Author review-bombs peers!

Publisher and Agent drop writer because of using fake accounts to 'review-bomb' peers in hope of boosting own debut novel.

How stupid can one be.

Publisher drops author for using fake accounts to ‘review-bomb’ peers (msn.com)

 

Stupid. She had it made. All she had to do was write.
Review/star rating bombs happen more often than I realised. The author in question must be pig-sick, and it serves her right. I was devasted when someone tried to bomb the launch of the 1st Promise. But at least we had a fair idea of who it was, but shit happens. And no, I won't get mean or even. I hope Amazon and Goodreads will pay more attention to this and other practices people use.

I've had a tough year and the one thing I've learned is that if you want to write you soon learn to buckle down and develop skin of whang leather...

 

Stupid enough she refused to take responsibility when the afflicted authors confronted her privately with all their evidence. Watching this drama unfold on Twitter over the last week has been wild.

 

Straight up detective work.

 

Why would one do this? Why not focus your energy on more output? That's far more beneficial, surely?

I wonder how common this is?

Why undermine each other when one can far more easily lift one another? It's often less dangerous to do the good and right thing, and even less of a hassle. So, why?

 

Common.

I rarely buy books without reviews or star ratings. The only time I do is to help authors I know.

 

Ah ... I'm not on Twitter, so no wonder I didn't know about this.

This is utterly insane. I understand the fear of someone else's book doing better than yours, but that's life.

Some plain truths about this: when/if you sign up with an agent, you are usually under contract. Being under contract is not the same as permanent work.

There are many ways for both sides to end the contract. One of the most serious falls under the umbrella of 'unprofessional conduct', such as ... (my usual gig is office work, so I know these well):

1. Showing up to work drunk or on drugs;
2. Not showing up to work at all;
3. Abusing customers or staff (verbally/physically etc.);
4. Misuse of the office IT system (e.g. playing games instead of working).

For prospective authors, this means:
1. Showing up to a book signing (or meetings with publishers) while drunk or on drugs, or not showing up at all.
2. Abusing publishers, agency staff or readers, whether verbally or physically.
3. And, yes: review-bombing fellow authors.

I'm sure there are other, but these are the big no-nos I'm aware of.

As for MSN, this headline made me facepalm so hard: BBC mathematician has best putdown for ‘misoginyst’ trolls (emphasis mine)

If you don't know how to spell a word ... check. It takes maybe 5 seconds to google 'misogyny' and 'misogynist' ... especially since the article later uses the word in its correct spelling: "After followers accused the account of being misogynistic..." etc.

Thanks, MSN and The Independent. If you don't know something, check it. Verify that you're right. Otherwise, you come across as amateurish. Check it, check it, check it every time.

Sorry for digressing. And now, back to your usual programming.

 

Oh, this is just the tip of the iceberg of writer social media drama. Like a week after this, an author tried to accuse someone else of plagiarism and copyright infringement on the basis of the latter’s book…including characters with sun powers.

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/sun-superpowers-copyright/

Then there’s another story that broke today with some unspeakably sleazy behavior toward ARC readers/influencers:

 

Ha! This reminds me of a quote-unquote 'controversy' that came out in the late 1990s, after the first Harry Potter book came out.

If I remember, some newly-minted Potter-fans approached Sir Terry Pratchett and accused him of plagiarizing Harry Potter, because his Discworld series included a magical school (Unseen University) and a wizard with glasses called Ponder Stibbons. Presumably, they thought "Ponder == Potter".

If that's not ridiculous enough, some of the more extreme Potterites accused Sir Terry of plagiarism after he created a holiday for Discworld, called Hogswatch (the Discworld-equivalent of Christmas). Why was this plagiarism? Because JKR called her magical school 'Hogwarts'.

He patiently explained that no; he made it up in 'The Colour of Magic', out of Hogmanay and Watchnight, way back in 1983.

The inevitable reply was "Ah, so you're saying she stole it from you?"

At which point he sighed and explained that no; ideas like 'magic school' or 'dragon riders' or whatever are generic to fantasy. That's why it's called a genre, for heaven's sake. And everyone understands that someone else might use exactly the same idea, and that's okay -- provided everyone understands that they should put their own skin on the idea.
===================
Once again, I am not directing these remarks at the vast horde of Potter fans, but merely at that peculiar hard-core who seem to believe that once an idea has been used, it cannot be reused. Sorry: an idea is not an apple, consumed once and consigned to the rubbish bin. Ideas are eternal (forever and ever, amen).

To take just one idea, the 'magical school' is almost as old as the 11th century, when some of the first universities were being built in Bologna and Oxford. Naturally, there was keen competition between them, to the point where each accused the other of being run by the Devil and so on.

That's gross. Not to mention ... utterly stupid. Hasn't this ... ahem ... 'author' realised what the internet is all about?

Here's a hint:

 

Im not either.
But it was getting a lot of mentions on this facebook bookclub im in, so i googled the article to read about the drama, then went to goodreads to read the reviews people left on the authors page

Very entertaining

 

Oooh, if you guys aren't on Twitter then maybe you guys haven't heard of the recent drama? Although, I think the news has probably spread to Facebook and other outlets by now. Apparently the Hugo Awards have been a mess this year, although it does have a history of always being a mess. I'll link a video for the full explanation--(the first thirteen minutes are the Hugo Awards explanation, the rest is just general fantasy news.)



Basically, Hugo Awards was held in China /last year, the votes behind the nominations/winners were recently released and for some reason a few of the authors--including Nail Gaiman and R. F Kuang who won a few other awards for the book Babel, were declared 'not eligible*' for nominations, even though it's clear they received enough votes for nominations. Most of the authors have already come out and said that they were not informed of their books' inegibility. Some people think it's Chinese censorship at work, some people think they just messed up the polling software and won't own up to it, etc. Dave McCarty, the vice chair of Hugo Awards Selection Committee, is not handling it well on Facebook and is in fact, being an utter ass to people who's questioning the 'not eligible' thing.

I really recommend you watch the video or, like, search up Dave McCarty's Facebook just to see how badly he' butchering it.

 

I doubt that's what she meant, big soft moose, but it's a good point.

Sorry, Lili. I'm not on Twatter or Faceborg. (Or TikTok or any of that social network stuff).

I tried creating an FB account years ago. FB let me create an account, and then refused to let me log in.

So I thought: aha, so that's your game, Zuckerberg? In that case, I won't use your network at all. Go Zuck yourself.

How is Dave McCarty butchering it? I'm curious now.

 

I mean, it was in the video I linked but if you just want the screenshots, here you go.

These were taken from McCarty's personal Facebook when the Hugo Award voting statistics went online sometime earlier this week (I think Monday?)



These two golden (terrible) responses were towards people who wondered why certain titles were ineligible to which he replied with the quote in the second screenshot...which is not an answer.



This is him proudly saying that the Chinese government (where the Hugos were held last year) had NOTHING to do with the ineligible authors and it was his own decision and that he was "following the same rules every Hugo administrator ever followed."






Here's Neil Gaiman asking why his work was ineligible, getting a non--but respectable compared to the other two--answer, and basically saying the Hugos reputation is damaged.



And here's another one of McCarty asserting that the Hugos statistics, which lists Neil Gaiman among other prolific authors' works as ineligible with no reason given, as 'legitimate and transparent'. Don't know when this screencap is in relation to the others, if he said this before or after Neil Gaiman indirectly roasted him, but wow. Wow.

Also I found this on Twitter. Sums it up pretty nicely.
Sorry this is so long but you asked and I cannot do this justice without the screencaps.

 

Oh, wow. Thank you, Lili.

It sounds like Dave is stuck on repeat ad nauseum. I think his needle's stuck-- his needle's stuck-- his needle's stuck-- his needle's stuck--

(Yes, I'm afraid that won't make sense if you've never played vinyl records).

Regardless, this is obviously doing terrific damage to the reputation of the Hugos. I wonder why David is doing this, but he's certainly doing a terrible job in damage control. It reminds me not a little of Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister. Here's one example of Hacker trying to have it both ways ... in an episode called "The Death List", Hacker leaks to a journalist that he is trying to curb phone tapping and phone hacking, etc. "Freedom is indivisible," he declares self-importantly to Humphrey. "Ministers are expendable. It is a Minister's duty to set his life at naught. He must be able to stand up and say, 'Here I am! Do your worst!' and not cower in craven terror behind electronic equipment, secret microphones and all the hideous apparatus of the police state."

However, the fact that Hacker is suddenly found to be on an assassination list - who knows why, or who wants to kill him? - obviously changes the picture. Now he must make use of all the secret microphones, etc... but in the meantime, the results of the petition that he started in opposition, against phone tapping and surveillance etc. arrives - 25 million signatures, a triumph for democracy.

After Hacker goes home for the weekend -- a wonderfully un-romantic weekend spent with his wife and the Secret Service -- Hacker finds the journalist waiting to see him in the office. "But I don't follow," the journalist complains. "You say you want to stop phone tapping, you get this petition of 25 million signatures to boost your case, and you won't even give me a quote saying you welcome it?"

Hacker is trapped. He tries to rescue himself. "It's not that simple," he starts. "There are security implications."

"There always were," the journalist complains. Hacker stays silent, so the journalist says: "OK, I'll make an even bigger story: 'Minister rejects his own petition'!"

"Now, hold on!" Hacker protests feebly.

"Are you accepting it or rejecting it?"

Trapped again. "No," Hacker replies firmly.

So, the journalist plays his trump card. "My editor asks if being on this death list has altered your views on phone tapping."

"Good Heavens! What an extraordinary idea!" Hacker is now lying through his teeth.

"So why this change of tune?"

"There's no change of tune..."

Luckily, Bernard comes in and rescues Hacker. But it sounds very, very much like what David is doing here. Do you agree?

 

So this author is now apparently trying to excuse her conduct by blaming…autism?

The gall of this woman. If I’d experienced this kind of massive backlash, you wouldn’t hear from me for years. Maybe never. I’d burn that name and start over. Yet here she is, doing interviews with The Daily Beast two months later.

 

She is taking a cue from the media and politicians. Both groups try to spin doctor their problems away. I miss the days when people would take responsibility for their actions.

 

I beg her pardon?

As someone who's helping people on the spectrum (as well as being on the spectrum myself), I believe I know enough about it. So, please forgive me while I rant.

I'm sure everyone here already knows this, but being autistic does not excuse you from being a jackass -- any more than being drunk, on drugs, or anything else would. Jackass is as jackass does. Period.

I've worked with autistic people for years, and I can safely say that they are -- generally -- some of the nicest, most considerate and most introspective people there are. This person wishes she was autistic.

Anyway, sorry to be so mad. Back to our usual programming (which seems to be roasting this excuse for a person).

Taking responsibility for your own actions. What a concept. That went out with sweatbands, flares and corsets.

 

I'm not too informed about autism, but I've had a psychotic episode where I thought my best friend was going to kill me, among other things. Mostly I did not harm or insult anyone during that episode, but I can see how things may be done that you will later regret when reality has changed for you. Someone in my ward had demolished their summer house for example.

In my case, I apologized to my friend later for my behavior, and we are still best friends today. I was lucky that was the biggest damage I did. I may have said some weird stuff at my university, but people seemed to just ask how I was doing and where I had gone when I did not attend classes.

So, in a way, I can see how mental illness(or perhaps a spectrum disorder) can make you do weird or dangerous things, but I do not know enough about autism to know if one can blame it on that. In my case, I did not blame my behavior on the sickness, it was just a result of unspent words and suppressed ideas that were inside me originally. And which were weaponized by the sickness.

Sure, today, I blame my inactivity and slowness on the sickness and medicine. But that's because I know I was far more active before I got this shit.

Just my two cents and experience.

 

All I know about this whole mess is what's posted on this thread. There's an inclination for some compassion for someone who so successfully destroys what was perhaps their life's dream, but boy she makes it hard to hold onto that attitude.