Cults are as dangerous now as in Savonarola’s day
by Anne R. Allen
Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about the dangers of author-on-author cyberbullying.
A few years ago, a group I called “Mean Girls-meets-Lord of the Flies” terrorized authors on Goodreads and Amazon. A lot of us left Goodreads and never went back.
The ringleaders were mostly unsuccessfully self-published authors who harassed established stars as well as newbie writers. They criticized successful authors for their “greed” in charging money for their work and gamed Goodreads for free hard-copy books, which they’d give bogus one-star “reviews,” then sell unread on ebay.
Newbie authors who didn’t know the group’s unwritten “rules” were punished with sadistic glee.
They attacked victims with swarms of one-star “reviews” on Goodreads and Amazon that contained character assassination lies, personal attacks, rape threats, and even death threats — what I call “weaponized” reviews.
They swarmed buy pages, Goodreads entries, and blog comments to intimidate, control, and defame whistleblowers or wayward members.
I got death threats from this group myself for the crime of witnessing their rape threats against a naive teenager before the dozens of perpetrators had the sense to delete the incriminating evidence.
Their shenanigans inspired my comic novel So Much for Buckingham, where both reviewers and authors suffer from the dark side of online reviews. I even copied some of their threats word for word — which made for some hilarious comic scenes.
But when you’re the target, they’re anything but funny.
I think the group could have been called a cult. It ticked a lot of the boxes on the following list — a condensed version of a list by Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. at the International Cultic Studies Journal
Signs a Group has become a Cult
- Discourages and punishes dissent.
- Dictates how members should think, act, and feel.
- Claims a special, elite, exalted status.
- Us-versus-them “victim” mentality.
- Not accountable to authorities.
- Belief that the end justifies the means.
- Shame and/or guilt used to control members.
- Mandatory subservience to the leader or group.
- Preoccupied with bringing in new members.
- Obsessed with money.
- Members devote inordinate amounts of time and energy to the group.
- Members punished for socializing with unsanctioned persons.
- Threats of terrible consequences if members leave.
Online cults may not be as deadly as the ones who followed Savonarola, Jim Jones, or Charles Manson, but their mindset is the same.
The cult that attacked me finally disappeared when Goodreads admins booted the ringleaders off the site. As with most cults, remove the head and the body dies.
But new cults spring up all the time. I hear complaints about them weekly.
Members of these cults are not all sociopaths, but the cult leaders manage to stifle their natural capacity for empathy. The Milgram experiment in the 1960s proved that perfectly ordinary people will commit atrocities when ordered to do so by an authority in an unfamiliar environment. Social media is young. Newbies are easily seduced.
Education is the key to stopping this. Which is why I’m writing this post.
Weaponizing book reviews is a bad idea. It diminishes the credibility of real reviews and honest reviewers as well as giving cults and criminals the power to destroy careers.
Shady Agent/Publisher Cliques
When an agent or small press is having financial difficulties, they usually try to cover it up and put on a happy face until things improve. Sometimes it’s a temporary cash flow problem and things end up fine.
But when authors aren’t paid long-term, they want to tell the world and save other authors from their fate.
Unfortunately, these days, the deadbeats can get their minions to attack whistleblowers. They threaten to ruin authors’ careers with bogus reviews and cyberbullying if they spill the beans.
It’s so easy to weaponize Amazon reviews that this behavior has become commonplace. Amazon has trouble keeping up with complaints, and often the perpetrators know how to keep their attack “reviews” within the Amazon guidelines.
I’ve heard from several writers who have been threatened with one-star reviews and other retaliation if they blow the whistle on scammy agents or dodgy publishers.
Tragically, the people who carry out the threats are fellow authors who have been brainwashed and/or threatened by the agent or publisher to carry out this sociopathic behavior.
One author got a rubber check from her agent for many thousands of dollars in royalties. The agent refused to make it good and threatened the author with an attack of social media smears and swarms of one star reviews.
Her fellow authors who would participate in this kind of “swarming” are engaging in cult behavior. They may not be the Manson Family, but it’s a matter of degree, not a difference in mindset.
How do we fight this?
Never attack a fellow author with a bogus review. And stay away from anybody who asks you to engage in trollish behavior.
You have your very own personal brain. Use it.
Cultish Book Promotion Groups
Getting together with other authors in your genre for promotions, anthologies, and boxed sets can pay off, big time.
But some marketing and joint promotion groups have turned cultish, vicious and greedy. They’re often pyramid schemes.
Or they’re based on a “trick” that doesn’t work anymore.
Any marketing that involves gaming the system, especially the Amazon system, will probably work for a short time. But then it won’t. Amazon will change its algorithms or otherwise thwart the gamers.
If authors have paid money to join in the game, they’re going to be unhappy campers.
In these days of organized cyberbullying, things can get ugly very fast when an unhappy camper speaks out.
Tara Sparling described what happens next in her viral “Indie Gold Rush” post:
“Authors who draw attention to failings or scams are getting trashed on social media, their books downvoted and one-starred, often by other defrauded clients who are afraid that the pyramid scheme they’re in will topple before they get anything out of it. The level of vitriol in some of these Facebook groups and comment threads, when someone dares to expose such things, is horrifying.”
This isn’t new.
Predators always counter truth-telling by attacking their victims’ characters.
But the use of online bullying and harassment gives them a potent weapon to silence their victims.
“Troll Army” cyber-attacks are the current M.O. of militant Neo-Nazis. It’s a form of terrorism—as an unsuspecting Jewish mom in Montana found out when she became the target of terrorism by a Nazi “troll army.”
Don’t be a terrorist, or do the bidding of one. And don’t count on tricks and schemes to market your book. You could lose more than your shirt.
Neo-Apartheid Fanatics.
A powerful campus cult fights diversity in literature.
Although they love (and demand) diversity in films, they forbid it in novels. They call diversity in print greedy “cultural appropriation.”
The BBC reported in May that YA author Andy Horowitz was told not to include a black character in his new book because it’s “inappropriate” for authors of one race, sexual orientation, or physical ability to acknowledge the existence of any others.
I’m not talking about minority spokespeople who ask for sensitivity and removal of harmful stereotypes.
This cult demands total apartheid.
You can watch Glee on TV, but if you write that stuff in a novel you can be a target of personal-attack reviews and other cyberbullying.
The Guardian ran a piece last year by a woman who walked out of a writers’ conference because a speaker advocated diversity in literature. This cultist insists only one character should be allowed in a novel: the author. Anything other than than narcissistic monologuing is “exploiting the stories of others.”
This isn’t new. Catherine Ryan Hyde was targeted by a similar cult after her nomination for a Lambda award for Jumpstart the World, a YA novel about a teen who falls in love with a trans character. The cult attacked her with bogus “reviews,” booed her at the awards, and vandalized her Wikipedia page.
They said she’d “exploited” the trans community by creating a sympathetic, believable trans character—while not being trans herself. (The protesters weren’t trans, either, but cults are above rules—see #5 above.)
These people seem to have no idea how the creative mind works. They believe novels are Xeroxed from life. Imagination is verboten.
Unless you’re a screenwriter.
So I think what these people really hate is books.
It’s “Fahrenheit 451” time. Scary stuff.
The Problem with Online Cults
These people are terrifying because they work in mindless swarms, like locusts.
As a commenter said in a discussion of this on The Passive Voice :
“if you get on the radar of the peeps who do outrage as a hobby, the risk is way too high. You can get effectively shunned. Ruined. Power of the webs.”
And author and illustrator Shoo Raynor on the committee of the writers and illustrators’ group at the Society of Authors in the UK said that the issue is coming up “every meeting” and there are “lots and lots of horror stories.”
The power of anonymous cyberbullying combined with cultish ends-justify-the-means behavior has morphed from “Mean Girls” high school antics to cyber-warfare.
The latest example of this kind of “censorship by troll” has been happening in YA Twitter. A reviewer disliked a YA fantasy book that showed the evils of racism because some of the characters were racist. So she started a huge campaign to get the publisher to withdraw the book because they believe nobody should be allowed to acknowledge racism exists. Pure Fascism.
Fascist cults on the lunatic left fuel the irrational rage of fascist cults on the rabid right and vice versa.
Creatives (and democracy) are in danger of being annihilated in the crossfire.
Can we Fight the Cults?
Right now the cultist bullies are winning.
In the Kindleboards recently I saw this post
“I’m so afraid of my career being damaged by people hating me or not trusting me because now my name will be associated with [this group]. I’m having a panic attack and I don’t know where else to go. There’s no way out. [They’ll] rip me to shreds. I don’t care about the money I’ve invested; I just want to get out. I’m so scared.”
The replies are like this:
“Speaking from experience… you have 2 options:
1. Put your head down, do *exactly* what you are told, when you are told and ride it out until contracts expire.
or
2: Walk away (just say real life commitments mean you can’t continue…) and say goodbye to the money. You will still need to keep your head down and don’t mention [their] name anywhere or followers will attack you and your books. This is what I did. Be aware it will isolate you from friends (if any are still involved …) and you will have to watch what you post anywhere for months in case you inadvertently offend [the cult leader] and an attack is launched.”
Are All Book Promotion Groups Dangerous?
No. But do your homework! I’d join another group promotion or boxed set if it was the right one. But I don’t recommend joining one if it involves gaming the system–or if there’s a huge upfront fee.
As Kristen Lamb says,
“Often there will be some trick, a few writers make a LOT of money, the “expert” then picks up this trick and sells it and the fact he/she can cite real success stories adds validity to what is being sold. But here’s the deal. If this “trick” is being packaged? Odds are it is obsolete already. Someone is trying to make a buck off a ship that already sailed.”
I’ve had big successes with some group promotions, although others have fizzled. I don’t think I’d join one if I didn’t know the organizer well.
And I would never pay a big upfront fee without knowing exactly where the money was going. If all members don’t get copies of the receipts, that’s a big red flag. If there’s a contract involved, read it very carefully and make sure there’s a way out.
What about Agents & Publishers?
Many of the biggest-name “indies” have agents. Agents can get you into the Amazon imprints, which are the sweet spot in today’s publishing world. The agents I know personally are hardworking, honest, and a huge help their clients’ careers.
But bogus agents are out there, so it’s really important to do your homework.
The same is true of small presses.
Google the name with the word “complaints.” Check Writer Beware, Absolute Write, and the Kindleboards. (Although people in forums are not always truthful and you can run into some fanatics and cult members, so read between the lines.)
If I heard an agent or publisher had asked clients to blackball someone who “badmouthed” them, I would run very fast in the other direction. Even if it feels like abandoning your dreams.
Authors can be way too meek with agents and publishers. We have the alternative of self-publishing, so we can walk away.
It’s best to run any contract by a lawyer before you sign.
What Can Authors Do about Publishing Cults?
Remember that cults usually end badly. If you see the people around you in a group showing any of the symptoms listed above, run.
If you’ve been the victim of a swarm of bogus reviews, try to remember that readers are pretty smart. Sometimes a “bad” review can actually help sales. Check out my post on why we shouldn’t obsess about reviews.
And if you witness this kind of bullying, REPORT ABUSE. Amazon is much more likely to pay attention to a customer complaint than one from the author.
Don’t be a locust. If anybody asks you to bully or terrorize a fellow author, even if it’s “just” with an Amazon review or a Tweet, DON’T!
The next victim could be you.
***
What about you, scriveners? Have you ever been the victim of an online cult? How did you deal with it? Have you ever found yourself in a cultish group? And was it hard to escape?
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) July 16th, 2017
BOOK OF THE WEEK
This week So Much for Buckingham is only 99c at Amazon for the ebook!
A satire of the dark side of online reviews and the people who make a game of them…a game that can lead to murder.
Camilla and Ronzo see their reputations destroyed by online review trolls who specialize in character assassination, while Plantagenet Smith heads over to England, where he encounters a dead historical reenactor dressed as the Duke of Buckingham. Plant is promptly arrested for the murder.
In jail, Plant meets the ghost of Richard III, and hears what it’s like to live with character assassination “fake news” that has persisted for half a millennium.
“This wonderfully satiric comedy is a joy to read. On the surface, it’s a frothy romance cum suspense story about a whacky writer, Camilla, whose life is threatened by trolls and who topples from one hilarious disaster into the next.
But underneath, it provides a perceptive insight into the mad world of modern publishing, the sub-culture of Internet lunatics and the mindset of cultists who can – and do – believe ten impossible things before breakfast.
The reader is left with the question: how much of the story, perish the thought, might be true? Tremendous fun, wittily satiric and highly recommended”…Nigel J. Robinson
So Much for Buckingham is only 99c this week at all the Amazons,
Also available at
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available at Audible and iTunes
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Another informative post, Anne.
“Unfortunately, these days, the deadbeats can get their minions to attack whistleblowers. They threaten to ruin authors’ careers with bogus reviews and cyberbullying if they spill the beans.”
What has become of our world? These terrorists must be stopped. Thanks for providing some ideas for avoiding them.
Kathy–Thanks. The complaints are escalating, so I’m assuming the abuse is too. People somehow think that doing cruel things online isn’t as evil as doing them in person. The only way to fight these people is to report abuse whenever we see it, even if you’re not directly involved.
Great post Anne. I’ve seen reports of author bullying and trolling recently and it’s not pretty. The authors on the end of it begin to wonder if it’s worth carrying on with their writing or not.
Mark–You’re right. I know of some writers who did unpublish their books and just quit the business because of these terrorists. It’s time to fight back.
Publishing has always had a yuck factor. The internet has contributed anonymity, click farms, trolls, fake books, pirates, purchased reviews, and, as you point out, cults to raise the yuck factor. Makes me wanna take a shower. Blech. 🙁
Ruth–I think the yuckiness is escalating. I didn’t have room in this post to talk about David Gaughran’s post yesterday about the click farmed books that are taking over the Kindle bestseller list, but that’s another new and yucky way that authors are gaming the system. I hear you about the shower. 🙂
Yes, I read that. These people are taking money out of our pockets. 🙁
Thanks for the insightful information, Annie.
Anna–Thanks for stopping by!
One is reminded of the wisdom of Rodney King — “Why can’t we all just get along?” Thanks for another fine post.
CS–Exactly. The problem is that members of a cult don’t see “we.” They only see the cult–and everybody outside of it is “them.” I’ve never seen cult membership defined as a mental illness, but I think it should be.
BTW, your post for us last week made The Book Designer’s Blogs of the Week! http://bit.ly/2t5fMgz .
What a terrific post, Anne- you’re running me out of adjectives to describe the weekly dose of wisdom. Maybe I should just settle on one and run a macro… fabulous, maybe.
I haven’t run afoul of any of these lovely groups yet, still under the radar, but when you talk about the tricks some groups employ that runs right into the click-farm post from David G. Another indie, Robert Bevan took a more optimistic crack at it in his post (I was going to put the link here but then I realized the title contains a naughty word!).
My worry right now- if distributors like the Zon take no notice (or else do nothing that works, whichever it is), how long before an honest hard-working author succumbs and says “you know what, for $200 I can click-farm my tale to #1, and THEN folks will see it’s pretty darn good”. I almost wonder if we have a right to do this… just thankful I don’t have an ad-budget yet. Maybe by the time I do this will have blown over.
But spot-on to encourage everyone to not be evil. Maybe our motto should be “Act as if you’re not online”.
Will–I’m always happy to be fabulous! 🙂
I think that’s a great motto: ACT AS IF YOU’RE NOT ONLINE!
That is the problem. People do things they’d never do “in real life.” They don’t realize–this is real life, and you’ve just committed an atrocity.
David G’s post sure did clue us in to this scam. And I won’t be surprised to see more copycats. “Everybody’s doing it, so it’s the only way to get ahead.”
Thank you, Anne. Brilliant post. Have been a target. It can be devastating. LT
Laura–I’m so sorry to hear it. I sure was terrified when it happened to me. I started having panic attacks and night terrors. People may think death threats are funny, but when it happens to you and you don’t know if these people are serious and /or another Manson family, your whole world starts crashing down around you.
I hope people know me well enough not to ask (or perhaps I’m just not that important?). Either way, I’d report them. I despair at such hate? I was bullied at school and could never put someone through persecution. I’m utterly stunned by some of your examples and that you have suffered such vitriol yourself! Awful, so sorry. Thankfully we have people like you to inform and guide us. X
Shah–I think these people work in swarms, so it isn’t just one person who asks. A whole group demands. “If you want to get paid, then you’ll…”
Awful stuff. Having lived through bullying gives you some perspective. I sure don’t ignore it anymore.
I recently read a series of cozy mysteries by a local writer. The stories were well written. I did catch two misspelled words. I’m a retired science teacher and it is an occupational hazard.
I decided to write reviews of the books and came across some terrible reviews with claims of how poorly written the books were. The writer is a retired, small town paper writer. The reviews were just false and malicious. So I posted my review. But I don’t use reviews to pick books.
Ann–Thanks for bringing that up! Another thing we can do to fight review abuse is write honest reviews.
If you see a perfectly good book with a bunch of untrue (and often very similar) “reviews” you know the author has been victimized by these people. Writing a good review will help a lot.
Every book has a typo or two these days. I just found one in a trad pub book I’m reading that’s in its fourth or fifth printing. There’s always another one…:-)
Afternoon Anne,
Superlative post again today. (see that, I’m expanding my vocabulary!) Trolls and Cultists scare me. Luckily, I’ve never been the target, but the stories I’ve heard scare the crap out of me! I recognize most of what you have mentioned in this post. Just as we put so much effort into dealing with bullying in the schools, we forget that adults can be bullies also!
Here’s another trick that I’ve seen – report your rivals to Facebook for breaking FB’s rules. Get their profile shut down so that they have to start that portion of their online presence from scratch. High school tricks 🙁 I wonder how these people sleep at night….
Barb–It’s true that adults can be bullied too. I heard a bullying “expert” on the radio recently who said that it’s not bullying if the person is over 18. I say B. S.! Bullying can happen to anybody at any age and it can have dire consequences.
Thanks for the tip about Facebook! Yes. We should report abuse wherever we see it. FB is great about responding to reports of abuse, so it really pays off.
Hey Anne,
It’s damn scary out there sometimes. I read a huge post about an unbelievable scam to get writers on ‘best seller lists’ that was positively cultish. I actually got scared reading the damn thing and I had no connection to the person, group, or promotion whatsoever. I sensed that in the later part of your post you were alluding to these people.
Years back I got a few troll attacks – not about books or through reviews or anything like that – but it is very scary experience. The hatred and vitriol is so palpable it makes you nauseous.
I also saw Gaughan’s post today about the amazon charts being scammed. Ironically, one of the examples he cited was a guy in a FB writer’s group that I belong to. The guy then used the group’s page to defend himself and trash Gaughan. I told him to knock that off and to get in touch with Gaughan if he was off base and set him right. That shut him up – and I wondered if Zorro’s mask had been ripped off (so to speak) But the point I guess is that I’ve been in this group for a while and I’ve observed certain things and have had some doubts about it – and their ‘practices’. It may just be time to walk away from it. There is certainly no shortage of writer groups on FB.
I wish we could actually name names and warn other writers directly but because of the high level of personal threat to ourselves I guess we’ll have to continue to speak in code – and when possible ‘talk amongst ourselves’.
Thanks for standing the watch, my dear. What would we do without you?
Annie
Annie–That’s so true of Facebook groups. Some of them are completely devoted to scamming Amazon. Review trading abounds. If anything iffy is happening in a group, leave and get your name off there! Amazon will find them eventually and everybody on the list may get banned from the Zon.
I sure hope that David G. didn’t get it wrong. If he did, the guy should definitely contact him. David is a good guy and he’s willing to admit it when he’s wrong.
Yes, those culty promotion groups are a menace. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 🙂
This must be why I see ridiculous, head-scratching 1-star reviews (not for anything I’ve written–I’m not published yet) on Amazon. Often enough, the ‘reviewer’ will say they haven’t read the book, or only read a little bit of it, and go ahead and give it one star. I always report these with the ‘report abuse’ button, taking the time to briefly explain why, but as far as I can tell, Amazon ignores those reports. It’s so unfair to the author.
I think if Amazon is going to publish reviews, it is their responsibility to curate them, at least to the point of checking out any that are flagged as abuse.
I love giving good reviews to books that are worth it. If I can’t give at least a 4-star review, I won’t leave any review. Now I feel even better for not posting negative reviews, since there are apparently plenty of undeserved negs out there already.
Tricia–You’re one of the heroes! Thanks for writing reviews and also reporting abuse. I think it’s a matter of critical mass. If there are enough reports, they look into it.
But I wish Amazon was as good as FB in responding to reports. Facebook responds within the hour. Amazon can take years. I think they don’t devote enough personnel to the problem.
Anne, great post, very useful, you said things that need to be said – and sorry to butt in here as a “reply” but I wanted to add to your exchange: Amazon hates to pay personnel! If they could, they would robotize the monitoring of book reviews!
The problem with Amazon is that it was born as a marketplace and a profit-making ethos whereas FB was born as a social media, so Zuck is more aware than Jeff B. that he has SOCIAL responsibilities (he got it in the face when the fake news scandal broke after the surprise result of Trump’s victory!)
Yet, Amazon is (slowly) moving towards building up bona fidae forums, and book reviews are one key element – no doubt their acquisition of Goodreads made them more aware of the possibilities. Now, when I finish a book on my Kindle, I am always asked “before you go” to rate the book clicking on the range of 5 stars that gets directly posted on Goodreads…which I dutifully do…as long as I can give it 4 stars!
Because, like Tricia here, I never write a book review unless I can give it at least 4 stars – otherwise I get in trouble with the authors, it has happened enough times in the past to teach me a lesson: if someone asks me to read a book – and now that I am an editor at Impakter they often send me ARCs – and write a review “only if you feel like it or want to, no pressure” they assure me, I always make it quite clear to them that I will NOT write anything if their book rates below 4 stars…
PS. Just got your Buckingham-Camilla Randall book, looking forward to it!
Claude–Thanks for buying a copy of Buckingham! I hope you enjoy it.
You’re right about Amazon wanting to improve things. But they’re very slow. Of course they have so many more fingers in so many more pies than FB. I do hope they’ll assign more personnel to monitoring abuse of their reviews.
As always, an insightful post on an issue that just makes the blood boil…
I used to think: why not create jobs to combat this plague? Reviewers of reviews? or something…
Then, after trying to comfort an author I’d edited, who was later a victim of this kind of cowardly attack, I wondered what would happen if no reviews were allowed anywhere? Everyone just operated on the idea that their book was what it was — read it or not.
Or what the ‘net crashed, like forever? What would these cult-inclined people do? These people who live on the power of deceit, who would no longer have easy victims? I shudder at the thought.
Not to ‘go politico’, but I feel this all ties into the new social media acceptance of cyber-bullying and lobbing unsubstantiated attacks and lies into the Twit-sphere (and elsewhere).
Opinions and points of view are only important to their creator’s own personal brain. :o)) loved that: your own personal brain…
I do know a few authors who have decided not to publish, just to avoid the potential of being attacked…these are authors with possibly controversial novels. Without protections or solid advice I know would help them survive bullying, I’m reluctant to push them to publish.
Thanks again for the wonderful post, Anne.
Maria D’Marco
Maria–Thanks! I think these people probably have a whole lot of trouble relating to people in real life. I know a guy who works with mentally ill youth and he says a lot of the young men spend their whole days expressing anger on Reddit. It’s a way of feeling powerful when they have no power. Cult leaders have always known how to tap into that and control the vulnerable.
We do live in an environment where provable scientific truth is constantly questioned by special interests. They leave people unsure of reality. So it feels like living in a constant earthquake.
Hi Anne,
I think you just described my external family, lol. I had to create a whole new Facebook account and blog because of their hateful and rude comments.
But I didn’t let their opinions stop me. I hope that I always keep that determination.
Thanks again for your post.
Cindy–Having to start a new FB page is a hassle. I hope they leave you alone now!
Whew, I had only heard of about one percent of this problem Learning more will help us all; but labeling it a mental illness may not have the desired outcome. First it gives credence to something that needs to wither and die, not be nurtured to flourish. Secondly, this makes it a recognized ‘diagnosis’ and it opens the door for yet another misguided federal bureaucracy bent on protecting and entitling criminals. Wish I had a better suggestion for action.
David– You may be right. Then they’d become a “cause” and we’d have to hire them. 🙁 Withering and dying would be good. Thanks!
This is all so scary and so sad. I guess if you add anonymity to the an avenue for bullying it is just too hard for some sad? angry? abused? people to resist. Bullying. I don’t understand it in any form.
Christine–Some of them are anonymous and some even proudly use their own names because the cult leader has convinced them their cause is “just.” People are easily manipulated.
Thanks, Anne
I’ve only experienced a bit of this but have witnessed a lot of it on sites I’ve used for research (non-fiction). Cliques can take over comments and forums set up for commentary on the site content, develop a social relationship, then basically take over. They attack anyone with other views, ignore the intent of the site, and so forth.
In one case, when they introduced moderation, the group actually set up a web site to plan how to attack the site. They wanted to shut the business down, simply for asking them to follow the forum guidelines.
What amazes me most about all this is the sense of entitlement. That these people think they should be able to say and do what they want on someone else’s site.
David B–You’ve described exactly what I’m talking about. And you’re right. The entitlement is crazy. They don’t understand that freedom of speech doesn’t apply when you’re on somebody else’s property. It’s in *public* and a private site is not a public or government entity.
I guess I’m very fortunate that I’ve not been involved in anything like that.
The Internet has brought on a scary type of individual. One who knows he is anonymous and can do whatever he wants. And that includes starting cult groups like those listed above.
Alex–That’s why I love the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. You keep everything snark-free. It’s a true safe place for writers.
You’re right about the anons. They think they’re invisible and therefore invincible.
Wow. I had no idea! (Yes, I’m blissfully naive.)
I’ve been approached by a number of promotion groups but always had that twisty feeling inside that told me, Don’t do it. I was never sure why, but because my books are an unusual genre (Christian fantasy) I worried about how the series would be dealt with.
Now I realize why I didn’t act on any of those. Thank you so much for the great work you do, for being the sane voice of maturity and reason clueless people like me can rely upon!
Trish–There are a lot of baddies out there! Ruth and I try to help keep you informed and safe. Sounds like your instincts are good. 🙂
Your advice from a few years ago has been my mantra, Anne: “Never engage.” It’s sometimes hard to keep from responding to a nasty review. In my early days, I wanted to explain: “But you didn’t understand what I was trying to do…”, thinking I had offended someone somehow by my writing. Years later, I’m grateful I held back. Explanations are not what trolls want at all. They want reaction.
Valuable post, Anne.
Melodie–Exactly. They don’t care what you say. Any response gives them a reason to keep attacking.
It’s getting scary out there on the web. I’ve seen authors get ripped apart, know a few authors personally who have been dog piled on and attacked, and the closest I’ve been is put on a block list for following the ‘wrong people’ and tweeting support for someone I follow who had been attacked previously. I was told to ‘think about who I talk to’ or something ridiculous like that. And I know at least one of my books would get dragged if found because I’m a cis white straight woman and have many characters who are minorities. It’s definitely chilling to think of it happening to me.
Patricia–Unfortunately it’s not getting any better. I have a lot of minorities in my earlier books, but I’m not going to do that again. I do have gay characters who are recurring in my series and I’m not going to kill them off or put them through conversion therapy (which I think is evil) but these people could still get me for the crime of admitting that gay people exist. Those people are dangerous. It’s so bizarre they think they’re defending minorities by making them invisible.
I get so depressed every time I see this stuff, Anne, I’m tempted to stay that way. But your reference to the Milgram experiment gives me cause for hope. The idea that it’s only an unfamiliar environment – and that maybe in time, it’ll calm down through familiarity, or even boredom – is very attractive. So I’m going to try to be optimistic instead. It’s a stretch for me, but I’ll try anything once.
Having said that, I did want to mention some more horrifying stuff I heard recently about a YA author who was being castigated for putting some minority character into her book (the ‘you can’t write about it if you’re not one of us’ cult seems to be particularly rabid in YA). Not content to keep moaning and whinging about it online, they were actually trying to organise people to go to book-signing events in order to cause trouble on her national tour. I don’t know if they succeeded. I hope to Blog they didn’t.
Tara–Thanks for weighing in. Your post on the “gold rush” was enlightening.
But I hadn’t heard about the anti-diversity people disrupting national book tours. They really want to erase all minorities from YA. Everybody must be lily white, straight and perfect…or invisible. I even saw one who said black people were better off under apartheid because they didn’t have to associate with white people. They should talk to Trevor Noah about what it was like to be “born a crime.”
But yes, I think the power of Internet trolls will diminish as people get bored.
Wow! I had no idea this was going on. Marketing is hard enough without having to worry about cults and scammers.
Darlene–Right. As if we didn’t have enough on our plates. But knowledge is power. Stay away from anything “too good to be true.”
I had no idea that went on. I’m shocked. I’m a newby, having just self published. The world is a very strange place and humanity appears to be in the drain. I don’t partake of Facebook or twitter for that very reason. I’ve been astounded at how the mentally deranged pack mentality go after poor business owners by trying to destroy them with one star ratings. A couple of examples recently have shown how the supporters have managed to turn the tables on them, but still it’s like army against army. Do authors have to spend their time on fighting evil now as well as the blood sweat and tears of writing? I think I’ll quit now. Don’t have the energy to cope with that.
Mich–Don’t quit! Stay around good people. (Like the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.) And there are some rules you can follow that will help keep you off the radar of the trolls. Here’s a post I wrote on “the Laws of the Amazon Jungle” http://bit.ly/2upaT5O
Great article. Sharing it. It’s time we take back our indie community and take down those trying to destroy it. Well said.
Susan–Thanks for sharing! We need to spread the word. And I like the idea of taking back our community. We can’t let petty tyrants control us.
thanks for the enlightenment Anne. It’s really sad what is going on with cyber bullying and authors. Sometimes greed is enticing to people without weighing the repercussions. And unfortunately hate breeds hate and lord knows there’s too much of that going on and condoned in the current state of politics. 🙁
Debby–Yes. When our leaders can’t agree on basic scientific truth, ordinary people don’t know who to believe. Everybody feels like they’re living in an earthquake, where nothing is solid. We have to speak the actual truth, even if it means standing up to some scary people.
Absolutely Anne! Truth will eventually prevail! 🙂
Hi Anne:
Another informative, useful post. Also depressing. And scary. Did I mention depressing? I have nothing to add except to say that it does make me think, however briefly, that putting my book out there may be more trouble than it’s worth.
I had been aware of the bullying tactics you’ve discussed, but I didn’t realize the whole cultural appropriation thing was seeping (flooding?) into fiction writing, to the degree you’ve described.
Yikes!
Best,
Brant
Brant–I don’t want to depress people. I have to deal with depression myself. But if we’re aware, we can fight this crap.
Yes, I think the “cultural appropriation” crazies are the most dangerous of all. When people say apartheid and segregation were great, you’re talking to some seriously delusional people. These are minorities who love the policies of the Third Reich and hate Nelson Mandela. Crazytime. And they have a lot of power, unfortunately. Naive people have given it to them.
But we can fight back by pointing out how insane their ideas are.
Those behaviours are awful! I’ve never encountered it personally, but I know of a French author whose book has been completely destroyed by bad reviews. He never continued his career, even if his book was pretty good (I’ve read it and loved it). I don’t know why a good author’s career should be destroyed by petty reviews and jealousy. It is really a shame.
Good article Anne 🙂
Estelle–Stories like that are heartbreaking. Especially when the “reviews” have nothing to do with the quality of the writing, which is often the case. My mom’s mystery novel got one crazy review that said it was full of disgusting sex and bad language–a New England cozy by an 88-yr-old that had none of those things! But that stupid review definitely put a damper on sales to her target demographic. For no reason. That “reviewer” was just a troll.
Yes. I’ve encountered a group of one person. But in a small town, one is enough. She is an author, a very successful one, who once wrote trash romance and has since then dropped her pen name and begun writing formula sweet romances for a more moral company. Or whatever. The works are not good, but do feed the ever-present starving readers who cannot wait for the next romance, and they also do feed her, monetarily, in her recent widowhood. So I try to be kind to her.
However, she finds me threatening. When she held a writer workshop in our teensy town (pop. 275) and I did not know her, yet, and I asked some questions about the complications in pov, she just came unglued on me in front of all those nice people. Since then, every time I meet her, in the store, in the library, she shouts at me about my attitude toward her. I am sure she has tried to persuade some of my friends to think I’m a bad writer or a bad person. However, my articles, some of which have won prizes, continuously were appearing in the newpapers and online, in ways that the locals could notice, so I think that backfired. And other things that were probably embarrassing to her, writng-wise…
However, she did get an inroad with one friend and I have lost that friend, basically, because she has believed her back stabbing.
It’s not the same as losing a sale, but in a way, hurts the same. Or maybe more.
Katharine–That’s tragic. It’s not a case of cult bullying, but it is a case of a very unwell person making your life miserable for no reason. I guess you can get some small consolation knowing your ex-friend is probably going through hell having this horrible woman in her life. But it’s an awful thing for you to have to go through.
“Predators always counter truth-telling by attacking their victims’ characters.”
How true. I’ve had my character attacked in a few reviews so far and also by old “friends” who ironically have never read my book(s), but insisted I was writing about them. I guess it’s what I get for being ex-CIA and writing about it! On the other side, I’ve had Amazon send me warnings that I was cheating on reviews when I received a good review. Then the good review will be removed, leaving only negative reviews from trolls.
I’ve stopped reading the reviews. 🙂
Shelley–Those are both issues authors have to deal with all the time. The idiots who think that fiction is just Xeroxed from life–and that imagination has nothing to do with writing–always see themselves in our fiction. It’s often funny, because they get it so wrong.
The review removal thing is awful, too. It’s what happens when the Zon cracks down on review abuse. They usually get rid of the babies and not much bathwater. Your good reviews probably came from book bloggers who were Amazon affiliates. They decided affiliates couldn’t review on Amazon because they would benefit financially from a good review. So they removed thousands last year. It was a big mess. A lot of us lost our most thoughtful reviews.
Thanks for writing such an important post. Enlightening. Now I’ll go back to writing my story filled with middle-aged, middle class, literature loving women who are waiting for grandchildren, while sitting in front of a fan—for the hot flashes—because I wouldn’t dare write about anyone different than me. Hahahaha….
Tammy–Haha. Yeah. I have to write about old ladies with bad backs. So exciting to read about! These anti-diversity people are so bizarre.
Great post, Anne. Everyday filmmakers create characters that are not from their background and experience. That’s because they have read a good film script. Novels should be allowed to do the same. We are a country of many and many should appear in print, film, song, art etc.
Beth–Yes. Isn’t it silly? How can we have novels with no characters in them who are different from the author? You’d have to ban pretty much every novel ever written, beginning with Don Quixote. I hear Cervantes wasn’t even a knight and he never fought a windmill! 🙂
Alas, I have direct personal experience with this. I write romance that, many times, does not fit into what traditional romance readers expect. 9 times out of 10 they like it. But that 10th time…I had a twitter/flamer attack against one of my books on that platform–and it was brutal. Then I went and made the ULTIMATE MISTAKE of telling a blogger they did not have “rights” to any of my words even though they claimed to and paid the price–a completely sabotaged signing/event and a huge “blackballing” from within my (kind of small) fan group. It sucks being in the spotlight but I’ve learned from all of this and trust very few people in this business anymore.
Liz–Wow. I had no idea that happened to you! How awful. They thought they owned your copyright because they’d bought a copy of the book? It’s amazing how entitled and stupid some people are.
And they sabotaged your signing event? That’s a new one. Although of course it’s a logical step for these nasty brats.
Thanks for sharing and I’m so sorry you had to go through it.
WOW, ANNE… I am really shocked. I guess I’ve had my head in the sand for too long. I had no idea that this cult thing was happening. Since I have no books published at the present time, I’m obviously not a target, but for the future… WHOA!
This was a very enlightening post… thank you for sharing.
AND as for characters the same as us…WHAT?!!!! Is this 1930’s Germany all over again? It’s APPALLING and RIDICULOUS….
I was just thinking about our former classic American writers and what they would think about all of this. Can you imagine Hemingway’s reaction? OR Mark Twain? Or Margaret Mitchell? No GONE with the Wind…. Or Wizard of OZ?!!!
Michael–It’s a crazy jungle out there for authors these days. And it’s the Big trad presses that are getting the brunt of the neo-apartheid nutjobs. They would tell you that Twain and Hemingway (and certainly Frank Baum) were just dead white guys we shouldn’t read anyway. And they would probably have an attack of the vapours if you even mentioned Margaret Mitchell. They pretty much hate everything.
Really sad that they don’t have anything better to do with their time. Imagine if they put all the HATRED into acts of kindness… how great would the world be then…
Michael–I hear you. If they put one tenth of the energy they put into bullying into acts of kindness, they could change the world. But they don’t want to. They only want to inflict pain.
This abuse of power extends out into the area of those who are editors, photographers, and models, as well.
I have seen some super shady bad stuff this past year. Not pretty.
Jayne–I’m not surprised that this awful behavior extends beyond the publishing industry. I haven’t heard of editors or photographers banding together to bully people, but I’m sure it could happen. Thanks for the heads-up.
I’ve seen this in action: a writer *rashly* tweeted a comment that she didn’t think much of Harry Potter….and next thing, all her books were favoured with hundreds of one star reviews. She has only just returned to social media..I’m guessing her publisher stood by her. OK, silly thing to do, maybe, but she wasn’t being libellous, merely stating an opinion. I fell foul of the Pratchett mob a while ago…eww…very weird. Couple of one star reviews which disappeared when I added the comment hat I was going to get their contact details from Amazon for my litigation lawyer.
Carol–Wow! That’s the perfect example of the cult mentality. How awful. I always tell people that dissing bestselling authors is a bad idea for writers because the fact they are bestselling means they have lots of fans…who may then not buy your books. But swarming you with one-stars? Horrible.
And congrats for getting your trolls to remove reviews! I never thought of threatening them directly. Brilliant!
Wow. I had no idea. This is appalling. Thanks for sharing the info. I hope my luck holds and I never run into any of these people.
Rosanne–Most people manage to stay off their radar, but it’s always best to be aware of the dangers out there.
“You have your very own personal brain. Use it.” That is he best advice so far…and perhaps the single most provocative statement, Ann. 🙂
Sue–Isn’t it amazing how many people are scared to do that?
Oh Goodness, don’t get me started, Anne… common sense seems to be a dying commofdity these days ( and yes, that makes me sound like my own grandmother!) 🙂
I didn’t know about the group bullying, but a librarian on Goodreads bullied me because I’m an indie author and she hates indies. All I did was post in a group that my book was on sale, which this particular group allowed. She became really nasty for some reason. It upset me so much. I should’ve reported her, but instead, I just got off Goodreads for a while. Now, I won’t have anything to do with any of their librarians, since you don’t know if they’re prejudiced or not. If I have a problem, I email their administration.
Malia–I’ve heard that some GR librarians can be bullies. Goodreads is still not at all author friendly and they especially hate indies, so I hear you. I pretty much stay off GR altogether.
It’s really stupid, because without authors, Goodreads would not exist. We’re their bread and butter. And their reading material. 🙂
Malia–I’m writing more about this for my post on the 13th. These GR people seem to think books come from some magical book stork. They have no idea that without authors, they’d have nothing to read. Sigh.
I think what we’re seeing here in the ‘weaponising’ of reviews is a quite fundamental form of human behaviour, framed in this instance by the world of books and reviewing. There’s no call for it but the problem is stopping it; even Amazon ends up playing ‘whack-a-rat’. To my mind the more insidious form of ‘weaponising’, in book review terms, comes when the reviewer is clever enough not to overstep the bounds of apparent propriety. This is endemic in the ‘professional’ review world in New Zealand, which is suffused with a deep-set bully culture – among academics, literati and their hangers-on. Any author who objects to their conduct is informed that the offending review is ‘balanced’, that the person writing it has ‘status’ and so forth – the game playing of the review world. And if you point out the nature of the culture (as I did in the main review magazine here in 2015) it’s a signal for the whole lot of them to dump on you.
I can think of a number of key New Zealand writers who’ve basically been bullied out of publishing locally by this means, either pushed out of particular genres or out of the field altogether. The only person who’s been able to point it out, without being character-assassinated, was our Booker Prize winner in 2014 – the prize made her untouchable to that community, who fawn over such people. I thought it was interesting that she then used the moment to highlight the bullying that goes on in the review world here.
Matthew–Thanks for the enlightening comment. I had no idea New Zealand had the problem as badly as the US. I do know academia can be a jungle. Both my parents were college professors. And even in the 1950s my dad lost his job at an Ivy League college through a disinformation and discrediting campaign against his mentor..
It does seem to be a general trend to devolution and imitating the behavior of lower primates. I’m going to be talking more about this on August 6th. “The Laws of the Amazon Jungle.”
Academic and intellectual bullying is certainly a common issue. It’s a particularly serious issue here in NZ, and a large part of it stems from the tiny scale of the intellectual and writing community. Reviewers, usually, have a vested interest in writing in the topics of work they review – and many succumb to intellectually putting it down as a way of asserting their place. The bully mentality isn’t much hidden, either. I’ve just had a bruising encounter with a professor who published pronouncements about what I think, and my alleged personal attitudes to a philosophy he constructed. He made me look very pretentious and arrogant, but all of it was fabricated by him; but when I simply asked him for the facts backing his allegation, he reasserted his claims, patronised me for not understanding his intellectualism, and then invalidated any reason I might have to be upset by his judgements. Then he cut off further conversation. On the face of it, this is pure bully tactics – but it’s possible that he is so lost in his own over-intellectualised world that he has no idea what he is actually doing. I’m not sure whether it’s worth dignifying the guy with further engagement – by my standards such conduct flows from an ethical void, and my only real concern is why I should have to pay for it, through my taxes. It’s a common enough occurrence here, alas.
Matthew–I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Is it possible this man has early onset dementia? Calling everybody else stupid can be a defense mechanism for people who are losing their grasp on reality. Rather than engage with him, you might ask around if he’s had a change in behavior or seems to be losing his grip. It can be a very scary time for people who depend on their mental acuity for their identity. But I would give him a wide berth. If anybody asks why, just say you’re sad to see such a great mind losing his grip. The heroine of my mysteries, Camilla Randall the Manners Doctor, finds that impeccable manners are often the best revenge. 🙂
I’ve seen this kind of behaviour from a distance, and it shocked me, but I thought it was a one-off. Since then I’ve learned that the internet is drowning in this kind of bullying, and I believe anonymity is to blame.
Internet ‘handles’ are like a mask. They allow us to indulge our basests impulses because ‘no one will know it’s me’.
The irony is that while we hide from each other, we’re happy to expose our private infomation to corporations.
I’ve bookmarked this post for future reference. Thanks.
acflory–You make a great point about the irony. These anonymous trolls have no problem giving their info to anybody who gives them a discount on a phone app, but OMG they consider “doxing” to be the worst thing that could happen. These people give their power away to cult leaders, then feel angry and powerless, so they do despicable things.
This is great information and really scary. I’m almost glad that I’ve stayed in my little blog heaven and don’t venture out much. I’ve been lucky to have avoided this altogether.
D. Wallace–Blog communities tend to be a lot friendlier and more supportive. I’m going to be running another post on the subject on August 6th, telling about some precautions you can take to stay safe from these people.
This post is so timely for me. Recently I approached reviewers to bump up the review count for one of my books because my publisher is running a BookBub promo for me. Since no one seems to know what they look for in reviews, I figured the more reviews, the better my chances. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning the upcoming BookBub when a fellow author wrote back, saying he’d be happy to read and review. He then requested I read his book in return. I don’t take part in review-swapping; it only damages the system. But I did worry he’d hold my refusal against me. To let him down easy I said I was already two books behind and my TBR pile was about to topple over (true!). In his response, he said it wasn’t a big deal. Obviously it was. The following day, he posted a two-star review, trashing my novel. The review was so downright nasty it bothered me all day. Plus, it was my first bad review. Which I have no problem with as long as it’s genuine. But when reviews are posted vindictively, it sickens me. Even more so when it’s a fellow author doing the bullying. I reported him, but I doubt it’ll do any good. And honestly, as long as he doesn’t invite friends to join in I can’t waste time worrying about a situation I have no control over. Excellent post, Anne. Your advice and candor is always appreciated.
Sue–That’s an awful thing to go through, but you certainly aren’t alone. It’s kept me from asking anybody for a review that I don’t “know” online. (And that’s another kettle of worms. 🙂 ) And it means I don’t have all that many reviews.
There was a little crackdown on those people last year, but obviously the review-swap troll is alive and well.
The good news is one or two bad reviews can actually help sales. They tell people what your book *isn’t*, plus they show the reviews are real.
Great post Anne. I’ve seen reports of author bullying and trolling recently and it’s not pretty. The authors on the end of it begin to wonder if it’s worth carrying on with their writing or not.
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Koi–I know of authors who quit writing because of bullying. It’s tragic.
This is so shocking – I haven’t published yet, so I’m a bit clueless to some of the back story to many author’s experiences. Thank you for educating me, Anne.I hope I can avoid this kind of bullying, but I believe I should brace myself because I don’t intend to be an author who only writes about characters who are black. I’ve often wondered if this would bring down the bricks on my head. I once finally saw an author’s photo who did this – her image was never on her book jacket, but I saw first saw her identification in a caption under a photo from writer’s conference. I was heartened to see that being a woman who is black didn’t stop her from writing about character representing other races. Later, I read an interview where she said she deliberately didn’t include her photo on her book jacket because she didn’t want potential readers of her books to make a judgement about the book’s contents based solely on the color of the author’s skin. I, too, had decided not to include my photo on a book for the same reason. It’s all so disheartening.
Rhonee–Go ahead and write your characters as they come to you. You’re much less likely to be hit by this particular bunch if you belong to a minority.
I think we need to be brave and speak our truth. But it helps to know these bullies are out there.
At least you won’t be blindsided by the occasional nasty review. Expect a few and figure it’s part of the business.The people who get hit hard are the big bestsellers. And if you get to be a big bestseller, you can laugh all the way to the bank. 🙂
I’m still seeing support for the trashing of that YA novel, long threads on how it’s justified to call for a book to be removed by the publisher based on gossip in the book world, among reviewers, etc,, It’s being amplified by people who I never thought would approve of this kind of censorship. Maybe they want to appear ‘woke’ or demonstrate they don’t hold those racist/homophobic/sexist beliefs, but jumping on this bandwagon seems a poor choice.
D.D. You’re so right! This is all based on the false premise that the views of every character are the personal views of the author. It’s as if JK Rowling was accused of sharing the beliefs of Voldemort. These people are saying that talking about racism is taboo, even if you’re condemning it as this book does.
They are misguided on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. But the bottom line is that they are book-banners and fascists and fascism isn’t good for anybody.
>> I even saw one who said black people were better off under apartheid because they didn’t have to associate with white people.
Hope I’m not too late to comment on this fascinating article.The ignorance of some of these people is breathtaking! One of the biggest complaints about apartheid was how black people were being exploited by the whites. Um… how can you exploit people if you don’t come into contact with them?!
In the past I’ve been acquainted with South Africans, plus some who went to live and work there during the apartheid era. From what I know, it was pretty commonplace for white families to have black housekeeper/ cook/ nanny/ gardener type employees who would live in a sort of outbuilding at the rear of their homes.
Black people were also employed in various capacities by large organisations, where they sometimes had their own “black workers association” type of thing. One woman (white, and a secretary) used to type up the minutes of their meetings for them in Zulu!
It must be so hard for black and other minority groups who are trying to encourage more diversity in fiction when they’re up against this kind of madness!
Thanks so much for your interesting and informative posts.
Bel–I suspect the person who said things were so fabulous for blacks under apartheid was not black or South African. Just a white American college student who romanticized the idea of “African cultural purity.” These people are profoundly ignorant of the realities of segregation. They don’t realize that the concept of “separate but equal” never happened in real life.
And I agree that these people are working to do the opposite of what they say they want. By fighting diversity, they are fighting for inequality. and oppression of minorities.
I know what it is like to be targeted by this sort of thing. and the terrible depression that comes with it. Since I got beaten up by some weird so-called author, November 14, 2013, still no clue who she is, but she left me paralyzed for 5 months, during which time she hacked my KBoards account, my NaNoWriMo account, my website, my FaceBook, my Twitter, and other places, pretending to be me and written horrible stuff via my accounts. Then she created 52 fake Amazon accounts and left 52 fake and completely identical 1 star reviews on every one of my books. I was paralyzed 5 months, relearning to walk 18 months… and I was offline for a full 3 years, and had no clue this woman had taken over all my online accounts or had done any of these things, until 2015. 🙁 .
I’m crippled for the rest of my life, on a cane with one leg useless, and only have the use of 1 hand now, and permanent damage to my spine. I used to publish a novel a month… now because of some still unidentified Kboards member, I’ve got $3million in medical bills, a bomb also blew up my house so living in my car, can barely move, and am lucky if I can get 1 book typed up a year. So frustrating.
It’s been 4 years and I’m still in physical therapy, and it’s a good day if I can stand up, let alone walk. Had to cancel the 2015-2018 book signing tour, and had to cancel all the monthly book releases from November 2013 to who knows when… still all canceled and we are closing in on 2018 now.
The Kboards hacker crushed my spine, my hip, my pelvis, and my knee. Tore up all the nerves and muscles. Got a $40million lawsuit waiting for when the FBI finally identifies who the Kboards hacker is. FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation agent’s contact info is on my website if any one reading this has any info about who it was who hacked my Kboards account 2013 to 2015,
Hopefully my health will improve and I can be back online again regular, someday, like I was before the KBoards hacker tried to kill me. It would be good to chat with ANYONE again… these past 4 years since the Kboards hacker tried to kill me… have been very lonely, because I have no offline friends and am too crippled now to be online often
Eelkat–Yikes! That’s the worst story of reviewer abuse I’ve ever heard. I thought I put my fictional reviewer Ronzo through a lot of pain in So Much for Buckingham, but yours tops it, hands-down. I’ve only heard of a author getting physically violent with a reviewer once, and that was one blow of a wine bottle.
My advice is: “Get thee to a journalist!” This is a story that needs to be told and I think a lot of journalists would jump at it. I’ve been contacted by several big name magazines, including the American Bar Association Journal about Amazon reviews and abuse of both authors and reviewers. Start sending queries to local newspapers and national TV shows too. Best of luck to you!
I guess I’m just too invisible to get attacked. I haven’t actually made money yet, so I guess it’s more a hobby than a career at this point…oh I got 1 bad review because my non-fiction wasn’t on the topic he thought it should be (It would be like writing a book on vampires and getting 1 star because you didn’t write about werewolves), and I got 1 bad review because I had sent the wrong file to my book printers and sold 3 copies before I caught it and pulled it, but that was like self-inflicted…most of my reviews are 4 or 5 stars, though I’ve only got like 20 reviews between Goodreads and Amazon…After my first book, I created my own Indie Imprint so I have a publisher than NEVER argues with me 😀 I haven’t published anyone else, but that’s because I’d have to charge them what it costs me to publish a book, just like for my own books…I’m always getting people asking me for money for promotion or reviews, or contacts, whatever…I never do them…I’ve entered free contests, but I only won one, “50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading 2014″…I mostly sell copies personally, at events I pay to appear at…I just wish there was a way to get noticed…I’ve collected a few great memories along the line – A letter from the Pope, a video of Sean Astin reading from the first of my dragon series, Nichelle Nichols has my series and says she’s a fan, and I’ve got some photo-ops with some famous people. I did run into some actor earlier this year…he bought the first of my dragon series…he asked, “Have you scripted your book yet?” and asked for my personal contact information, but that doesn’t really mean anything…does it?
Stanley–You sure have some fantastic celebrity endorsements! Nichelle Nichols is such an iconic hero. Did you get a quote from her?
And that video of Sean Astin reading your book? Golden. I’d make that big and bold and maybe put that front and center on your website.
Getting “visible” online is a huge challenge for any writer. I strongly recommend the blog and books of David Gaughran like “Let’s Get Visible” to give you the steps you need to take to get your work in front of more eyeballs.
What you want to do is visualize your ideal reader and then make a list of things they like and then provide them. If your readers are likely to be Star Trek fans, put Nichelle Nichols front and center and maybe blog once a month about Star Trek news.
Or do the same with Lord of the Rings fans. Or alternate.
A blog is a great way to get yourself on the radar, so if you blog more, you might get yourself some more fans. I give lots of tips on how to do that in my book ‘The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors.”
The first time I met NIchelle I just got a generic autograph, but the second time I met her she gave me another autograph, “Thank you so much, You’re writings are great!” I did post “Your writings are great! – Nichelle Nichols” on Amazon under the “review” section for the book. Whenever I see someone mention her in a post on Facebook, I talk about how wonderful it was for me to meet her in person, and then post the picture. I know there’s a technical name for doing that…I just call it piggybacking….but I don’t go “buy my books”, I just put up the picture and let them figure out that she’s talking about my writing…hehe. I don’t know if I’m expecting too much by not mentioning I’m an author….as for Sean, when the second book came out I had people asking me if he was going to read from that book, too…I told them “Sure, we’re best buddies. I’m going to go over to his house and he’ll read from it while sitting at the pool.” It’s just like with the photo-op with Batman, Robin, and Catwoman, everyone would name them all then say they didn’t know the guy in the back, so I’d tell them “It’s the new Batman villain, The Author, he writes you into a book and tortures you for 300 pages.” There are still people waiting for the new villain to show up…The weird thing, Adam passed away like 3 months after I got that photo-op…
VERY good artcile. Thanks. A recent example of an author/writer getting cyberbullied, blackmailed and harassed online in major numbers is Karoor Soman. An article that helps with this is
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cyberbullyingharassment-author-karoor-soman-techniques-ind-jon/?articleId=6518107584690475008#comments-6518107584690475008&trk=public_profile_post
in this case the cyberbullying liars wanted the Author Karoor Soman to stop writing and take away the one passion that this gentleman has in his life. It was brutally insane and I thought someone had to write from the victim;s point of view. I gathered information from authors website, http://www.karoorsoman.net, facebook, and all other social media sites to frame a picture. what i found was an exagerrated campaign of hate orchestrated primarily by few bullies who had personal vendetta because of the number of books Karoor Soman had published.
Ind–Cyberbullying is very real and can be painful in the extreme. It’s easier to attack creatives than it is to create something oneself. Unfortunately the Internet invites this kind of cruel, infantile behavior and offers very few ways to punish or stop it.
Hi Anne:
I just re-read your article and I am, frankly, a little worried. My novel — while fantasy — features a female protagonist who looks somewhat Persian (slightly olive skin) and she’s involved in a nasty little war against a Mongol-type horse clan.
I can already hear the accusations from the perpetually outraged — gender appropriation, cultural appropriation, racial stereo-typing,and I probably check a lot more outrage boxes than just those three.
The accounts of some authors — particularly indies — I’ve read are chilling. Do I really want to open myself up to that? Why does anyone take the risk anymore?
It will still be awhile before my novel is ready, but I am increasingly nervous about putting it out there.
Best regards,
Brant
Brandt–Sorry I missed your comment here last August. I think you should go ahead and write the novel that’s in your heart. If it’s for adults, you’ll probably be okay. The current “diversity police” are mostly in the YA Twitterverse. They are closed minded and dangerous and even the Big 5 bow down before them, but they don’t seem to read adult fiction, so you’re probably fine. And the Iranian-American community isn’t as likely to be cruel as some others. But I think Genghis Khan is still considered an appropriate villain..It sounds like a great story!
I just read this. I had no idea this stuff existed. I’m working on my first book now, wow, thanks for the heads up. I will be super careful now. I do have a question though, has anyone tried to sue these people? It sounds like this kind of behavior is certainly illegal. It falls into libel and slander for sure. I’m deeply concerned about this, it isn’t who we are as a free speech people. And as to diversity in literature, we need it. Did you know that after the human genome was cracked, scientists looked at race? They found the darkest and lightest humans have less than a 2% variation in genes! Science now can prove “folks are folks” and there is one race, the human race. I will not censor myself. If I decide my characters are of varying colors, I will write them that way.
Kimberley–It’s very hard to sue anonymous people. When they were attacking Anne Rice, she and I had long conversations about it via email. She was ready to fly to Seattle to confront Mr. Bezos herself, but finally decided the battle was lost and there was no point. But less than a year later, Bezos closed down the Amazon forums where the nastiest bullies hung out. Maybe not a coincidence.
But the diversity police have gained even more power. They’ve had many YA novels cancelled within weeks of publication. The YA Twitterverse is fierce and powerful. It’s now called the “cancel culture” and here’s an article about it in the New Yorker. So be very careful if you write YA. These people believe that only people of a particular ethnic origin can be allowed to write about similar people, even in SciFi and fantasy. https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-the-line-between-criticism-and-cancel-culture