hardly think expressing their opinions makes them “bullies”. :/
Authors do have the right to defend themselves, yes, and they shouldn’t have to take abuse but I don’t think engaging reviewers is the best method. Flagging is better, IMHO (the “author reviews” will be hidden, so, problem solved). Many authors resent the fact that they can no longer interact on the same level with readers, but as sellers of a product I believe some discretion is required. Sure, give your opinions, comment to your heart’s content in the reviews, even if you know most reviewers don’t welcome it, but expect consequences if people don’t like what you have to say. Do I think it’s fair? No. But it’s human nature. If I think an actor is a jerk in real life, I might not go see any of his movies… that is my choice as a customer and I think it’s kind of annoying if people tell me I should put that aside and go watch the movie anyway.
I actually think neither side is blameless in this story, authors or reviewers. Just my two cents. You don’t have to agree, but it’s how I feel. There are always two sides to every story.
What I find interesting is the names on the the twitter feed. Along with the usuals like Ridley and Looney, we now see Jill Sorenson appear. This one is a bully from way back, and loves to quietly stir trouble in the background. If there is a shitstorm, you can count on Jill Sorenson to show up and rev up the fans. Of course it’s always done in her own sweet little demure way.
She is a perfect example of the passive aggressive bully online. Doesn’t want to go all out crazy pants, but still get her cuts in. Lovely.
LOL I guess these people still manage to piss me off. I’m just tired of people telling each other how they can and can’t behave – even though I’m not an author, but why would I let some stranger tell me what to do or not to do? Should I let some stranger tell me when I can take a dump? Have a coffee? Read a book? Quit or apply for a job? Have sex? It’s just as out there as strangers telling authors what they can or can’t do in a public forum.
Ok. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but now we are all expected to take advice from some debut author, a woman writing gay male fiction, hiding her identity, with a freaking pen name, “Heidi Belleau.” Now unless this one was baptised “Heidi Belleau” I don’t see what qualifies her to be an expert on GR rules, or anything else. The audacity of her lecturing is amazing in itself. And then in other posts she writes as it she invented publishing books. Princess “Belleau” of the royal ones who know it all really needs to tone it down, and start taking advice instead of giving it out “willy nilly.”
I find her tone and all-knowing expert advice laughable. Really Heidi? Besides, you lost me at the get-go when you inserted your apostrophe between the o and s. Back to the drawing table dear, and stay there until you can dig up some credibility.
She’s young, and she might not understand what she’s doing right now. I’m honestly not sure. But it looks as if she’s in trainging for her batshit wings, at the International University of Looney Tunes. If I were her I’d tone things down a little. Because the bullies will turn on her, too.
She’s just another little indie author trying to make a name for herself and curry favour with the bullies by telling other authors how to behave. I had a look at Angela Horn’s blog and noticed that when she was blogging about her books, she’d get 3 comments at most. As soon as she started attacking other authors, the number of comments swelled hugely, and on one post she got as many as 100 and a bunch of bullies actually promised to review her books. I don’t think this has really translated into sales though. Bottom line:some indies think this is the path to success. They need to be proved wrong.
I see that one of the bullies or should I say one of their monkeys has commented on Eve Thomas’s blog and obviously has not taken the time yet again to read what she wrote. Eve says it not about her books and raises the very valid point that children frequent Goodreads and this concerns her yet the monkey accuses Eve of only being concerned with her book sales and sympathy!
They really are a very unique bunch who seem to share brain cells. Eve commented on her blog, it now seems she can’t even do that without them pouncing.
Has anyone notice that Ann Somerville’s book was reviewed on Dear Author on February 3? An A review, written by Sirius, who also reviewed a lot of her books on Amazon and comments frequently on her blog. Then there’s a whole bunch of comments by a lot of her familiar fans. Is this some tyoe of thank you from Jane Litte?
Nine different people e-mailed me about that review in private. I checked it out and laughed for half a day. It was one of the behind the scenes things that ran around on FB and through private e-mails for a while, and Jane and the rest of them never knew about how many people found it so entertaining.
Looks like Patrick found him a new monkey to do his “spin” work.
http://www.mhpbooks.com/goodreads-bans-sexual-roleplay-because-of-course-there-was-sexual-roleplay-on-gooreads/
Here’s something interesting, everyone:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1215858-respect-for-authors
Yeesh. I should know better by now, but I clicked on your link. C.J.’s “fans” on Goodreads are repulsive and their lack of empathy is revolting. Why would any author want to cast his pearls before these swine?
Also, Eve is in contact wtih Otis Chandler about the attack on her. More information to come…
I followed the link, does anyone recognize any familiar trolls? I know that I keep repeating this but IT IS ALWAYS THE SAME TROLLS WHO BULLY AUTHORS!!! In this thread we have:
- Troll: KarLynp
- Troll: Miranda
To name but a few, there seems to be a few new trolls in there too! Or maybe I just don’t recognize all of them. Either that or else the trolls are using one of their multiple accounts.
Did you see on the second page of the thread were someone called Omar posted this:
QUOTE Omar: – “Pst. For anyone who’s interested, I’m putting together an Authors Behaving Badly collection. So far, I have over 500,000 words of material. There’s so much material, authors complaining about this or that, hijacking a thread here and there, and all good quality that it’s difficult to choose.
Please keep it hush hush. These authors can be quite brutal. I heard one of the authors just did an obit for one of those badly behaving authors. Apparently the author hijacked one too many threads, and then tried to steal another authors virtual girlfriend. From what I hear, it was a very gruesome death. If you want the gory details, you’ll have to wait for the collection.” —
He is trying to taunt the author who started the thread. This Omar person is supposedly an author himself. What drives an author to bully other authors? Most likely jealously!!! More like Badly Behaving Omar!!
If there is something brewing here you might want to check out. A relatively unknown author in m/m romance released a book about a week ago and now has like 40 five star glowing reviews. That never happens. One person gave it a one star review and questioned the validity of the other reviews…and the honesty. Now his “fans” are beginning to rally around him. What I think is interesting is that the reviewer is getting bullied…or might be getting bullied this time. I’m not sure yet. And the overall picture any way you look at it is amazon still promotes this kind of corruption. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/1623803535/p=4/ref=aw_cr_p_books_g_4_3
Hmmn, maybe not bullying as such but something very close, which just reinforces what the reviewer said. There is no way all those other reviewers would know about the 1-star review, especially all at once, unless they were told or they all checked the book’s reviews daily. Who does that? There is no alert for reviews.
We know a ton of reviewers who are that obsessed. Wendy Darling for one. There are dozens more. Fans do check their reviews and they also check the books they’ve reviewed as well. This is how review wars on Amazon get started all the time.
Wanted to add this because I really don’t always get it. It could be the one star review is the bully. All I do know is something is wrong somewhere with the system amazon has.
Hmm, I don’t think this reviewer is being bullied… yet. It just appears as if the reviewer made an accusation about others’ reviews and those who stand accused are trying to set the record straight. Although we do agree with you that Amazon’s review system is screwed up. First of all, Amazon shouldn’t let people who haven’t read a book review it. Secondly, any review that talks about anything irrelevant to the content of the book itself should be removed, that includes attacks on authors and other reviewers.
I see what you mean. I really does get confusing for me sometimes. And I really don’t like to jump the gun either. Which is why I think it’s nice to have a web site like this to ask questions like this. Thanks!!