Well, well, well. Wouldn’t you just know it. The Godmother of the bullies, well-known for being much too free with her tongue and libeling authors and publishers alike on her blog, in fact libeling them to the point of pushing them into lawsuits against her, Jane Litte, or in real life known as Jennifer Gerrish-Lampe:
has yet another pen name, as she reveals in her latest DA post, A Letter to the DA Readership:
We know that many of you, as you read the words above, will hear, “Bullshit, bullshit,” going through your mind and you are exactly right to think it. Jane’s explanation is in a word, hogwash. First, the reason she is revealing this information is because Jaid Black, whom Jane doxxed on her blog:
was going to go public with this information anyway, so Jane had to have the first jump and give everyone a bullshit explanation for her despicable actions. Second, Jane wrote under a pen name for one obvious reason, because she feared retaliation from enemies: enemies she’s made from libeling people and enemies she made during #RomFail (See Why Jane Little Was Banned From RWA, in fact, just read our whole collection on Jane here. You can read about how she defended violent readers and then attacked Nathan Bransford on Twitter and a lot more!) Finally, Jane has been using her blog to deceitfully promote her own work WITHOUT telling readers that she was the author or one of the authors. Notice where she says:
I wanted any success I had with the fiction to be built on the merits of the work, not on the blogging platform. I had a couple of awkward moments where I had to keep one of my books from being reviewed on Dear Author, but somehow I managed to keep them completely separate.
This is a blatant lie and it’s easily provable. For example, here, on a blog post written by her, she promotes her book, Unspoken:
And here, her blog is promoting her book, Last Hit:
And again, here, her blog is promoting another one of her books, The Charlotte Chronicles:
We’d say we’re surprised, but for someone like Jane, we’re really not. She’s vicious and capable of resorting to anything to put forward her own interests.
Okay, so, for all the bullies out there who are celebrating Jane’s big reveal, you are probably unaware of the implications of it. Please, read on. We’ll enlighten you. In fact, one of our blog readers will enlighten you. In recent emails, this blog reader said:
I find this shocking and not surprising. I wonder how many of the Amazon Bullies are in fact authors… who basically use their bully persona to pile on other authors. There we have malicious gossips essentially hiding the fact that they are authors as they pile on other authors from behind their pseudonyms, pretending to be “readers” protecting “readers” from authors. Can you imagine if a major author took a job reviewing books and lecturing authors for the New York Times under a pseudonym? And suddenly you discovered that Columnist X who reviewed books all the time snidely and nastily was in fact a major author hiding behind that pseudonym? When professional book reviewers write books, the books are non fiction generally and are under their real names, the names they use as “critics.” But imagine discovering that a major author was behind constant criticism of authors… The point is…. this is major. A major bully entity who is in fact an author! And the question is how many others are authors? I think STGRB has already outed some on Goodreads. But I hope the significance is played up. These bullies have, in my estimation, put themselves forward as “readers” and “non professionals” and bragged that “authors are paid but we’re not!” as they justify their malice and pettiness and dirty tricks and constant high toned attacks. And now we find out they are actually authors selling a competing product!!!! Authors pretending to be high toned amateur critics trying to protect the public from authors’ bad behavior. How bad can some one’s behavior get? It makes the entire bully bible a lie —- the entire “argument” that this is a war of readers against authors. It calls into question everything. It should be enough to discredit the bully culture and the bully cliques forever. So now we see what is really happening: a clique of lying, cheating authors has been behind this war against honest authors all along. Now we see the desperation to maintain pseudonyms on Amazon! They can’t keep peddling their lies without those pseudonyms! I say it’s time to ask outright: which of you is an author!!! Come clean now!! Enough of the lies and the dirty tricks.
AND NOW WE KNOW this is all a lie. They were authors all along, many of them. Willing to malign “authors” as they hide behind pseudonyms. That this woman would continue with her blog, given that she is an author and a successful one and promote her own work… makes her despicable. After all it is “promotion” by authors that so angers this “reader bully” population. And she has done it for her own book!!!! I think the question has to be asked now of everyone of these people: What is your real name and are you an author?
I think these people must be exposed for what they’ve done:
1) Essentially try to convince the public that they are vigilant readers, generous with their time and love of books, who are trying to save other readers from “badly behaved authors.”
2)Try to convince the public that authors are irresponsible and childish and need to be policed by “readers.”
3) That there is war on between these “readers” and bad authors.
The headline here is “The bullies have been lying for years. They are actually authors punching down from behind pseudonyms against fellow authors! The whole idea of the vigilant reader asserting her rights is a sham!”
So all the foolishness about “big bad authors” who might hurt reviewers is a lie. They’re authors!!!!!! All the foolishness about reviewers needing pseudonyms to protect them from authors is a lie. They’re authors! In ruthlessly policing what they call “badly behaved authors,” accusing them of fake five star reviews and self promotion, they have lied, lied, lied, about the fact that they themselves are authors! And this Jane person has actually discussed her own work! The entire bully credo is a lie!
Thank you for your words. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
« The Angry Author Amazon Bully Torments Person with Special Needs »
I’ve said all this for ages — these same bullies have been with us since my fan fiction days. They use the same tactics — insults, shaming, one-star blanket attacks, sock puppet trolling, etc. They honestly think they can prop up their work by destroying others. They REALLY think if they mint hundreds of sock puppets that everyone will be convinced and magically see their garbage as gold. They don’t know WHY people like what they like, which is the same reason these poor idiots can’t write worth a damn. They write for ego, not out of love.
I notice that she’s got books that are coming out later this year that already have hundreds of reviews on Amazon. Nothing wrong with that (snark.)
Another thing I noticed is that she’s been positiviely reviewed by an AMazon and Goodreads reviewer named B.E. Love. This B.E. Love also really, really loves Angela Horn’s Bijou Hunter books, to the point that she acts as an unpaid (I presume) publicist for them. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about: always the first to review, she also posts their release date and their free days on Amazon threads, and if someone asks a question about them it’s always B.E. Love who answers. Does anybody know anything about her?
I get the impression that all these authors who like to play dumb, saying things like “oh, gee, I just wrote this for NaNOWrimo and then suddenly it did really well and Judith Krantz’s son wants to make a movie of little ole me’s book!” actually have quite a street team operating behind the scenes. They’re just way better at hiding it than the average SPA, who gets their friends and family to do it and ends up looking really clumsy and transparent.
Amen! I’ve said it before most of the bullying against authors is being done by other authors. It’s sad really.
Listen to this podcast! If you go to around 20 min, you can hear Jane and Jessica talking about “Jen Frederick”.
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast/79-an-interview-with-jill-myles-jessica-sims-and-jessica-clare-part-2
No wonder she has so much bitterness toward Jamie McGuire. Jamie outsold her with only one book and she didn’t even need to be the owner of a review blog to do it.
Jealousy, jealousy!
Jane is a strange person, cold and conniving. Truth. She has always been jealous of Jamie, for good reason. Rock on Jamie. Jane/Jen could only dream to write as well as Jamie.
Is Jane Litte and Wendy Darling a different person? I sometimes get all these bullies confused.
Glad to know one of the bullies is being sewed for libel. I wonder if it’s people like her that defend readers rights to one star books and not leave reviews.
Wasn’t Ellora’s Cave also libeled by Absolute Writers Water Cooler?
I’m beginning to confuse these review bullies with people on the water cooler.
They’re two different people but Wendy is the other Godmother of the bullies. She’s a sweet little snake, that one. Her words sound like honey, but the poison is there underneath all the fake sugar.
At least it’s not just me that noticed it’s odd she’s friends with a lot of them.
Hmmm. I’m a reader and if I pay for your book and want to leave a one star without review it’s my right. I’m not a beta reader for the author or there to edit or critique. If it got a one star from me then I probably feel I have wasted enough time on just reading the thing and 1 star is my warning to others to beware. Does that mean i’m a bully by this website’s standards? I can live with it.
No, an honest one-star review is not bullying. Using one-star reviews as weapons to either “punish” or retaliate for something, or bashing the author in a review, that’s different. That is bullying.
Might want consider rereading the post Judy, thats not what they’re saying at all. They specified many times honest one star reviews are OK.
Its the author address doxing I’ve seen thats the problem.
Yes, sure but who gets to judge if the review is honest or not. You? The Author? the book site? Is it automatically considered to be a bully if it’s some blogger? Does that mean that those undeserved 5 star ratings (ALL over Amazon) don’t get their own “Cheese” category? Hey!, Lets start a website for that! This Author versus blogger is a turn off for readers. The vitriol on these websites between the two is getting out of hand and making both parties look horrible to me (the average reader who BUYS lots of books). I wonder whats on TV tonight? Wonder why book sales are down?
If you watch the bullies at work as much as we have, when you see a book page on Amazon or Goodreads that’s been attacked, it’s pretty obvious that these people have used one-stars as weapons. If you go through our blog posts and educate yourself, you will understand exactly what we mean, but it seems as though you would rather stay willfully ignorant on this subject. As for both parties looking horrible to the average reader, we’d definitely have to disagree with that. We know plenty of average readers and they see what the bullies do and are appalled. We, ourselves, are average readers and can easily see what is so hard for you to understand. And you, my dear, do not seem to be an average reader to us, judging by your words and attitude.
Did one of the trolls slip past your nets, JBG?
Maybe. It looks like it. She posted more comments than just this. They didn’t make it to publication as they violated our guidelines. So, to answer your question, yes, I think she is one of them.
Sounds like Judy’s been indoctrinated into believing the bully lies that it’s all about reviews. Most authors are hard-working honest people who would rather not have to deal with this ridiculously childish behavior. Just spend half an hour reading through this site. These are people who gang up en masse to punish authors via reviews, ratings, nasty comments, blog posts, etc. Guess what? Many of these authors have never said one bad word to a reviewer. They may simply be friends with one of the people on their shit list. They may make an innocent comment on a forum post or ask a question there. To just assume it’s all about angry authors retaliating against reviews is both ignorant and misleading. There is a reason STGRB is here, and it’s not because of reviews.
Holy bat poo!!
I had no idea she was promoting the books ON her own blog!!
Still speechless.
What bothers us about it is that she was doing it deceitfully. Pretending to promote someone else’s book. It’s unethical, to say the least.
The alleged implications of corruption with this, and more, is starting to reach what I think deserves a full legal investigation by the DOJ.
What about us idiots that gave money for her defense fund? I regret falling for her lies but I’m also livid Sara Wendell didn’t disclose all Jane’s sources of revenue.
And the most disgusting part of that is that Litte has been slamming crowdfunding campaigns since kickstarter started. She is the first to call someone out. She’s the first to point the finger. And Sarah Wendell lost credibility with me when I found out she’s involved with a PR firm that reps some of the biggest names in romance. It’s all public record. And it’s all out there on the Internet.
There is something about her joining writers groups online. I have no idea what that is because I am not an author, but I assume she joined as Jen Frederick, all the while being Jane Litte from Dear Author. Not cool and creepy too. Not sure this is true, but there is speculation.
This looks posted awhile ago so you probably know by now it is true. Can anybody answer me another question. One of my online gal pals told me she heard Jane had put Jaid Black’s real address online back when Jaid’s daughter was 10 years old. Is that true? That’s the most repulsive thing I’ve heard yet.
I’ll need to be vague, but her bullying doesn’t seem to be limited to authors.
Authors victimized by these people have irreparable reputation damage for things they may or may not have actually said, because of their tendency to present people as the opposite of how they really are. I’m tired of it, tired tired tired of it.
I still have to do good PR just to justify my own existence.
Rewording: Bullying doesn’t seem to be limited to authors bashing published authors.
You’re right. She bullies anyone who gets in her way.
She makes me sick. Acting like she’s a god or something to do whatever she wants.
Anya thank you for that link! I can’t believe Jane and Sara Wendell had the nerve to sit there and talk about Jen Frederick like she wasn’t one of them. Holy dear Lord!!!!! How sick and calculating is that. Obviously Sara knew dear Jane was making a lot of money before she started the legal defense fund but did not disclose it to the many struggling people that donated to it. They are worse than televangelists!
OMG….they really are!
Another implication is that Jane could get sued for it — asking for money and not disclosing all her sources of income.
Oh no, she’s an angel. She’s a book reviewer, therefore she’s above all reproach. *rolleyes* It really is tiresome, isn’t it?
This is worse than those guys on twitter that tweet gif after gif of advertisement–which I find unethical in and of itself.
Almost seems right out of a cartoon.
I wouldn’t donate a dime for a cup of water for her if she were emanated in flames. Let her burn! She should take her own medicine. She brought it on herself. Donating money to save a person like that is ridiculous and a total waste of money. They raised $50,000 for the worthless worm and she’s not worth 50 cents. Neither are her books for that matter.
Since STGRB follows The Passive Voice, did you see that it’s been outed that her husband owns the publishing company that publishes some of her books? So this isn’t blogger vs. publisher. It’s publisher vs. publisher and her hypocrisy keeps getting bigger.
Yes, we will be getting to that tonight.
I’m no legal expert, but isn’t that type of relationship a conflict of interest? Then again, we live in a world where people marry their editors.
(Which seems less bad than having a husband whose the publisher.)
Also if that’s the same passive voice I’m thinking of, that place is awesome. It proves you really don’t need writing boards, except to find writers groups. I don’t agree with everything posted there, but the grammar resource is fantastic.
I’m not really a fan of stop the good reads bullies. I’m a reader and I like Jenny Trout (until recently anyway), so ya know ….
I’ve been a fan of Jane’s for ages.
But this? I do feel betrayed.
How many pseudonyms can one woman have and how does she keep track of all of her ‘lives’ it’s quite bizarre.
I feel that it should have been disclosed from the beginning. But at the very least, it should have been disclosed when she and others started soliciting donations for her legal fund in the EC case. It should have been disclosed she is a bestselling author with a movie deal before she asked people for their hard earned money.
If there had been disclosure on DA from when she first published, then that’s fine, but she DID advantage from her industry contacts (Sarah Wendell, her own reviewers etc. MANY others), author friends (jessica claire etc.) and her knowledge amassed under the name Jane Litte. Disclosure would have meant people knew they were dealing with a book by Jane Litte from the beginning and they could have bought/supported as they saw fit.
Nothing illegal, nothing all that bad, but morally sketchy. And enough so that as a long term reader I feel betrayed. Jane has lost me.
What’s with everyone on the interwebz calling Jane a ‘bestselling’ author? Bestselling my azz! She doesn’t have a single book that’s ranked better than 24,000, except one she co-wrote with Jessica Clare which is at around 18,000. Heck, there are books by some of my favorite biker romance authors that have been out for years and that are still ranked higher than that! And I shouldn’t be surprised, Jane cranked out something like 10 books in under 2 years. At that rate, it would be surprising if they were any good. And also, all this about her having a movie deal. Putting aside the fact that Tony Krantz must have been drunk when he signed her, I think he just optioned her book, which is not quite the same as having a movie deal. I think all this twaddle about her being a bestselling author with a movie deal is a meme her shills are pounding into us in the hopes that it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or at the least to save her pride. Don’t let them!
Many of those whack jobs like Litte, Trout and the ever-disgusting Anna Karenina have blogs where they boast about their books then go on amazon and goodreads to use fake names and bash every other author on the planet. Jerks! Now they’re jumping up and down in protest when they are exposed for their psychotic behavior. They are like a dying breed of pesky insects, I suppose. They are fighting to stay alive when facing extinction due to the demand for stricter guidelines. Amazon needs to stop cowering off over in the corner and man-up to those demented psychos. They are not helping sell books, they are destroying a legitimate author’s ability to make a living, as well as destroying amazon’s ability to makes sales.
Speaking of which, somebody seems to be sharing details of my private conversations with my friends. I have no idea who it is, but I will take appropricivil action for reading my dms without consent.
Private messages are for private conversations. This has only happened since calling out current reviewers on their falsehoods.
Avoid Twitter or keep a private profile.d
The people defending Jane, Jen, and Sarah W. amaze me the more I read comments at the blog post over at Smart Bitches that Sarah W. posted. These poor misguided souls can’t see that Jane, Jen, and Sarah W. have been colluding behind everyone’s back all this time? Do they have to go out and rob a bank at gunpoint for these people to grasp the corruption? This is starting to look more like an organized crime family in romance land. I’m not even remotely joking about this. It’s a very serious issue.
I’m actually beginning to pity those people. How desperate can you get? Have some pride. Jeesh.
If there is a bright spot in all this with Jane/Jen, it’s the fact that Jane Litte will never
again be able to point and wag her finger at anyone else, for anything. What she did
is about as notorious as it gets for a “badly behaving author.”
And, what happened with Jane/Jen has silenced bullies I never thought
would go silent. Normally, Sunita over at her “Vacuous Minx” blog would
have been all over this if it had been anyone but Jane/Jen.
So there might be something positive in this after all. It’s ironic that the biggest
bully silenced the other bullies and never even realized she was doing it.
I’m Sarah [redacted by admin], and I don’t approve of anything Jane Wendy, or Trout does. I shouldnt even have to specify that.
I doubt they will stay silent for long because their popularity is too dependent on Jane and Sara getting back into positions of power. I still feel the maddest about that damned money I donated. I see a lot of comments where people are saying that the two issues are separate but that’s a line I will not bite. Jane is a liar and birds of a feather flock together.
Yea lets misrepresent me.
I’m a defender of STGRB.
I think there was confusion somewhere. I don’t think they were referring to you, Sarah.
I wasn’t referring to her (Sarah). I thought everyone knew who Sarah W. was from SBTB.
My misunderstanding. Sorry.
I may need to consider a name change to something else then.
Your name is fine as is. Sarah Wendell already has enough power. She doesn’t need an ounce more
If I were affiliated with Jane and them, I wouldnt be calling out Jenny Trout.
The may have you confused with another Sarah or is misunderstanding something. Everyone should click on links, read, and analyze before jumping to conclusions on anything.
In other news, on Twitter the typical fare are trying to compare calling out Jane Litte and not Kathleen Hale as sexism.
Uhm, no. That’s not what sexism means at all. Sexism means discrimination toward women over men. Kathleen Hale is a woman.