Anne Rice talks about her life, her writing, and Prince Lestat in an interview with Q on CBC. If you scroll to the 12:50 position of the interview, you will hear her thoughts on the Amazon bullies.
Well said, Anne!
Note: for all the bullies reading this and watching the video, pay close attention to where she says she ISN’T against honest reviewing. But of course we all know you will willfully ignore this and continue to tell people that she is against negative reviews, which is a complete lie.
We’d like to report that Jenny Trout and her band of miscreants were successful in their attempt to get Fionna Free Man’s book (a fictional story about Thomas Jefferson’s Mistress) pulled from Amazon:
For proof, here’s a comment from Jenny’s blog:
If you go back and read why Jenny started this take-down campaign against this author’s book, you’ll see it was because she was just appalled at the “rape” in it and how “racist” the book was that it demeaned a WoC (woman of color.)
Now, why are we telling you this? Because Jenny completely got it wrong about both the author and the book. Not only is the author a WoC and a black rights activist, her book has NO rape in it! None!
Really, there is so much stupid in this Jenny Trout story, we’re not sure where to begin. I guess we’ll start with Jenny’s tweets on the subject. Here, she asks how she was supposed to know the author was a PoC (Person of Color):
Well, Jenny, if you’d taken the time to do your research on the author and her book, just like our blog reader did, you’d have known. It isn’t rocket science.
Furthermore, in this tweet, Jenny tells someone that she is known for taking down authors whom she judges to be unworthy (and we all know how good her judgement and efforts to inform herself are):
Now, because of all this nonsense, we have idiots like this re-blogging a post that is misinformed and that gets the facts wrong on all levels:
First of all, Jenny was wrong about the author and her book because she didn’t do her research. Secondly, Anne Rice didn’t tell any of her fans to complain to Jenny’s publisher. All our post, Jenny Trout Sabotages Another Author’s Book, Encourages Fans to Pirate it.
So, Anne had nothing to do with Jenny’s publisher deciding to dump her. The problem started when one of the authors on the project was uncomfortable having her story published alongside Jenny’s, which she clearly states on her blog:
Now, at the very end of Idiot’s re-blog, it says:
This is a really hostile environment for WoC …
And we’d have to agree with that, but not on the part of the “racist fuckheads”. It is on the part of Jenny and her band of bullies. Unwittingly, while trying to exercise her self-granted power of author take-downs and punish a “racist” and her book, she did irreparable damage to a WoC and made herself look like a fool in the process.
Good job, Jenny.
We just received this letter from Anne Rice addressing the growing problem of trolling in the Amazon jungle… I… I mean fora. Thanks to Anne’s help, awareness of author bullying by internet trolls is growing. More and more people are starting to understand what it is and why it is harmful. In the letter below, Anne describes the troll problem on Amazon with such clarity and precision, we couldn’t have expressed it better ourselves.
Thank you, Anne, for all you do!
****************************************************************
To STGRB:
From Anne Rice:
As you know I am deeply disturbed with bullying on Amazon and have been studying the problem for some time. And I appreciate the work your site does.
Brief update:
The above links are to a few of the books I’ve been studying on internet bullying. I’ve been having quite a fruitful experience reading about this entire area. And the similarities between bullying on Amazon, and bullying on the net in general, are more remarkable than I expected.
Apparently these patterns occur everywhere. Bullies mark a target —- on Amazon it’s an author — and then they seek to objectify and dehumanize the target by characterizing the target as “defective.” On Amazon, the authors in question are presented as “badly behaving” or “needing a thick skin,” or “needing to grow a pair.” Language is used to infantilize them and denigrate them. There is also considerable talk to reduce the author to a function and one of very little value. “You think too highly of yourself. What you do is just make a product. It’s no better than manual labor.” The idea of course is that the author is less than, common, seen entirely in terms of the function, disposable and even interchangeable. “There’s more where you came from. You’re blacklisted.” —— This target in the view of the bully ceases to be human, is not worthy of common courtesy, honest dealings, or decency. Again, the target is “defective.”
If the target speaks out as to the injustice of this, then comes the backlash “Because you spoke out we will destroy you.” “You should never have spoken out. How dare you?” A new wave of persecution soon follows the speaking out, and bullies warn other “authors” to heed what “can happen” to them if they dare to speak out.
The books I’m reading tend to describe these bullies as motivated not by fun and games as I thought, but essentially by powerlessness.
There is much talk in these books of how these bullies hide behind pseudonyms the world over, and experience almost a new personality behind the pseudonym which is often nothing like their personalities in private life.
That might explain the coarseness here, the rampant vulgarity, the abrasive and and ugly talk that runs all through this thread as it is directed against authors.
The books also talk of remedies, solutions, and obstacles to solutions.
It’s very interesting reading.
This thread is a goldmine I think for anyone research internet bullying.
STGRB responsibly shames these bullies. It draws attention to their patterns of behavior. It documents their conduct which violates our social and ethical norms. Of course it’s going to make the bullies furious. They strive for power over their targets and their victims. They are necessarily outraged that a website would take them to task. Again, it’s about power. They maintain the illusion that they have the power. STGRB shows them that they do not necessarily have the power that they believe they have.
Anyone coming here to this thread on Amazon ——
can read the list of Amazon bullies (on STGRB), and just study the posts here. The bullies “out themselves.” The thread is a resource to be read along with the list of “Amazon Fora Trolls” on STGRB.
Thanks,
Anne Rice.
For those of you who know Anne Rice, she’s been a beacon of hope and a heroine in the fight against online bullying, in particular, the online bullying of authors. Just recently she posted a of her intention to publish a pamphlet describing her experience with the online bullies she encountered while posting in the Amazon fora. Of course, we all know who these bullies are. We’ve been warning people about them for three years now. What’s great about this pamphlet is that it will continue to spread the word about the dangers of certain online hangouts for authors. After all, to protect them, education (and thus prevention) is the key. Below is a screenshot of her post.
We encourage all authors, Amazon customers, or anyone else who has been bullied online to share your stories with her. You can contact her through her or email .
Thank you, Anne, for giving authors this opportunity!
Professional jealousy is a topic that has been brought up several times on our blog in reference to some of the bullies. These are the bullies in our lists who are not just readers, but also authors who seek out other authors to harass, threaten, bully, and otherwise destroy their careers. Namely, these are authors like LH, AH, AS, etc. They are the ones who’ve bullied other, more successful authors like Jamie McGuire, Jessica Park, Amanda Hocking, EL James, Anne Rice, etc. More than once, our blog readers have made the comment that professional jealousy plays a HUGE role in this bullying and we at STGRB have to agree. However, we’ve never shown you actual proof of this fact until today.
Now, ever since Jenny Trout was banned from Anne Rice’s blog a few weeks ago, we’ve been keeping a close eye on her blog. If you all don’t remember that wonderful episode, we covered it in Anne Rice Bans the Bullies. Basically, Anne left a link on her Facebook page to our blog post covering Carpet Bomber #9, Nenia Campbell. Upon hearing of this, Jenny Trout, along with several other of her bully friends, hopped on over to Anne’s Facebook page, harassed her, and tried to get her to believe lies about about our website in order to discourage her from supporting us. Anne, being the intelligent woman that she is, saw through their nonsense and did what all victims should do when they are under a bully attack. She deleted their comments and banned them all from her page, including Jenny.
Now, in Jenny’s recent blog rant on author Anna Todd and Anna’s immensely successful book, After, Jenny Trout not only harshly criticizes Anna’s book (or more appropriately, her manuscript) for very minor, very fixable problems, she insults Anna personally, coming very close to calling her a plagiarist. Then, Jenny admits to being jealous and tells her readers why.
Hmm… okay. Here’s a secret that one of our oldest and wisest blog readers shared with us: you don’t have to write like Shakespeare to tell a compelling story. Because that’s what readers care about. THE STORY. It doesn’t really matter if there are a few punctuation or grammatical errors in the manuscript, readers want a good story. And there are authors out there who tell compelling stories and their voices resonate with large audiences. No one really knows how or why. It just happens like that sometimes.
In Anna’s case, she wrote a compelling story she loved and she shared it with her friends on Wattpad. It resonated with A LOT of people. She did it ON HER OWN and built HER OWN author platform. That’s the kind of thing publishers like to see and capitalize on and they do. Does it matter that Anna’s story was similar to another that we know? No. There’s a phrase that comes to mind — there’s nothing new under the sun. Ideas and story elements get recycled. It happens. Sometimes when it does, the story catches on and acquires a large readership. And this is what happened with Anna’s book.
It also helps that Anna Todd is a really cool person. She has a lot of online friends and followers. She’s not a bully or a condescending grandmother type who pats people on the head and murmurs, “Oh, my sweet, summer child.” She doesn’t write jealous, disgruntled blog posts bitching about other people’s success. And we’re pretty sure she’s never been banned from Anne Rice’s Facebook page, or anyone’s Facebook page for that matter.
So, Jenny, here’s our advice: GET OVER IT. STOP comparing yourself to other people and their career success. Down that path lies madness. If you go down that road, the ugly green monster of envy will consume you. START focusing on yourself, your writing, and your career successes no matter how small they are. Whether it’s an email from a favorite fan or the sale of a new book, any success you have should be celebrated. Because really, it doesn’t matter how successful you end up being, there will always be someone who is more successful than you and who’s chosen a path to success that you, in all your wisdom *rolls eyes*, don’t approve of.
So, what are you going to do? Constantly bitch and moan about other people’s success and sit in your corner of the room with your arms crossed and a scowl on your face? OR are you going to be an adult and choose to be happy with yourself and your life and your own success regardless of others who are doing better than you?
It’s your life, your happiness, and your decision.
Make it a good one.
************************************************************************************
P.S. If you think Jenny’s post was bad, the comments on her post are even worse. The professional jealousy in all of them is VERY apparent:
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: 
Some of the examples she gives are priceless. Literary masterpieces trashed by those who shouldn’t be reading them: 
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
Last week, Anne Rice did something awesome! She did what authors, readers, bloggers, etc. should all be doing. She banned the bullies from her FB page and deleted their comments. Why? Because they did what they do best — tried to bully her into removing and using our Nenia Campbell blog as an example:
Once the bullies caught wind of her post, they descended upon her like a pack of wolves in sheep’s clothing pretending to be innocent and/or disinterested third parties. As expected, they started in with their propaganda and lies, attempting to discourage her from speaking out and from using our post to do it. They also began leaving Anne links to all their blog posts written two years ago, condemning us for publishing public information on our website.
The list of bullies banned from Anne’s page include: Autumn Turner, Jenny Trout, Cyndy Aleo, Kara Malinczak, Elyse Schramm, Flora Bellini, KarlynP and Amanda Welling. They were banned for being disruptive and disingenuous as well as telling lies. We know you’ve all seen their nonsense before, but we’ll still give you a few examples of what we mean. Just for kicks.
You all remember Autumn Turner, right? Well, check out what she had to say to Anne regarding her post. Notice the implied threat at the beginning, “I won’t support your books if you support them”:
Then, Athena jumped in to set the record straight and let Anne know about Autumn’s many internet identities and why she was labeled a bully on our blog:
And those identities are:
Athena is right. Autumn was also lying about our hosting company. We left because we found their rules to be a little too strict. And, we left on good terms:
Now, how did Anne respond to Autumn’s lies? Well…
See how Autumn calls us morons? Nice, huh? That’s right, Autumn, whenever you lose an argument, you should always resort to ad hominem attacks. It works so well. It doesn’t make you look childish at all.
So, after this, guess what happened!
*drumroll*
That’s right!
Autumn got banned!
😀
Our second example was posted by Nettie Neal Bell who tried to defend Edward Lorn by saying that we wrongly labeled him a bully. You all remember Troll Edward from Once Upon A Time in the Land of BookLikes, right? Well, fortunately Athena stepped in to disabuse everyone of Nettie’s silly notion:
Finally, our last example is Jenny Trout and the load of lies she tried to feed Anne about how we put people in danger and published their private information, and how we don’t care about authors, how we shot babies and beat up the elderly, and yada yada yada, whatever lie she and her friends could think of to vilify us. Oh and btw, the “well respected website” she refers to here is Jane Litte’s Dear Author. *snort* Guess she forgot to mention Jane’s attack on Nathan Bransford after he spoke out against the bullying on Goodreads (Nathan, too, had mentioned our blog and was attacked for it). She also forgot to mention how Jane defended the violent reviewers who physically threatened Veronica Roth.
Oh, btw, we’ve never used content from Dear Author, so that’s another lie. In fact, that’s a new one. Haven’t seen that one before.
Anyway, this is what Anne had to say to Jenny:
And then guess what happened!
*drumroll*
That’s right!
Jenny got banned!
😀
So, in the end, how did Anne respond to all of this nonsense? Well…
We should also mention that the majority of the comments on Anne’s post were overwhelmingly positive toward her message about the bullies and about STGRB, including this one:
Guess what, bullies! Anne and her followers aren’t stupid. They can see right through your bullshit and they know what you’re up to. Unfortunately for you, your tactics are transparent and haven’t fooled anyone.
Now, how did the bullies react to getting banned? Well… here was Jenny’s very mature reaction:
The “Smart Bitches” whose self-description is only half right (and we’re not referring to the “smart” half), had this to say:
Uh… no, Sarah the Smart Bitch. She doesn’t have a narrow view of book reviewing. She just has an honest and honorable view of it, unlike you and the cretins you hang out with online. She also knew Jenny’s “information” was a load of horse manure.
Now… Sarah the Smart Bitch, if you’re going to write a blog post, you should really publish the facts. The facts are that we published public information on our blog. We never published private information or addresses or phone numbers or anything of that nature, unlike some of your bully friends who’ve done that to several authors we know and who have also physically called and threatened them. The fact is that we only published real names if they had previously been made public and publishing someone’s real name is not PII, nor is it illegal. Publishing their real name in conjunction with their address, phone number, IP address, etc. is PII. Yet you bullies seem to be missing this fact. You seem to be having a problem getting your facts straight in general, don’t you? And here we thought you were “smart bitches”. Hmm…
Apparently not.
Furthermore, Sarah the Smart Bitch, we here at STGRB have a feeling that Anne doesn’t give a flying #$%! about what you or Jenny Trout or any of your bully friends have to say about her. Anne Rice is a superstar. And you? Well… you’re not. Anne has millions of readers and millions of followers who understand perfectly well the message she is trying to convey. Why? Because they’ve seen your lies and your drama and your bullying and they’ve had enough. We’ve all had quite enough.
Anne is absolutely right. You need to get out of the business of bullying and leave authors and other readers alone!
****************************************************************************
P.S. Hey, bullies! Since you seem to like this cartoon so much, we’ll show it to you again as a reminder of what will keep happening to you when you act like jerks online:
Believe it or not, Anna Karenina, Gangster Bully Leprechaun (as she now calls herself), believed at one point in time (May of 2012) that she and Anne Rice would be BFF. Check out this screenshot of Anna directing Anne to the Meet Our Authors forum on Amazon, which eventually led to the now famous discussion Anne had with the Amazon Fora Trolls we featured in Anne Rice Owns the Bullies:
We hope you notice the irony of the picture. Below is part of the MOA conversation Anne had with Anna a few months ago. It was only after this convo that Anna changed her Amazon profile name to Anna Karenina, Gangster Bully Leprechaun since Gangster Bully was the name Anne used to describe a group of *cough cough* certain people she met in the forum, Anna K. being one of them.
So, it was Anna’s “total lack of sensitivity and understanding” that led her to have no cred with Anne. And that makes perfect sense given that Anna, despite all the evidence to the contrary, still doesn’t see herself as a bully and that she once believed she and Anne could actually be friends. We could have told her that would never happen. In fact, most people saw Anna K.’s meltdown coming from a mile away.
Sigh. The bullies will never learn.
In any case, we want to end this post on a positive note. has now reached 6,521 signatures!
Good job, everyone!
*************************************************************
An Addendum
We thought to Anna K.’s ridiculous “” was rather interesting:
Well said, Chuck.
Fox News report on Todd Barselow’s petition.
And now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine…
Call of the Wild
Comment and review sections online are often rough and uncivil places.
Now some people are calling for an important change unmasking the anonymous contributors.
A petition on Change.org is calling for Amazon to make people attach their names to comments and reviews.
The cause is gathering support, with nearly 5,000 signatures, including New York Times best-selling author Anne Rice, who took to Facebook to call out the anti-author gangster bullies.
A recent study at the University of Houston supports the link between anonymity and hateful language online.
The research looked at thousands of comments on news sites and found that anonymous commenters were almost twice as likely to use vulgar language.
We applaud Anne for bringing so much attention to this issue. Thank you, Anne!
As we said in our previous post, we are very late in posting this. For those who haven’t heard about the Guardian’s article that talks about Anne Rice signing , which now has well over 4,000 signatures:
Here it is:
We’ve heard about this kind of thing before, in particular the threats. Case in point: Lauren P. We also mentioned it in our post on Charlotte Dawson and we covered the abusive reviews and threats that were directed toward Veronica Roth in Jane Litte Defends Violent Reviewers. Sadly, the online abuse that Anne is talking about has been allowed to continue for too long. Fortunately, some of the commenters on the article agree:
But it didn’t take long for the trolls to migrate over and begin slamming Anne and everyone else who agrees with her. As you will see in their comments, they’re still trying to pretend that the issue of author abuse is all about reviews:
The Debbie to which Heather is referring is Debbie S. of BookLikes who seems to think that threatening an author in a review shouldn’t be considered bullying:
And here are a few more of them voicing their very self-important opinions:
The troll mentioned above is . who was a member of Angela H.’s Asshat group before AH was banned from Goodreads for abusing others. Pathetically, Rick has started his own Change.org petition which calls upon Bezos to protect members’ anonymity. We agree with Heather that it’s very telling these people want to protect their anonymity:
The fact that they want to hide their real names says a lot about their intentions. If they can’t say something about authors while using their real names, then maybe they shouldn’t say it? Or maybe they’re people who choose to create fake accounts just to troll authors they don’t like. This happens quite often.
To end this post, we’ll give you a perfect example of this. It’s why Todd Barselow and Anne Rice are right and that Amazon will do well to remove the anonymity of its members. Here is a perfect example of a review created by a sock. You will notice Mahala (another well known Amazon and GR troll) harassing a commenter who points out that the reviewer is a sock. Then Mahala accuses the commenter of being the author:
This is the kind of crap that needs to stop.
All material on STGRB is the intellectual property of the owners of this site and is protected by DMCA. Any copying, quoting, or sharing of this material without our consent, beyond the terms of fair use, will be subject to DMCA takedown.
