Y’all remember what we said in our Guidelines for New Authors? Trolls like free things. In particular, trolls like free books just so they can hate on them. Or even worse, they write nasty reviews on (potentially free) books by authors they believe to be badly behaving.
Case in point:
If any of you see this kind of thing, please report it. Trolls shouldn’t be allowed to steal a book just to post a nasty review because the author is on their hit list. This should never be allowed to happen.
seen this many times. or they don’t buy the book but say they did in the review, as if no one can see what’s really going on there. it’s sick. these people’s accounts need to be blocked from reviewing.
I’m pretty sure this has happened to me already. I guess since writers learned to stay away from freebies, the psychopaths had to figure another way.
My name made it onto a BBA shelf a few years ago. Thought my career was over for a second.
But that “black mark on my reputation” didn’t stop me from hitting the NYT bestseller list. In fact I’ve received many emails, “I found you on so-and-so’s BBA list. Badly behaving sounds like an author I wanna read!”
Anyway, GR bullies, in case you’re reading — thank you for the sales!
I’ve seen this before, too. The dearauthor crowd used to do this a lot but I think they’ve cut back. Jane Litte would scope for a freebie she knew she wouldn’t like, roast it over hot coals, and the same old bully crowd would jump onto the comment thread tearing authors, publishers, and other readers down to nothing.