If you all haven’t heard by now, Nathan Bransford, an author and former literary agent, who is a major force within the publishing industry and who was once one of the most sought-after agents, wrote an article on the Goodreads bullies yesterday after he had come across a few offensive reviews of a book that he had read and enjoyed (much like another author we know who came across the same thing — — and ).
In the article, Nathan mentions the attack on Lauren Pippa, cites our Goodereader article, and placed a link to our site, telling his readers about a website that reports on authors’ horrifying experiences on GR. He ends his post stating that the bullying needs to end and appeals to the bullies’ humanity (a futile attempt we could have told him, as the bullies don’t seem to have any humanity):
And guess who descended upon him like a pack of ravenous wolves? That’s right. If you read the comments, you’ll see some familiar names, as well as one of our Biggest Offenders, who berated him for making a point that is perfectly valid.
After this, the anti-bullies stepped in and the whole thing blew up like a nuclear bomb. We stopped taking screenshots when the comment count got to be over 100. Last time we checked, they were at something like 270 and growing.
We did find one, however, that was rather insightful:
And guess what happened to ? :
Anyone see the irony in Pixie’s review?
Amazing, isn’t it? Her self-awareness is literally nonexistent.
Of course, as you may imagine, much of the debate on the comment thread was about our site, with the bullies making ridiculous claims against us as they usually do: that we stalk and harass people, that we publish private information, that we encourage bullying, that we kick puppies, that we slap babies, or whatever nonsense they’re spewing about us these days.
The fact is that our site was made and designed to expose the bullies and their behavior. And they HATE that. We have NEVER encouraged anyone to stalk or harass the bullies (as we’ve said many times). We make lists so that our readers will know who to STAY AWAY from. We are here to help the victims and teach them what to do when they are attacked as several of them testified in the comments of Nathan’s post:
As you read through these comments, you’ll see there are more people agreeing with him than not. And did any of their comments convince the bullies that their behavior is horrid and unacceptable?
Of course not.
Why?
Because it’s impossible to reason with ignorance.
But we will say that Nathan’s examples of bully reviews, in our opinion, are a bit mild in comparison to real bully reviews. Here are the reviews he mentioned (two of which are written by people on our BBG list):
(Blythe, the 8th grade teacher who cursed out a 14 year-old girl with Archer Adam Pring):
:
:
:
Are these reviews filled with venom and hatred? Of course. But they are still talking about the book.
The real bully reviews are ones that attack the author, like these:
These kinds of reviews are unacceptable and should be REMOVED from GR, not just hidden. Most agree with this sentiment, we think.
Except for those strange few such as Mike Mullin, who like Stacia Kane, is a well-known bully kiss-up and who thinks that authors should be demeaned and dehumanized in order to sell books. Here is what he says in :
Wow! So, like Stacia, he thinks authors should bend over and take it just so they can sell books. We can’t even begin to tell you how repulsive we find this, nor can we express the degree to which we loathe Mike’s attitude toward authors who speak out against abuse. We will show you, however, Nathan’s response to Mike which sums up rather nicely (and respectfully) a few of the points we wanted to make:
Nathan is right. GR does actively recruit authors. Why? Because that’s how they :
“We’re in the media business today. We’re in the business of helping authors and publishers market their books to readers. And that’s where we make our money. We sell book launch packages to authors and publishers and really help accelerate, build that early buzz that a book needs to succeed when it launches and accelerate that growth through ads on the site.”
– Otis Chandler, founder of Goodreads
And why won’t GR do anything about the bullies? Why do they keep protecting them?
The answer is simple. It’s one word — MONEY:
So, until GR is forced to do something about these bullies (more on that to come in future posts), they will continue to let the bullies have their way, just like the good little mom in Daniel Radke’s comment — a comment that pretty much sums up what happened to Nathan yesterday:
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Great post, STGRB! Your site has blown this problem wide open. Before STGRB, no one was talking about what was happening on Goodreads. Now even people like Nathan Bransford and EL James are weighing in. Good job!
Did you guys see this?
I just read that thread and I think there are some very good suggestions. If only Goodreads would consider the suggestions and use them to benefit everyone on the site.
I notice the troll are all for a .5 star being added so they can rate books even lower than their favorite 1 star ratings. The whole site is corrupt; from the start it was designed to persecute indies and funded by traditional publishing for just that purpose.
It makes me laugh the way the bullies go crazy every time anyone mentions bullying on Goodreads. If they don’t consider themselves bullies then why do the get so wound up when “GR Bullies” are mentioned? The same people are always defending their right to bully on Goodreads.
It is hard to believe the bullies are STILL spreading the same old rumors about STGRB. The bullies constantly lie and try to discredit STGRB, they try to bully STGRB into silence. The same way they bullied Nathan Bransford into retracting parts of his blog. The bullies say STGRB stalk and harass people, they say STGRB doc drop etc. Well how come the bullies never show proof? As in a link or a screen shoot. The reason they don’t show proof is because it is a big fat LIE. This is the STGRB blog, anyone can search through the posts on here. No one will find any harassment, doc dropping or any of the rubbish the bullies claim because its not here.
The GR bullies have been getting away with bullying people into silence for way too long. Its time to stand up to these bullies, don’t retracts parts of your blog because you are bullied into it. Don’t be afraid to say what you think. Goodreads is getting a lot of bad press recently. At long last everyone can see what STGRB has been talking about for over a year now.
If you all want to read Nathan’s original post before the bullies forced him to edit it, check it out here:
http://www.zite.com/api/v2/news/reader/?appver=2.3&userId=ipaduser_teyxu3jk&accessToken=87aeb364a5ea85eb7966177bd3fb5e3f33349f00&deviceType=ipad&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.nathanbransford.com%2F2013%2F09%2Fthe-bullies-of-goodreads.html&topic=topstories
He called STGRB brave. This is what he said:
When you’re an author, you expect that you’re going to get bad reviews. You expect that you may even get extremely bad, unfair reviews. But there is a segment of Goodreads that has gotten completely, utterly out of hand.
I recently read Bennett Madison’s terrific YA novel September Girls, and when I marked it as read I took a peak at the Goodreads reviews to see what others had to say. I was utterly horrified at some of the “reviews” I saw. (And for the record, I do not know Madison or anyone connected with the book. I’m just speaking as a reader here).
Sure. Not everyone is going to like a book. The point of Goodreads is telling the world what you think. But reviews like this and this and this and this serve no purpose. They are not funny. They are not constructive. They are just plain mean.
Reviews like these demean and dehumanize authors, and in fact the only way someone could write reviews like these is if they pretend the author and everyone connected with the book are some dispassionate robots who have no feelings. (Or they pretend the author isn’t going to see it, but come on).
Everyone knows that it takes a thick skin to be an author. But no one who writes a book deserves to be subjected to online abuse. It’s one of the strange aspects of online life that it feels like nothing to attack someone through a computer screen, but the recipient of that attack feels as acutely as if it happened in “real” life. Make no mistake: These aren’t reviews, they’re personal attacks.
And this is just the tip of one very dark iceberg. Author Lauren Howard noticed bad reviews when review copies weren’t even out yet, and when she complained she saw people putting her book on shelves like ‘author should be sodomized’ and ‘should be raped in prison.’ She ended up pulling her book.
It’s an axiom among authors that you can’t complain about your bad reviews. You never win.
But some authors are saying enough is enough.
A blog has been launched called STGRB (for Stop Goodreads Bullies), to share horror stories and to press Goodreads to help change the culture.
This is a brave effort, not only because it’s terrifying to stand up to online bullies, who can quickly make your life a nightmare, but also because many aspiring writers feel as if published writers somehow have it made and have forfeited their right to complain about anything.
The truth is that it’s hard enough to write and publish a novel without having to worry that the result of that immense effort will result in getting unfairly slimed and harassed by a pack of online bullies. It’s not hyperbole to say that there are talented authors out there looking at this landscape who will conclude it’s not worth it, and great books that won’t be published as a result of this culture if it continues.
This really has gone too far, and the tide needs to turn back. People writing these reviews need to wake up and recognize the humanity of the authors they’re trashing and think of the people they’re hurting. It’s eminently possible to write a negative review without abusing the person who wrote the book.
It’s a shame he let the bullies bully him. They just attacked more when they found out they could manipulate him.
I am SO glad to see people finally speaking up about this! Let’s see now, who’ve mentioned STGRB and what they do within the past year? HuffPo, USA Today, Forbes, Salon, Goodereader, E.L. James, and now Nathan Bransford!
Keep on keepin’ on, STGRB! You guys rock!
I can’t believe they went after someone like Nathan B. I’ve been following him for a few years now, this is someone who knows what he’s talking about! Makes me sad he bowed down to the crazy and let them win. Talk about effective censorship. I’m happy he points out the problem, at the same time I’m sad he’s now in their sights. And I’m even more sad he bought into their lies.
Not entirely sure he did buy into their lies. I’ve spoken to a few people who know him and Nathan now knows who the bullies are and what they do. He’s a bit wiser now about the whole situation.
You could be right. I didn’t know that.
Don’t blame Nathan. I don’t think he knew the extent to which this really goes. He’s from the normal world. He hasn’t been exposed to the low end bullying of the Jane Litte crowd, or those who have ruled the Internet for so long with bullying. I can understand why he censored. He must have been sitting there in shock when the comments started coming in. I can’t even imagine how horrified he must have been.
Oh no! Not blaming Nathan here at all! I wrote that at 3 AM so I obviously wasn’t coherent… 😀
I’m just sad that someone as cool as Nathan (I learned a lot about the book world from him) has to just sit there and take all this shit from all the crazy. I love how you say he’s from the “normal world” and didn’t know what he got himself into. This is what makes me so sad on his behalf. His world just ain’t normal no more.
At the same time I’m glad we have a heavy weight like Nathan piping up and directing all this shit in the right direction. He’ll talk to his industry buddies. And together with his industry buddies he will stop advertising with GR. And when GR loses out on that kind of money, Amazon will wake up and ask WTF? And maybe, just maybe – then we’ll see some much needed changes on GR. We need more champions like Nathan Bransford, people with a big name and a heavy influence on the rest of the book world. Money talks, and no money means no talking – on bullies behalf anyway…
I totally agree. And if something like this can happen to Nathan, I’m sure many other people are talking about it behind the scenes.
I think the most interesting thing of all is that every single person who comes here to comment is not someone who would ever bully anyone.
He’ll learn soon enough that the more he tries to appease the bullies, the more they’ll smell blood and go after him. They’re blood-thirsty wolves, and they never listen to reason. Like all bullies, they’ll only go away when enough people stand up and give them a taste of their own medicine. My brother was bullied in middle school. He tried reasoning with them, he tried walking away, he tried crossing the street to get away, he tried enlisting others to help. It was only when he joined a Taekwondo class and kicked the shit out of the bullies that they finally left him alone. So far, STGRB is the ONLY thing that has held the bullies accountable for their actions.
I shake my head at some of those posters. They cry, “oh, a STGRB supporter has arrived yet they to are posting anon. Okay… Then a lot of them rushed out and do the very thing they claimed they don’t do: harrassing authors (Nathan this time). They’re playing with fire here, more so than with a no body author.
Thanks for what you do STGRB. Hopefully these ‘children’ will have a growth spurt and realize what jerks they are.
Oh yeah. Why do authors have to post anonymously?
Maybe because of what they just did to Nathan’s book? They PROVED their own crimes by going and trashing his. All because he dared post about the issue.
Why do authors have to post anonymously? Because of what the bullies do: attack anyone who says anything about them.
Authors have the potential of losing a lot by putting their name on their posts, including income and a living (thankfully as more comes out about the same circle of bullies, this isn’t as much of a risk now). Until they are attacked. At that point, they might as well put their name to it. Those are the only ones I usually see putting their real names to their posts (or they don’t know about how vicious the bullies are yet).
To those who sign their real name, thank you! Hopefully the time will come when authors don’t have to risk their online lives and reputation by using their real names everywhere.
(And while I’m wishing, I want my own spaceship and a cure for cancer, too.)
I post under my real name because they already did their damage to my books on Goodreads. In addition, they will continue to have me on their lists even if I use an Anon name, and they will continue to talk about me even if I don’t respond, which I don’t I might add. I stand by my convictions that put me on their list, and they will twist the truth regardless of what I say, who I post under, or what I do.
I’m tempted to put a disclaimer on the front of my books that say my books have been victims of a smear campaign by a pack of lying bullies. I think the general buying public doesn’t even know this kind of stuff happens.
“They’re playing with fire here…”
Let’s hope they get more than their fingers burned.
Love Daniel R’s take on the situation, which would be funny if it wasn’t so real.
Yeah, you’re right. It’s funny and it’s not.
It’s been a firestorm over there, with the likes of Wendy Darling, and good old Jill Sorenson. I have posted in the comments about what a huge bully SHE is here several times. I think Jane Litte must have removed her comment because I couldn’t find it. But then I could have missed it. And where was Looney? She’s the best representative of the bully crowd.
What’s really sad here is that Nathan Bransford is a sweet guy who probably had no idea any of this was happening. It sounds to me as if he was looking at the situation of bullying in a general sense, like most normal people in the real world look at bullying. And because of his innocence he’s going to suffer the wrath of THEM now, too. I hate to see that.
“Wrong. Go read the site. Go see for yourself what they say on their Who We Are page:
Haha you must be a STGRB supporter, which means anything you say to me means nothing. That site is famous for stalking people. It promotes itself as an anti-bullying site, but it isn’t. I’ve seen what they post on there (before they put the necessity of gaining a password up) and they are only fanning the flames of drama. A true anti-bullying site doesn’t do that.
Thanks for sharing though. :)”
Uh, let’s see how this should go the other way…
“Haha you must be a BULLY supporter, which means anything you say to me means nothing. Those people are famous for stalking people. They promote themselves as anti-bullying, and never stalk people to other areas of the internet, but they aren’t. I’ve seen what they post and do and they are only fanning the flames of drama. True anti-bullies don’t do that.
Thanks for sharing though. :)”
Just thought I would correct that little comment.
Good one book lover!
So GRs removed the posts on Nathan’s book for him? I didn’t look all the way through but I didn’t notice them. I can’t believe that AHGrimlock actually put him on a shelf with that wording and his book is a MG one. I hope he reports that. You know kids are going there too. These people have no morals or conscious. They don’t care. They remind of those boys who killed that Univ. student cause they were bored. These people are definitely bored and get their kicks out of hurting people.
I saw them still up just now, so GR didn’t remove them. Some are horrible, they call him everything from a sissy to a BBA.
All Hail Grimlock AKA Hairy Manface Shoshanna doesn’t care that children will be exposed to her hateful profanity and warped soul. If I were a parent browsing Goodreads and came across her “shelves,” I would be horrified. Why doesn’t Goodreads ban her? It’s mind-boggling.
They aren’t doing themselves any favors by attacking Bransford. No one with intelligence can take them seriously at this point. The real issue now is how will GR handle this growing time bomb? Because the bullies have no credibility. If anything Nathan might get more sales out of it. I hope he does.
GR, what are you going to do about it? The ball is in your court now. You have a rotten problem on your site. Be professionals and clean it up. You won’t be getting my advertising dollars until you do.
This kind of shows up the whole “all authors have to do is not read their reviews and they won’t get into trouble” thing as a lie, doesn’t it? Bransford wasn’t commenting on reviews of his own books; he was complaining about the childish obnoxiousness in reviews on someone else’s book that he liked.
It seemed to be the positive mention of STGRB that pushed the we’ll-crap-wherever-the-hell-we-want crowd into a frenzy.
Yep, and this is exactly what happened to Melissa when she commented on an author-bashing review of another person’s book. They went after her for it and it wasn’t even her book. Then they began spreading the rumor that she harassed reviewers for bad reviews of her books. It was bullshit.
The bullies hate STGRB so much because this site has shown a bright light on their behavior. All cockroaches hate being exposed to light.
I’m dumbfounded.
That is all.
Mine either, Alex. Why advertise with a place that will in all probability cause you to lose sales rather than gain them? Pointless.
Jane scolded him on Twitter telling him that these reviewers are the biggest cheerleaders in the industry and that this is just the way those reviewers express themselves. Totally, totally missing the point once again. Delusional much?
Not only Jane but Ridley, Cuddlebury, and a bunch of reviewers (who think they are so in the right) jumped on him. Jane accused him of telling people to shut up. Um, I never saw that on Nathan’s blog at all. Ooookkkkaaaayyyyy. Just goes to show you how warped their minds are.
Where are you all seeing this?
Nevermind. Found it. Wow! They are really slamming him. They are showing their true colors now.
This is going to go into a new post. Nathan is such a good guy and these [insert preferred name here] have no right to scold him for his opinion.
They always make up lies. Have you seen what they spew about STGRB? But the truth always prevails, as we’re seeing.
She’ll never get the point. Jane believes she IS the biggest cheerleader in the industry. Some of you may or may not remember Mrs. Giggles. If nothing else it’s a very interesting read, especially the comments.
And, believe it or not, this is even better. Keep in mind that these bloggers have all been dominating the romance industry for quite some time.
http://www.arghink.com/2011/10/10/time-again-for-the-meatballs-chant/
This is a direct quote. Keep in mind that Jane and Sarah are BFF. It’s very clever.
“The kerfluffle is over a perceived conflict of interest because Sarah is part of an author consulting firm with my daughter, Mollie Smith, and she also writes the Smart Bitches blog which reviews novels, although Sarah has not reviewed any of the authors on the Simple Progress client list. But she might some day, according to the kerfluffers, so there’s a conflict of interest which she’s been hiding from people. She’s been hiding it by putting her name on the Simple Progress website and by talking about it on my blog, so she’s remarkably bad at hiding things, but that’s not the point. The point is . . .”
Wow. That second blog is such a perfect example of the fact that it’s not the ‘Big 6’ that are a problem, necessarily. It’s these small-fry cliques of small-time log-rollers and mutual backscratchers where mom is an author, daughter runs an ‘author consulting firm’ whatever that is, and also happens to have a book blog, and everyone shills for everybody else while they attack anyone outside of their cozy little group who does the same thing. Disgusting.
You got it. I couldn’t have said it better.
ANON nailed it! And amazingly, the trolls over at BBA are always talking about how authors have cliques. When I was researching romance writers and publishers, I was shocked at all the cliques! Each one feeding off the next..
Funny thing too is that BBA is listed as ‘romance’, but there is little of that ever discussed by the trolls. They may have started out as a romance forum, but they’ve certainly morphed into something else.
The sad thing about it is Romance’s central theme is love. So where is their love?