Archive for October, 2013


Jane Litte Defends Violent Readers

Filed Under: Bully Threats by Johnny Be Good — 27 Comments
October 26, 2013

We were just recently tipped off to a Twitter conversation between Jane Litte and a group of authors who took offense to readers’ reactions to Veronica Roth’s final installment of the Divergent trilogy.  Apparently, there are fans so unhappy with the outcome of the story, they have taken to leaving threats of violence upon Veronica’s person.

In the conversation, Jane defends these readers and their threats of violence by calling them “passionate”.  Jane is of the mind that since there are so many threats being passed around the web lately anyway, making a big deal about this is “hyperbolic”.  (Her argument.  Not ours.)  But as Andrew Shaffer points out, if these kinds of threats were directed at Jane or her readers, she would be shrieking foul play from the rooftops.  After all, wasn’t it Jane who said that STGRB “put her readers in danger” because we published screenshots of their despicable behavior and stated our disapproval of it?  Ooh, that’s horrible isn’t it?  That’s worse than telling someone you want to punch them in the throat or cut them up, huh?  *sarcasm*  Jane also seems to think that because Veronica is making money off her readers, they have a right to threaten her.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?  But really, this is just Jane being herself.  This is who she is.

I’ll tell you something.  My brother has his own landscaping business and if any of his clients threatened physical harm on him, he not only would NOT provide landscaping services for them, he would probably also report their threat(s) to the police.  Just because you are making money doing something does not give clients or customers the right to threaten physical harm on you.  And making a big deal of this IS NOT “hyperbolic”.

What’s amazing is that this is what the bullies really believe.  Threatening an author is acceptable behavior according to these people.  No wonder TinaNicole and the others who threatened Lauren Pippa thought they had a right to do it.  This is their mindset.

To see what we’re talking about, all you have to do is read the following Twitter conversation.  It’s the perfect example of Jane showing her true colors.  Dan Krokos eventually got so disgusted with her, he ended up blocking her.  Fair play to Dan!

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Carpet Bomber #7, Old Rocker

Filed Under: Carpet Bombers by Johnny Be Good — 29 Comments
October 19, 2013

Before we get to Old Rocker, who was originally on our sidebar for being an AFT, we want to share the following with our readers.  We were tipped off to this feedback discussion on Goodreads created by a GR member who is now gone from the site:

OneStarRatings

In response, a GR member named Jenny attempted to shed light on the subject:

Jenny

But as you may have guessed, unfortunately, the thread was hijacked by the trolls who spewed their nonsense and created 12 pages of hateful invective.  So, let this be a warning.  Tread carefully in the Goodreads feedback discussions.  The trolls stalk those threads like there’s no tomorrow and if you post a comment they don’t like, they will come at you hard.  You see, there is a reason Goodreads in the Goodreads feedback discussions and not site-wide.  Because they knew that the small group of users it would affect (i.e. the GR bullies) would see it there.  The majority of GR users don’t care.  As PG said in one of his posts, he “doesn’t think the vast majority of Goodreads users are terribly upset about a few offensive items being removed from the site.  Most have not even noticed anything.”  We tend agree with him.

Now, as for the recent barrage of one-star ratings, we’ve heard from several sources that the appeals to Amazon and GR staff are working.  The carpet bombs seem to be disappearing.  However, if you feel that your books have not been cleaned of the crap left on them by the angry dung beetles and you’ve already contacted Amazon/GR about it, some information from another anon might help you:

Goodreads is located in California. I recommend reporting them to the California Attorney General for fraudulent business activity:

http://oag.ca.gov/consumers

As for Amazon, it’s headquarters are in Washington.  Here is the website for reporting Amazon:

http://www.atg.wa.gov/fraudfighters.aspx#.UlbzHlCkqgk

Now, remember from that particular post, we showed you an attorney left a comment on Anne R. Allen’s blog, stating that customer reviews are a form of ‘endorsements’ or ‘testimonials’ and that:

“SELLERS HAVE AN AFFIRMATIVE DUTY TO ENSURE ANY CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL THEY USE TO SELL PRODUCTS IS TRUE.”

If you find that Amazon/GR isn’t listening to your request to have false one-star ratings removed from your book(s), you may want to contact the offices of both California’s and Washinton’s Attorney General to report the fraud.  Or seek the services of an attorney.  Or both.

Now, for carpet bomber #7 of our Carpet Bombers Series, we want to show you some of the shots we got of and bookshelves before the carpet bombs were removed.

ORsProfile

ORsFriends

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If you take a look at Old Rocker’s book shelves now, this is what you will see:

Gone

We hope this trend continues.

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An addendum.

I forgot to add to the post above.  Now that Rick Coke Monkey is no longer in , we feel it is safe again for authors to join (or rejoin) the group.  There is also a link on our sidebar.

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Carpet Bomber #6, In2books

Filed Under: Carpet Bombers by Johnny Be Good — 28 Comments
October 9, 2013

Before we continue with carpet bomber #6, we want to show you a comment Anne R. Allen (the witness to the death threats laid against Lauren Pippa) left on her blog.  Btw, if you haven’t read her post, The Laws of the Amazon Jungle — Eight Rules Authors Need to Know to Stay Safe, you should (see our sidebar).  There’s some great advice there.  Now, as we have said repeatedly on our blog (specifically in Goodreads Review Fraud), by letting their members leave bogus revews/ratings on their site, GR is committing a crime and authors who are affected by this have a right to take legal action against them, as well as report them to the authorities for fraud.  In this comment, Anne talks about a comment left on her blog post by Attorney Janet Normalvanbruecher:

AnnesComment1

AnnesComment2

You see that?

“SELLERS HAVE AN AFFIRMATIVE DUTY TO ENSURE ANY CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL THEY USE TO SELL PRODUCTS IS TRUE.”

That’s right!  Goodreads and Amazon DO NOT have the legal right to leave false reviews/ratings on their sites especially when this false data is passing through their APIs that have NO disclaimers on them.  And remember that Amazon is using Goodreads ratings/reviews in their Kindle Paperwhite to sell books.  What they’re doing is called deception and it’s a violation of the FTC’s rules and regulations.

This is exactly why we started our Carpet Bombers Series — so that you will have evidence to show the authorities, or a judge, that there is indeed fake ratings/reviews on Goodreads.  With that said, we’ve chosen as carpet bomber #6.

In2books has only 1 review and 568 ratings to date on her profile:

In2booksProfile

Hundreds of these ratings are carpet bombs on random books or on books by targeted authors that In2books made in reaction to the new GR policy change.  Remember, on the GR announcement thread, it was In2books who said:

FatOneStar

And if you take a look at her friend list, you will see some of the more prominent trolls:

In2booksFriends

Now, as for her “fat one-stars”, we’ve chosen a few of the dozens of screenshots we have from the carpet bombing spree she’s been on since the announcement in September:

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So it appears that In2books isn’t exactly into books, is she?  She should change her screen name to In2carpetbombing.  It would be much more fitting.

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Carpet Bomber #5, JennyJen

Filed Under: Carpet Bombers by Johnny Be Good — 52 Comments
October 3, 2013

The fifth carpet bomber of our Carpet Bombers Series is JennyJen, a GR LIBRARIAN and a notorious bully whose been on our BBG list for quite some time now.  We first noticed Jenny’s CB spree on September 23rd, but it actually began on the 21st and has been ongoing ever since.  Furthermore, her choice of books doesn’t really seem to have any rhyme or reason.  Like Linda, she seems to just pick any book and one-star it simply out of spite, taking her anger over GR’s new policy out on hundreds of books and their authors.

But before we show you the screenshots of her one-star temper tantrum, we want to show you the shots we got of her and friends, and of the people that she follows so you can see the pattern all of the carpet bombers seem to follow:

JennyJenProfile

JennyJenFriends

And this is what you will find when you click on her :

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Here are some shots we took when she started:

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This is just a sample of the hundreds you will find on her shelves.  What’s creepy is that we don’t even think she’s done yet.  We’re hoping she’ll eventually find a more productive hobby, like — I dunno — basket weaving?  But we’re not going to hold our breath.

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Carpet Bomber #4, Bekka

Filed Under: Carpet Bombers by Johnny Be Good — 18 Comments
October 1, 2013

Before we get to our fourth carpet bomber, we want to let everyone know that we were cc’d on an email to Nader Kabbani and Jeff Bezos regarding the recent drama with the trolls’ reviews and ratings on GR.  Below is Nader’s response:

NadersEmail1

NadersEmail2

Due to the high volume of emails they are getting, Amazon has made the problem on GR top priority.  We are hoping, along with our readers, that they come to a solution soon.  Thank you, Amazon!

In other news, Linda seems to have taken some heat for the carpet bombing spree she went on when she one-starred 1,000 books in one day (which if anyone really counted, came out to be more like 500):

LindaCBSpree

When you see something like this, you have to wonder how these people manage to survive at all.  Don’t they have anything else to do with their lives, like — I dunno — work?

Anyhow, due to the backlash, Linda recently for what she did:

LindasLameExcuse

Nice try, Linda, but that’s about as good as “my dog ate my homework” or “I didn’t do it because I was on the moon!”  Actually, no, it’s not even as good as those.  At least those excuses are logically coherent!

*major eyeroll*

In any case, if you take a look at , all those carpet bombs she spent so much time on are gone.  So we’re wondering, what kind of unintelligible justification will she babble now?  Space monkeys came and removed all my one-stars!

Edit 10/2/2013: because of this post, Linda went on another carpet-bombing spree just to prove how incredibly immature she is.

Anyhow, let’s move on to the fourth carpet bomber of our Carpet Bombers Series, shall we?

Bekka was the first CB’er we found when we first heard about the marathon one-starring of books due to the announcement of GR’s new policy.  When we clicked on her profile, we found HUNDREDS of carpet bombs on her shelves.  Now, when you go to her profile, you find :

BekkaProfileNow

You see, after hearing the news of our CB Series and seeing the backlash on Linda, she deleted all of the books on her shelves and privatized her GR account.  Then, she fled to  (the new protective haven for the trolls) where she says:

ImaBBB

Now, remember what we said in our post, Jenn Falls on Bullying and Critiquing:

These people do these things and cop these attitudes because they think it makes them “badass” or in other words, they think it makes them look cool.  But it doesn’t make them look cool.  It just makes them look like foolish, little children.

And a foolish little child she is.  Fortunately, we managed to get a snapshot of this little dung beetle before she cleaned up her trail:

BekkasProfile

And of her friends (of which there were several well-known trolls):

BekkasFriends

And she is following some well known trolls.

And of her carpet bombs!  Now, keep in mind the words of her profile:

“There is no good book.  There is no bad book.  All books deserve five stars.”

Uh… hmm… *scratches chin*  Maybe she meant one star:

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