Okay, you’re all going to love this one! Just recently best-selling indie author Jamie McGuire publishes a saying:
Hmm, very strange that Amazon would do this and of course the bullies had to jump in on it and devour it whole, skewering Jamie in the process. The rumor started was that Jamie had included song lyrics illegally in the self-pubbed version of Beautiful Disaster and that was why Amazon was encouraging refunds.
And who started this rumor? None other than the llama of drama herself, our dear, sweet, lovely Jane Litte with the help of her twitter pals (i.e. katiebabs):
Then Jane goes and writes a post on Dear Author on it telling everyone it’s Jamie’s fault:
Litte is making two really big assumptions here. One: that Jamie didn’t have permission to publish the lyrics. And two: that Amazon offered a refund for the book because of a copyright violation. Big mistake, Litte.
Even The Passive Voice picked up the news and unfortunately, there were some idiot commenters leaving shit like this:
Finally, Dawn cleared up the whole thing on PG’s blog:
Here are the shots we got of comments left on :
So you see, Amazon made a mistake and the bullies jumped in and blamed the author. Why? Well, that’s an easy one. Because Jamie is an awesome writer and because she also happens to be a best-seller who stuck up for herself and beat the bullies at their own game. Add that to the fact that her book will more than likely become a movie (screenplay in process as we speak):
And the bullies just can’t stand it. Any opportunity they can get to smear her reputation, they’ll take. In fact, that really applies to any author they want to bully. And let’s be honest, does it really surprise anyone?
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An addendum. Found some more spot on comments by Jesse and Dawn on PG’s blog:
I bet they all had their popcorn popped and were settled in to watch the author squirm. They’ll have to save that popcorn for the Beautiful Disaster movie. Hahaha!
LMAO!
Oh yes they hold grudges. And the fact that her book is so successful, that just pisses them off even more! XD
Wow.
Isn’t the spat with Jamie McGuire over a year old?
When they hold a grudge, they REALLY hold a grudge.
No kidding.
You know what really burns me? This was obviously Amazon trying to do an end run and make money off a book at the expense of the author. WTF?? I’m glad it was cleared up.
Also, what is the problem with printing song lyrics? It’s not like a person can actually hear the damn song. I would think the Rolling Stones would be happy to have people suddenly remember “oh, yeah, I love that song! I should go buy and download an MP3 file so I can listen to it…”
Good for Jamie! It must eat them up that she’s a bestseller, got snagged by a big publisher, and now her book will be a movie to boot! I’d love to see that happen for more authors attacked by the goodreads bullies. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Maybe they really are inadvertently helping these authors while trying to destroy their sales. Time will tell.
If it had been about copyright issues, it probably wouldn’t have been handled by Amazon doing a take down or a refund. It would have been between Ms. McGuire and the attorneys of the affected parties.
Jane Litte brought up the lawsuit between the Verve and ABKCO records. Those types of lawsuits occur when an artist or copyrights holder can prove their sampled work contributed to another party’s success.
If copyright was the issue, ABKCO would sue Jamie McGuire for a portion of her earnings from the book, believing that the song contributed greatly to her success. It was obviously a rookie error on her part to use such a long portion of the song, but it sounds like it’s just referenced in a scene in her book. It’s not the same as the Verve using a sample that contributed to their success.
You’d think an “attorney” with a book blog would know better.
Jane is only repeating what her SmartBitch Sarah told her. She probably has no idea who the Verve is or the Rolling Stones. I wonder if she jumps to conclusions in her real job. Yikes.
I guess Sarah isn’t exactly a smart bitch after all, is she?
LOL
This must have been very upsetting for the author. I hope Amazon refunded Jamie McGuire any money that she had to refund to customers because of their mistake. I imagine some people may have asked for a refund for the book not because there was an actual problem with the book, but because they had already read it and they fancied getting their cash back so they could buy another ebook.
The trolls as usual were extremely quick to point the finger at Ms. McGuire. Those trolls are so obnoxious, do they never get sick of listening to themselves? It is incredible how the VERY SAME TROLLS pop up every single time there is a bit of author bashing going on. When you think of how big both Amazon and Goodreads are and yet these same trolls keep popping up all of the time. If an author slips up in the slightest *bam* the usual trolls are in there to stir up the situation. Even in cases like this where the author has done NOTHING wrong, the same few trolls are straight in to stir up trouble.
The hypocrisy of the trolls who whine about being on the “Amazon Fora Trolls” & “Badly Behaving Goodreaders” list. An author doesn’t even have to do anything wrong to end up on their BBA list. The trolls get such pleasure in telling authors that they’ve made their BBA list. I saw a well known troll leaving this comment on Amazon recently;
Quote: //// HJ Leonard says: “Aaaaannnnd add another author to the Badly Behaving Authors list, and the Do-not-buy shelves. So, just for posterity:” //// (Troll goes on to copy and paste of all the authors deleted comments here. Comment takes up half the page.)
The smugness of this comment is pathetic. This is real playground behavior. I can just imagine this troll singing “Na-na-na-na-naa” as she posted that “comment.” I wasn’t one bit surprised when saw that HJ Leonard is on the “Amazon Fora Trolls” list. She is just one of the many trolls who pop up again and again.
It’s a whole different story when the trolls are being held accountable for bullying authors. They have such temper tantrums over the lists in STGRB. But by god do they deserve to be on the “Amazon Fora Trolls” and “Badly Behaving Goodreaders” lists. They are constantly on the attack, day in day out. They never take a day off from trolling the Internet, never.
Did anyone check out the names on Queen Jane Litte’s thread? It has names like Ridley, Jill Sorenson, Jackie Barbosa and the ever so silent biggest bully of them all…the exhaulted one, “Sirius.” You can’t get that group of bullies into a more perfect nest if you tried
I find this “Sirius” most interesting. No real platform or background anywhere. Just “Sirius.” And yet she/he has such grand opinions and makes wide generalizations without having to be held accountable for it. She/he has also written stellar reviews for Looney and has been bullying indie authors and small publishers for years on the sly. And always in a clever way, just below the radar. I’m not a fan of exposing good decent people, and I see nothing wrong with having fake names for the right reasons. But I find it corrupt and shady when someone like this “Sirius” is constantly bullying and starting trouble and remains exempt from exposing his/her real identity. I would have at least some respect for him/her if I knew who she/he is. But to go around complaining about injustice and infringement and not have the balls to stand behind your own name is worse than anything I’ve ever seen any author or publisher do. I say if you’re going to complain so much, tell us who you are and stand behind your name.
It looks as though Jamie had to block several of them:
https://stopthegrbullies.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Blocked.png
That also reminds me, I need to re-post the one we did on Looney, Sirius and their group of self-supporting authors who give each other glowing reviews. Think I’ll do that now.
What? Jane Litte made a loud-mouthed donkey of herself? Again?
What a surprise.
Have you read the Passive Voice blog today? Jane Litte is getting slammed as a social manipulator. Bout time.
Where? Do you have a link to the entry? The only match for “Jane Litte” that I found on the Passive Voice was to an entry from about a year ago about some program or other called Kickstarter.
I think Anon means here:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/03/2013/amazon-beautiful-disaster-emails/#comment-88562
And here:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/03/2013/amazon-beautiful-disaster-emails/#comment-88606
Aha! Thanks. It’s good to read those.
So, the Jamie McGuire thing rules out coypright infringement, but the DA crowd kept yammering on about it. Typical of them to put their own spin on a drama that they wish would happen. Very strange, and Courtney Milan is chiming in her own professional opinion on all this. What is wrong with these people? Jane seems to be very quiet about all this today. Didn’t get her drama fix with this author. Better luck next time.
Oh, good lord! I almost died laughing when I read this:
http://dearauthor.com/news/monday-news-amazon-v-indies-round-500-u-of-mississippi-cures-baby-of-hiv-trusted-friend-best-source-of-book-recommendations/#comment-519651
That lot are always so quick to judge. In this case they were wrong. Don’t see any of them saying sorry.
I wonder if the bullies feel silly now? Because I tell you one thing they certainly look very silly. They are a bitter and twisted lot.
Just saw the unbelievable comments here:
There was a huge thread over at Kindleboards on this same issue. I didn’t post a comment because if I don’t know the facts usually I’ll keep quiet. Too bad some authors on KB don’t do this. You wouldn’t believe the comments on that thread. A lot of high-handed bullshit from authors who didn’t know jack-shit about the issue but somehow they felt as if they knew exactly what was going on. Hearsay and rumors became facts. The stupidity in that thread was amazing.
Do you have a link to that? Searched, but couldn’t find.
Here is the link right here:
Found on the 9th page.
Many thanks!
Wow wait, Pam Van Hecklama is one of the review bullies?
I swear, that puts everything into context on how I’m treated by her on Twitter!D:
Wait a minute, maybe I misread. I’ll read over it. Not sure what she’s doing there.
But yea, not treated very well by her for some reason.:/ If I knew what offended, I’d apologies profusely.
Yea this is confusing, but I think Jane’s at fault here.
Pam is a frequent flyer. She has bullied many authors for no other reason than to hope the bullies will buy her books, much like katiebabs.