Archive for May, 2014


Gavin Hetherington Apologizes

We wanted to let our readers know that Gavin Hetherington just recently contacted us to thank us for setting the record straight regarding the “Gavin the thief” fiasco.  If you all remember, a blog reader left a link on our blog weeks ago about a Gavin Hetherington in the UK, living very near Gavin the author, who stole money from an old woman.  Suspicious that it might be the same Gavin, we stated on our blog that we would do some digging to find out the truth.  After a bit of research, we discovered that Gavin the author and Gavin the thief were two completely different people.  Apparently, Gavin the author hadn’t seen our post on this when we published it. Gavin also apologized for any wrongs he may have done or any hurt he may have caused anyone.  Because of this, we have removed from public view the two posts we published on him, here and here.  We leave them as a record and will only allow viewing upon special request.  We are, however, leaving up our four part series Once Upon a Time in the Land of BookLikes to show what the bullies did to him.  This story we feel is important for illustrating to our readers how quickly the bullies will take a false claim, utterly destroy an author with it, and then blame other people (like us) when they find out they were mistaken. Gavin gave us permission to post his email to us: GavinsEmail Thank you for contacting us, Gavin, and good luck.

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An addendum

Below is a screenshot of a comment by KarlynP left on Gavin’s recent BL post explaining that he sent us the above email.  We are posting it to show people how easily the bullies lie and end up believing their own lies much like the time they thought Google had blocked us.  Remember that?

KarlynsBullshit

We have one word to describe your comment here, Karlyn: BULLSHIT.  We are calling you on your bullshit.  You need to get your facts straight, sweetheart.  But of course that always seems to be too difficult for you, doesn’t it?  There was no blood on our hands and you know it.  We don’t know who left the link to the article on our blog nor on Shelby’s and we certainly didn’t call Gavin a thief.  Nor did we “make” Shelby accuse him of thievery.  She did that entirely on her own.  What we said was that the two Gavins could be the same person and that we would do some digging to find the truth.  Well, guess what.  We found the truth and we posted it for the sole purpose of clearing Gavin’s name.  Why did we do that?  Because your friend, Shelby, and her minions smeared him throughout the ENTIRE blogosphere.  They were wrong and they owe him an apology.  And we have yet to see that apology given.

Authors, Please Never Do This

Recently, we promised one of our blog readers we would give an example of something an author should never do.  This is it.  Below is a perfectly legitimate review done by a well-known review site and following, is the author’s response to it (we’ve purposefully kept the name of the site and the author anonymous).

Please, authors, don’t ever do this:

Review

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No.  Just no.  If a reviewer, especially a reviewer involved in a blog tour, writes a review that is this professional, don’t ever do what this author did.  This review was not a bully review (i.e. a review that personally attacks the author or is written for revenge).  This review was also not mean-spirited in any way.  The reviewer simply wrote what he/she thought of the book.  That is not bullying.

Edit: Also, in this particular case, the author experienced a huge backlash from this, which we don’t condone either.  Bullying an author for a mistake like this is wrong,  but it does happen.  We’ve seen it happen over and over.  This is why we’re warning our readers and giving them an example of what not to do.

There has been some debate over whether reviews are for readers only or for authors or both.  STGRB has stated our opinion on the matter both here and here.  In general, we agree that reviews are for readers, but there are a few fine points to be considered (see conversation linked above).

We may be doing some more posts on this topic in the future, but in the meantime, we have several posts planned for next week, a few of them, requests by some of our blog readers.

So stay tuned.

We were contacted just recently by an author (we will call Anon) who was bullied last year.   She wanted us to pass along this message to those who bullied her:

CheersToMyHaters

This author also let us know that she will be releasing a new book this year.  To this author, all we have to say is:

That’s the spirit, Anon!  Don’t let the bullies tear you down or stop you!  Keep making great art!

And to all those STGRB haters out there, we say:

Cheers!  Be patient.  So much more is coming.

😀

Before we show you what happened over the weekend, we want to let our readers know that the message we want to convey with this story is:

DO NOT BLOG ON GOODREADS!

If you’re a Goodreads author, DO NOT create a blog on Goodreads or create a blog feed from your own personal website into your Goodreads author profile.

Why?

Keep reading.

Just recently, another Goodreads author became disgusted with some of the hateful reviews that litter the website so thoroughly.  In fact, she became so disgusted, she left her thoughts on some of them, thinking she had every right to speak her mind.

Sigh.

If only she had come to us first.

So… what happened?

Can you guess?

Yes, of course, she was attacked and then her books were attacked with derogatory shelving and carpet bombs:

DerogatoryShelvesAndCarpetBombs1

DerogatoryShelvesAndCarpetBombs2

DerogatoryShelvesAndCarpetBombs3

DerogatoryShelvesAndCarpetBombs4

We’ve also discovered the trolls’ new way of getting around GR’s new anti-bullying policy that forbids author bashing: the dreaded “see-private-notes” shelf:

SeePrivateNotes

So… what did this author do?

She decided to write a Goodreads blog post about her experience:

Post

And of course, as you all would expect, the trolls swarmed in on this, too, puffed up with their condescending, sanctimonious hypocrisy, preaching, “Do as we say, not as we do.”

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Yes, please, by all means, if any of you use Khanh’s name, please don’t get it confused with Khan Noonien Singh, the iconic Star Trek character played so brilliantly by Ricardo Montalban and Benedict Cumberbatch.  Getting her name confused like this is not only an insult to the character, but also to the very fine actors who portray him.

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To add insult to injury, not only did the bullies attack her here, too, they reported the post and got it removed.  Now if you , you get this:

Removed

Now, do you see why we say very loudly and clearly, DO NOT BLOG ON GOODREADS?

This is why.

On STGRB we don’t consider mean-spirited reviews to technically be bully reviews (although we’ve seen some that skirt the edge rather closely).  Our definition of a bully review is one that personally attacks the author and/or is created specifically as a revenge review to hurt the author’s sales.  BUT!  We do believe that authors have the right to state their opinions and critique reviews.  We believe that anything that is published is open for public critique, be it a book, an article, a blog post, a review, etc.  We don’t believe that anyone should be silenced, attacked, or harassed for stating their opinion and we’ve seen several other authors who were attacked for doing just this.  Nathan Bransford for one, who was attacked on his OWN BLOG (and then later attacked on Twitter by Jane Litte) for saying much the same thing that this author did, only he was criticizing reviews left by Stephanie Sinclair and her friends, not Khanh.

Oh, btw, if trolls come to your blog or FB page or other social media to harass you, don’t engage them.  Just record, report, delete, and block.  It’s the best way to deal with them.

Anyhow, this is why we recommend that authors steer clear of blogging on Goodreads.  You are not allowed to speak your mind there and if you do, you will be subject to this kind of harassment as well as the fake one-star ratings, derogatory shelving, and harassment on your other social media.  You will also have your posts removed by GR staff and in cases of repeat “offense” (“offense” meaning the crime of speaking your mind), they will ban you from the website.  On GR, authors are still not allowed to have a voice about these things.  We think GR has come a long way in the fight against bullying and we’ve agreed with several of their recent policies, but this most definitely isn’t one of them.  Goodreads is still silencing authors and that needs to change.

Over the years, STGRB has grown. What was once just an idea sparked by the oppression of others has grown to become a major player in the fight against online bullying. But with this growth comes an addition of new challenges. We now have more active members commenting on our articles than at any time since our operation began. And herein lies one of our new challenges: moderating these comments.

We would like to remind our readers that STGRB does not tolerate discriminatory comments against any individual on the basis of race, religion, country of origin, sexuality, gender, appearance, etc. We also do not tolerate aggressive and/or disrespectful comments directed toward any members or regular readers of our site. However we have recently been finding ourselves deleting comments from repeat violators.

Therefore, we’re implementing a new warning system. Those who leave comments against our guidelines will be given a warning. Repeat offenders will be given a second warning, and on the third warning, your IP will be banned from our blog. We’d like to remind everyone to keep their comments constructive: attack the behavior, not the characteristics of the individual.

Thank you for understanding.

Parogar Makes Peace

We wanted to post a quick update before our next story.  We’ve received a few emails asking us why we removed our posts on Parogar.  The reason is because he made a really good decision and apologized for what he did.  He also apologized to the innocent people who were caught in the crossfire.

First, he apologized to Anne Rice:

ParoApologizesToAnne

Then to Melissa Douthit:

ParoApologizesToMelissa

And finally, he apologized to the person who deserved it the most.  The original author who was bullied on Wattpad.  We were able to confirm all of this with everyone involved.  We’ve also learned through some solid evidence that Parogar was being counseled by some anonymous emailers who were telling him what he needed to do in order to help his friend, Avery, (i.e. threaten people, carpet-bomb, etc.).  It was exactly the WRONG advice and we have a pretty good idea who those anonymous emailers were.  We can’t say that following their advice was a good decision, but he’s given a sincere apology to everyone and moved on.

Good for you, Kevin!

P.S. In closing, we’d like to add that Kevin still denies having carpet-bombed anyone’s books and on this account, we will give him the benefit of the doubt, especially given our new knowledge of the anonymous emails he received.

In our post Guidelines for New Authors, we said:

Guideline #3: Don’t do giveaways on GR.  That attracts trolls.  Trolls like free things and they are usually the harshest and many times the most unfair critics.  For example, take a look at this screenshot where a troll says: “It was free and I’ve heard bad things.  I’m so excited!”  This particular troll was trying to get her friends to do a buddy read so they could trash a book they got for free.

In a recent HuffPo article, Maddie Crum elaborates on the same subject: Title 1 Some of the examples she gives are priceless.  Literary masterpieces trashed by those who shouldn’t be reading them: CatcherInTheRye Emma LordOfTheFIles Othello SunAlsoRises TomSawyer This is why we counsel authors not to do giveaways on GR.  GR is swarming with readers like this (not all of them are like this, but many are).  In this case, we recommend listening to the words of the Apostle Matthew:

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” King James Bible, Matthew 7:6

Anatomy of an Internet Troll

Some comedy relief:

AnatomyOfInternetTroll

Carpet Bomber #14, Hihi

Not surprisingly, we’ve found another sock account on GR created back in September, just like the sock account “Gillian Walsh”, dedicated solely to carpet-bombing books.  We’ve included  in our Carpet Bomber’s Series as #14, and wait until you see how many carpet-bombs she has!  1111!

Profile

Just like Gillian Walsh and Nikki, Hihi hasn’t connected with any friends for nine months, yet consistently carpet-bombs books on GR:

NoFriends

If you take a look at , one-star ratings is all you’ll see:

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As we did with Gillian and Nikki, we are reporting this fake account to GR as well and we invite our readers to do the same.

Troll Roll

A little comedy relief provided by our wonderfully talented blog readers who create these cartoons.  Thanks for the laugh!

TrollRoll

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