Indies at War

Over the weekend one of my writer friends posted a link to a blog where the blogger listed 30 plus authors who had supposedly purchased fake reviews. My friend’s name was on the list – and since he had never paid for a review, he was pissed. There were some big names on that list. Of course, the blogger did not disclose his/her name nor did he offer up any evidence to support his damning claim.

This all came about around the same time as Goodreads announcing its cleanup, by removing nasty rhetoric aimed at authors or reviewers. Goodreads reminds us: Play nice kids, and stick to reviewing the book.

I won’t post a link to the blogger’s page, because frankly, I have no desire to spread lies about my fellow authors. Those on the list have publically denied purchasing reviews, and some are joining forces to wage a legal war against the blogger.

Yet, even if the authors had paid for a review, who really gives a crap? I mean really, you don’t think the big publishing houses haven’t paid for reviews? Grow up kids.

As a reader, I make my purchases by reading the blurb, preview and can be influenced by the cover. Even recommendations by my friends don’t significantly impact my choices, because I understand we all have different tastes.  Reviews, in my opinion are simply additional entertainment - especially those wacky one star reviews where the reviewer spends so much time searching for cutesy animated gifs to dress up their petty rants.

I wondered, why does someone like this blogger do this - even if they honestly believe an author has purchased a review? But, then I remembered when I went to see Woody Allan’s Annie Hall. The only reason we went to see it was because it walked away with four Oscars, which included best picture. We figured it had to be a great movie.  

My husband and I thought Annie Hall sucked. How could it have possibly won all those awards? After taking a closer look at the selection process, we discovered it was just a big ol’ popularity contest between their peers. We felt robbed! Not only our time, but the price of our tickets, and all the unnecessary calories we consumed in theatre popcorn and candy!

For a brief moment we considered going online and bringing attention to this atrocity.  We didn’t care how ridiculous we might look to the world; we were determined to bring down those Hollywood swindlers. But then we remembered….the modern Internet highway hadn’t yet been built.

In other words nasty bloggers….get a fricking life; would ya.

Saving the world from rude authors!

Ridding the world of misbehaving authors - one list and shelf at a time!

Over on Goodreads they’ve just announced their new policy: “We will also delete shelves and lists of books on Goodreads that are focused on author behavior.”

They remind us “Reviews should be about the book.”

Bravo Goodreads!

Of course, if you read the comments over there, you’ll discover a number of reviewers are not happy with the change. After all, it is their job to rid the world of rude authors – their mission is to keep authors behaving according to their standards.

I’m not sure how this notion came about, that book reviewers critique not just the book but the author.

Ironically, being a nice author is not necessarily one who avoids ending up in time out – banished to some dishonorable list or shelf of shame to be publicly humiliated, such as author’s misbehaving or butthurt author. No, if an author wants to avoid such lists he must shut up and take it.

Take for example one of my reviews where the reviewer critiques my book on a plot element that was not in the book. I can’t nicely comment, “Excuse me, that didn’t happen.” Nope, I need to shut up and take it.

But the funny thing about creative people – like authors, actors and musicians – good ones are often passionate and outspoken, it’s in their DNA. If we rid the world of all but nice and properly behaved authors, we are going to end up with some pretty boring entertainment.

Personally, the only thing that will get me to stop buying an author’s book, or paying for a movie featuring a misbehaving actor, would be if that person was doing something truly horrendous, like torturing puppies or profiting from white slavery.

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 5 of 5 Posts)

For the first post in this blog series, click here.

60shward seemed to disappear from the KDP form for the rest of 2012, yet he crawled out from under his rock and reemerged there in 2013, making a few posts. He even republished his book, yet gave it a new name.

Then in March of 2013 I received a scathing two-star review from a Loraine on The Senator’s Secret. I didn’t immediately discount what she had said. After all, I feel writers should learn from reviews. 

But once I started looking closer at this reviewer – checking out her other reviews so I could get familiar with her tastes – something look oddly familiar. And then I saw it, the tag left on my Sallie Holt book. This was the same account as the malicious tagger from 2012 – just with a new name and a new profile pic. I even posted about it on my other forum.I suspect that profile picture is actually of some poor unsuspecting lady sitting at a restaurant, that 60shward captured with his cellphone camera.

Miraculously the nasty review disappeared a day or so later. I wasn’t sure why, but I was glad to have it gone. But then it reappeared again in June – this time with one star and slightly different verbiage,  yet with the same date as the first review. Not really sure what was going on between March and June.

Obviously 60shward must have some obsession with me to leave a fake review over six months after our incident – and then to return several months later and give me a second fake review.

So folks, don’t just take those five star reviews with a lump of salt - those one star reviews might also be fakes. Lots of nutjobs out there.

Since all of this happened, I am fairly certain I have the guy's real name. And so does Amazon. Which actually makes me more annoyed with Amazon, than with the malicious reviewer, because they've allowed this to nonsense to continue. The moment we informed them of the tags, they should have removed them, as they do reviews they suspect are family members just because the reviewer's surname is the same as the authors.

  

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 4 of 5 Posts)

For the first post in this series, click here.

One great thing about the KDP forum, we can search for words and find them in old posts. I did a search for Batarang and found one where the user, an author the with the forum name 60shward was letting another writer in the forum know he’d left him a good review. (That review, by the way, seems to have been taken down.)

I’ve captured the screenshot, because our malicious tagger could easily go into his old post and delete that message, something that he hasn’t done as of July 2, 2013 – when I took the above screen shot.

At this point I now understood he was a malicious tagger – because it was 60shward who I apparently offended by my fateful post.

From that point, KDP regulars knew who the poster was – we even knew his real name, which I won’t post at this time, but might in the future if he continues to be a pain in the butt. The forum was in an uproar, considering he’d played nice on the forum with some authors, while leaving nasty tags on their books behind their backs. In a flash he “unpublished his book” and then disappeared.

But he didn’t disappear forever….more tomorrow.