Today we have a guest post by Judyann McCole who was smeared by Stephanie S. and her band of merry Cuddleboogery bullies. Below is her post, What happened to me on Goodreads: #MyAuthorNightmares.
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I would like to start of by saying I’m kind of ashamed that it has taken me so long to talk about this. However, with the growing backlash against trolls disguised as book reviewers, I finally feel safe enough to talk about this.
A few months ago I decided to stop querying agents and go indie! For any author that’s HUGE! You hear about all this stigma against indie authors and are told how impossible it is to get readers and you just want to run to the hills fast! But I wanted my book out there. I wanted to share the characters in my mind with other people because for once in my life I had thought I found my thing!
I’m not the best in math, science, sports, or english (not my first language) however as a child/teen, I tried my best to be. Everyone else in my family was. I found myself always running to books, but never imagined I could write one due to my dyslexia. I loved telling stories, but the moment I tried to put them into words, I got scared. I remembered the kids who would laugh at me for reading (which I still do), or for just talking too long.
However somehow last summer, I was able to write not one book, but four (I still don’t know how.) I had never felt so happy in my life. I went to my teachers, friends, and a few members of my family for advice and honesty. Of course they told me they liked it. I kind of expected that. Of the four, I thought only two of them were good enough to publish.
Adela Arthur and the Creator’s Clock was one of them. You see, I had grown up on books in which black people were never really around. (I’m really not trying to make this a race thing.) And females didn’t go on the same adventures that guys did. (My opinion? It could have just been the books I chose.) So instead of complaining about it, I wrote.
Which brought me here:
And here:
All because of this blog post.
1. Only Steph S.—the writer of the blog post had read my book.
My Crimes against the “gods and goddess” of book bloggers have to be broken up into two categories:
What they said I did and what I actually did.
What they said I did:
Steph Sinclair said she believed my book was a Harry Potter rip-off… That was alright. It was the first time anyone had told me that since I sent my book to be reviewed, but again it was her right.
Another blogger by the name of Melody had actually liked my book and started talking about it in the book blogger community, which was great until she got into some hot water with other reviewers. She had posted fake reviews (the irony) to build street credit.
So how does this effect me?
Well good ol’ Steph here claimed I was Melody. That I had step up a fake twitter account and blog and bought followers not only for Melody, but for every review of my book! I was sock-puppet she claimed.
I tricked bloggers to read my book and so the post above was my master plan!
Step by step, she lays out “proof” on how I tricked her to read my book through fake accounts.
FALSE.
After posting her review, she went all over my social media to prove what a horrible author I was. Then, she got other bloggers to join in.
What she could have done? Checked the IP address, but if she had, sadly her post wouldn’t have gone up.
Instead, I sat there and watched as someone lied about me, made fun of me, and just plain degraded me over her beef with another blogger.
- Any person using WordPress should know that the amount of followers you have is a mixture of twitter, Facebook, and your actual blog. It isn’t “buying” bloggers. It’s the set up of WordPress. Or at least mine is.
- If a lot of people were talking about my book, it was because I went to any blog that would have me and sent out book review request along with giveaways. Not because I was making fake accounts.
None of that mattered. I was a “bad author.”
What I actually did:
I may have been over zealous in booking blog tours. I’m a first time author who had no clue what to do, but was told over and over not to expect readers to just find my book. All the advice blogs said promote! Promote! So I tried. I wasn’t aware there was a limit of book tours you could use. But that didn’t matter either because after Steph’s post, I lost almost all of them.
One of the blog tour owners, Sharon Goodwin of fictionaddictionbooktours.com, went out of her way to make sure the other bloggers knew of Steph’s post.
Funnily enough, I was the one who contacted her to let her know. I wanted to be honest with her and anyone else working with my book. I told her I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to book so many tours. She told me it wasn’t, but the last thing she wanted was to be associated with an author like myself.
That weekend I had never cried so badly in my life. My parents were so proud of me, they kept telling me to share my book with other family members and even with my high school. But I felt ashamed and scared. This great thing I did felt like a curse. I wanted to stop writing.
I emailed Goodreads, begging for them to take my book down. But they told me no.
I deleted my Goodreads account and just tried to hide from the attacks.
Neither of them read my book.
However Steph made it her personal mission that weekend to make sure those who supported me were to afraid to review. (I understand and I wouldn’t want anyone to be attacked because of me.)
Unless she knew the blogger of course.
Someone you knew liked my book Steph? Not everyone in the world shares your opinion? No, say it ain’t so.
I forgot to mention two of my crimes.
- I asked Steph for a review.
- I spent the little money I had left to advertise on her blog and others.
A month ago, I wanted nothing more than to just die. That may seem dramatic. But when you’re afraid to open your email or get on twitter or Facebook because you’re afraid of being attacked, being alive sucks.
Steph can’t be much older then myself. I’m 20 (17 at heart) and I could never imagine doing this to another human being over a book…anything really. It just proves high school never really ends.
I was angry, hurt, and in a real dark place after this happened. Steph and her gang of trolls took away my passion for writing and my pride….for a whole month.
And that is what happened to me on Goodreads.
For those of you who say authors should have thick skin, you’re right. But that doesn’t give “readers” the write to ban together and go on a witch hunt.
Bullying is bullying.
At 20, I wrote a novel. You, Steph, you read a book and published a mean-spirited blog post.
In 10 years, I’m not going to feel like an asshole. I’m going to keep writing. Not because I’m dying to “get rich”, but because I love storytelling.
What’s next for Adela Arthur and the Creator’s Clock?
I think that series will die with one book. I wanted to delete it off the web, but fans told me “I was letting them win”, so I just made the ebook free. I don’t really have control over the book price on amazon though.
My book is #109 on the list above. I wonder if I will break top 100 after posting this.
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Good job, Judyann! Keep writing. Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you aren’t worth it. Because you are. And don’t let anyone ever ruin your dreams.
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At 20, I wrote a novel. You, Steph, you read a book and published a mean-spirited blog post.
That’s really what it comes down to. It’s the difference between great minds and small minds.
Hey Judyann, it’s not my genre, but guess what? I just bought your book. I promise to read it and post a review.
I’m positive that many authors will do the same.
Keep writing, I think you are awesome.
Thank you for posting your story. It could have been mine, as a very similar thing happened to me. I made the mistake of trusting a book blogger with my newly published book. She took my free book that I bought out of my own money and sent to her, then proceeded to trash it. I truly don’t mind honest bad reviews because I want to learn and grow as an author, but this “review” was nothimg but name calling and belittling and trashing my book in order to make herself appear witty and snarky. It was just plain nasty, and showed zero respect. Give me a respectful negative review any day. I welcome them. But saying you wouldn’t wipe your ass with my book and then marketing that that to the world, is unacceptable. I asked the blogger if she’d even read the whole book because there was a factual error in the review–a lie, really, but I wanted to be respectful–and she immediately took offense to my question and told me she was going to show me what bad reviews really felt like! She made it her mission to teach me a lesson. Them she rallied all her troll friends who created sock puppets and pummeled my book with one-star reviews to destroy my career. None of them had read the book. I was supporting my little children, and before the attacks, my book had been doing quite well in sales. After smearing my book, my sales stopped cold, and I wasn’t able to provide my children with Christmas gifts that year (because we had to eat). Luckily, kind-hearted friends brought over gifts; otherwise, my kids would have had a very sad Christmas. Since then, my sales have somewhat recovered (with the rash of troll reviews finally dying off and being replaced with good ones), but that slew of troll reviews (all posted in the same few weeks) have still kept my overall rating low and prevented me from being able to market on Book Bub, etc. Thus, my livelihood is still being affected. These online trolls who seek to do such harm don’t care that they’re affecting lives. They don’t care that they’re destroying hopes and dreams. They don’t care that their actions cause sleepless nights and heartache. They don’t care about the ramifications of their actions. When I looked at my sleeping children during that December and cried over what was happening, I lost a little bit of faith in humanity that there were people out there in the world who could be so vicious and harm my family like that. Never mind my lifelong dream of writing. My children were being directly harmed by an online troll, and it broke my heart. Since then, I’ve kept writing because I will never let a cruel online peon destroy my dreams or happiness. But since then, I don’t see the world the same way as I did before. I’ve lost some of my faith in humanity, and that is one thing the trolls DID take from me.
Would you consider telling us who the book blogger was, so a new author will know who to avoid? People like the one you’re describing need to be shunned.
“Would you consider telling us who the book blogger was, so a new author will know who to avoid?”
Or go after aggressively, and turn the tables around.
I’ve contacted Athena, and we’re going to be doing a post on her soon. I definitely want to warn the community about her.
I think I’ve mentioned “Katiebabs” before somewhere here on a comment thread.
She’s trouble.
I bought Judyann’s book. Even a little support is better than nothing. Hugs to bullied author too.
Hey Judyann,
Hang in there. When I read your story and others who have been featured on this site, I feel so connected to you all, because I feel your pain. We got to be like the phoenix and rise above this burning mess. Continue writing, do not let these ass wipes stop you. These bullies are sad and angry because no one will give them the time of day and they fell threatened by our talents. How does they old saying go? – children clinging to your apron is what they are.
I like the fact they’re now calling themselves “networks” when they’re nothing but bully mobs. Mobbing is a known psychopathic behavior.
Groups of terrorists are also called networks. In that regard, I think the term is well applied.
All rodents have “networks”, so I think the term suits them perfectly. Here’s an article I found on rodent networks that seemed to aptly describe the Goodreads Troll “Networks”:
“Underground rodents such as moles, chipmunks and rats that like to burrow, such as the *Norway Rat (one of the most common and despised rats in America), are nuisances that are difficult to get rid of. Moles and chipmunks can cause damage to previously pristine areas, while burrowing rats can create a health hazard as disease carriers. The problem of killing underground rodents is twofold. Access is difficult, and rodents killed underground can create unpleasant odors.”
*AKA Goodreads rodent/troll
Yep, seems fitting! 😀