Category: BookLIkes Bully


You all remember our post The Many Faces of Anna Karenina, right?  Well now, we have one more face to show you.  She is also Sock Puppet at Play on BookLikes.

You may find these two posts by SPAP on BL and very interesting.

SPAP1

SPAP2

SPAP3

AK1

AK2

Is it a coincidence that these two posts are talking about the exact same thing and using the exact same wording?  We think not.

So, beware next time you’re on BL.  Sock Puppet at Play is AK.

Poor, poor Linda.  She’s really been going through a rough time lately, hasn’t she?  Not only was she kicked out of Goodreads for her bullying behavior, she just recently had carpet-bombed to oblivion:

LindasRatings

If you want to see firsthand the damage, just take a look at :

StarlightSeduction

CarpetBombs1

CarpetBombs2

Now, we don’t know who did this, but we do know exactly why they did it:

OneStarPunishment

The carpet-bombers apparently took offense at this and showed her exactly what it’s like to be “punished”.

Ironic, isn’t it?

As for Linda, all we have to say is:

Careful what you wish for!

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:

AnnesPost

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”:

AutumnRealID

AutumnRealID1

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:

AutumnRealID2

And those identities are:

Misanthrope on Google Blogger

Dragon Wolf on Pinterest

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:

Cancellation

Now, how did Anne respond to Autumn’s lies?  Well…

AnneToAutumn

AnneToAutumn2

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:

EdwardLorn

EdwardLorn2

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.

JennyLies

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:

AnneToJenny

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…

AnneOnSTGRB

AnneOnBullies

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:

GreatSite

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:

JennyTrout

The “Smart Bitches” whose self-description is only half right (and we’re not referring to the “smart” half), had this to say:

SBSarah

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:

ToTheDoor

If you had any doubts as to the bullies’ obsession with Kara and the Goodreads anti-bullying policy announced last September, you can all lay those doubts to rest now.  Eight months later — yes EIGHT months — they are still .  One of them went so far as to track Kara down online and stalk her LinkedIn page to find out how long she worked at Goodreads, when she left, and where she worked after that.  Oh yeah, and to find out her age, too.

RandolphBlog

Isn’t it funny how Randolph calls it the “censorship debacle”?

Okay, bullies, we’re going to give you a couple reminders here.  One, the policy change was put in place to enforce guidelines and “set the tone” of the site:

Censorship

And if you don’t like the new rules, you can either leave, or you will eventually get banned for your behavior.  Remember this cartoon?

ToTheDoor

Nuff said.

Well, well.  It appears as though the bullies are growing tired of being called out for their behavior.  What is interesting, though, is how they describe their feelings on the issue.  We were just recently tipped off to this post written by Barks & Bites on BookLikes:

Header

In today’s post, we’re not going to talk about why their bullying-fatigue is a good thing.  We all know why it is.  What we are going to talk about is the keen insight into the bully mentality the article provides — the erroneous assumptions the bullies make and the myths that they create with their propaganda.  We’ll start by dissecting the text bit by bit.

 

“I think I have reached my limit. I am tired of the hypocritical thin skinned authors and their hysterics. I am tired of their ridiculous and uninformed kiss ass supporters. I am tired of reading shitty books. I am tired of it all and I don’t see any of this going away any time soon.”

Erroneous assumption #1:  All authors are hypocritical and thin-skinned who write shitty books and who fly into hysterics at the slightest criticism.

Our response:  Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

“New authors and ancient authors alike refuse to accept that their writing is a PRODUCT the moment they charge me for it. It’s not an effing baby.”

Erroneous assumption #2:  All authors view their books as babies and all the bully attacks on these authors are the result of these authors complaining about legitimate book reviews criticizing their babies.

Our response:  This assumption is one that the bullies continue to make and promote over and over  In fact, 99.9% of the attacks that we’ve seen have had nothing to do with reviews (i.e. legit critical reviews).  As one of our blog readers commented here:

All together now, and once more: THIS IS NOT ENTIRELY ABOUT THE REVIEWS. And you seem to be trying to make this all about self-published authors.

Anne Rice is not self-published. I’m sure many of the authors on the Horror Writers Assoc. Facebook page who support this petition are not-self published. But it’s easier to think of things in black-and-white, isn’t it?  i.e. “Self-published authors write shitty books that are unreadable, they can’t take criticism, therefore they are the ones having the tantrums and causing the problems.  The end.”

This type of thinking paints every self-published author with the same brush–which is patently unfair. And It’s so much more complex than that. You did touch on this issue being the fault of both sides, and I commend you for that.

I cringe inside when I see any author going off the rails in a tantrum about anything.  It’s unprofessional and gives us all a bad name. It never helps the situation.  It usually results in their blacklisting, which may or may not be appropriate. Maybe they aren’t mature enough to handle the criticism that comes with publishing and should retire until they grow a spine. I don’t know and won’t speak to that. I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about it.  I only know that when my children were small, ignoring the tantrums was the best course of action.

And yes, many self-published books are crap.  I downloaded two yesterday, read a page or two, and deleted them.  But here’s the new reality: You might as well settle in and get comfortable or stop reading altogether.  Self-publishing is not going away.

Just this past week, Kristy [redacted] was bullied off of her own Facebook page before the release of her third book, [redacted]. It wasn’t about a bad review. It appears to be a vendetta about something personal from her past. The book bloggers over there were outraged and passed around graphics and headers that said “I hate bullies. I support K. Bromberg” and somesuch. Ironically, the brouhaha may have gotten her so much attention, she hit the New York Times bestseller’s list (though maybe she would’ve hit it anyway). Go, Kristy!  You deserve it. I support you fully.

Elle [redacted] attempted to have a dialogue about bullying on her own Goodreads blog this month. Again, this wasn’t about a review.  She was swarmed, shouted down, and one-starred as a result. She made some beautiful points ( i believe she said she was a lawyer, and I could tell), but in the end, it didn’t matter. The thread is still there, though closed.  They twisted her words and drove her off HER OWN SPACE. You may or may not have agreed with what she said, but do you at least agree that she has a right to HER OWN OPINION and she has a right to talk about that opinion on her own blog without being bashed for it?  It was a fabulous opportunity for dialogue, but some of these people don’t want dialogue.  They want uniform consent. And they want to fight.

What’s really amusing is that it’s the same hardcore bully names every time.  Every single time.  There are maybe 20? 30? When I see their names next to a one-star rating, I automatically discount it, because I know it’s more than likely a revenge rating. They have zero credibility. They don’t appear to read much.  They wield the one star like a weapon because it’s the only power these pathetic little people have.

And eeally, fellow authors: It’s just a star. One little star. And they may say something mean, but you can always have a primal scream in your closet.  Not everything needs to come to the internetz.  If your book is good, you’ll bounce back.  I promise.

It’s true that the worst of the worst have been thrown off of Goodreads and are now marginalized on a forum in an obscure book catalogue website. But last summer I watched these a-holes go after authors with torches and pitchforks, howling for blood, and it wasn’t always about an author tantrum over a review. Sometimes the authors were  baited to respond.  The thrill of the hunt. I don’t know, maybe it makes them feel relevant or something.  And the delicious irony about all of this is that the bully ringleader is a self-published author.

Then there was poor Lauren [redacted], who simply asked “How can someone one-star a book that isn’t even released yet?” She was hounded off of Goodreads, then CHASED her to her Twitter page, where she had the most vile of things said to her.  To be fair, at that point, Lauren should’ve just shut up. I kept thinking “God Lauren, close your page and go away for a couple of days!” You can’t reason with this mob and you can’t talk to them. She tried to do both, and failed miserably, giving them ammunition to fire back in the process.  In the end, they made it entirely her fault, but I was there from the beginning and saw what happened.  It started with an innocent, perfectly reasonable question, not a review.

The bullies will deny that anyone ever physically threatened an author, but I saw a post for Veronica R.’s last book where the reviewer threatened to throat-punch her if they ever saw her. I don’t know- maybe that isn’t a threat of physical violence in their book. It is in mine. Veronica tried to soothe the animals, but was shouted down. All this over an ending they didn’t like. Same thing with Laurel H..

There are just some psychotic, nasty, ugly little people out there who hide behind the anonymity of the internet, but I don’t think requiring real names on Amazon is going to help very much.  The only thing that’s going to help is when some of these people start getting prosecuted for the things they do–both reviewers AND authors if appropriate– and I think we can see that starting to happen.  I have hope.

 

“And it might even be ugly as hell and not at all ready for public consumption. I’m not here to coddle and promote. I’m not here to worry about an authors debt, their sick family or their tender feelings.”

Erroneous assumption #3:  All authors expect reviewers to coddle them because their lives are so hard.

Our response:  Again, nothing could be further from the truth.

 

“We all have shit to deal with but most of us have to deal with careers that dole out criticism when we do what they perceive as a crappy job and we take it because that’s how the world works.”

Erroneous assumption #4:  Everyone in the world has a crappy job where they are verbally abused by their bosses and just have to take it because that’s life.

Our response:  If you have a job like this, QUIT!  This is not the way the world works and life is WAY too short to deal with crap like this.  Quit this job and find another one.

 

“I want to go back to the days when we could share our thoughts about books with each other any way we damn well pleased. But now that can only happen face to face. Thank the gods for my local reading group.”

Erroneous assumption #5:  The bullies only ever shared their thoughts about books and nothing else.

Our response:  This makes us laugh every time they say it.  How many times did they say this when GR announced their anti-bullying policy stating that the bullies could no longer talk about author behavior?  Also, we have shown more than enough evidence that the bullies were never interested in talking about books.  Their main agenda was to search out, hunt down, and destroy the people they labeled BBA.  It was (and still is for some) their crusade to perpetuate this BBA myth and root out all those who are evil in their eyes.

 

“I just wasted too much time reading the Amazon Authors Who Do Not Want Anonymous Reviews thread and I am still in disbelief over some of the things I read there. I then did something I’ve never been infuriated enough to do. I deleted three five star reviews for books by [redacted] who seems to forget that she’s written under an alias. One of those books, [redacted], only had three reviews which included mine.”

Our response:  This is EXACTLY what we are talking about.  B&B just got done whining about how this is all about book reviews and then punishes an author for signing a petition, which has nothing to do with the author whining about one of her reviews.

 

“This made me sad and angry.  I loved those effing books and recommended them to friends often but those days are done. I can no longer separate the person from the work. I can no longer be a part of this petty bullshit.”

Erroneous assumption #5 & #6:  The bullies at one point could separate the author from the book.  The bullies at one point were never part of petty bullshit.

Our response:  This whole thing started on Amazon and Goodreads BECAUSE the bullies could never separate the author from the book.  They are the ones who started the petty bullshit to begin with.

 

“I can no longer support an author who thinks so little of her readers that she’d expose them to potential danger by forcing them to review using their real name in some misguided attempt to further her career and to keep herself safe from “threats and bullies”.  If you can make  sense out of this line of reasoning please let me know because I can’t seem to wrap my head around it.”

Erroneous assumption #7 & #8:  Reviewers will be in danger if they have to review under their real names.  Removing anonymity won’t keep authors from being bullied.

Our response to #7:  We’ve published posts covering attacks on reviewers, but they were very mild.  We have never seen an attack on a reviewer to the degree and severity of attacks we’ve seen on authors.  Not even close.  One of our blog readers said it better than we ever could:

“Another salient point in this blog was the assumption that authors who want the reviewer to reveal her true name want her to be the victim of harm. The assumption being apparently that authors harm people who review under their real names which of course is totally false — a myth perpetrated by the bullies, that authors are “bad” people who must be policed by anonymous gangs. There were ridiculous assumptions like that throughout the blog and the responses. These people have created the myth of “the badly behaved author” to justify their unwholesome hobby and their absurd and relentless bullying. No one signing the petition has shown disrespect for anonymous reviewers. We all know that thousands of authentic reviews have been posted on Amazon by anonymous customers. This is about the ABUSE of anonymity in recent years by obsessive hobbyists with a low opinion of authors and a need to abuse authors, to bully them.”

Our response to #8:  Then why are the bullies so against it?  There’s a reason they don’t want to review under their real names and it’s not because they fear being in danger.  What they fear is being held accountable for their actions.

 

“They may think they’re winning but if most of us stop sharing our thoughts, our 1 star as well as our five star reviews, who the hell will be left to review besides their family and their sycophants? And none of us are dumb enough to fall for that shit more than once.  Who will get the word out about their books?”

Erroneous assumption #9:  The bullies are the only reviewers in the world and if they stop reviewing, there won’t be anyone else who will be able get the word out about authors’ books.

Our response:  I don’t think we even need to respond to this.  It would be an insult to our readers’ intelligence.

 

“Honestly at this point I don’t even care.”

Our response:  Right.  She cares so little about it that she wrote an entire blog rant on the subject.

 

“I feel really lame for wasting so much energy on this reviewing hobby and might just start focusing my energy on something else. Another hobby that won’t shit all over me.”

Erroneous assumption #10:  The bullies aren’t the problem.  The problem is all these whiny authors who can’t just sit there and take all of the bullies’ personal attacks and abuse.  If the bullies start another hobby, then the problem will go away and they won’t ever experience anything like this again.

Our response:  Again, no need to comment.

 

“I realize some authors are cool, [redacted] you get it and there are many others, but it seems as if every time I open my email another author is spewing their crazy ass shit all over the internet. Right now It all seems like such a complete waste of my time.”

Our response:  Then it’s probably a good idea to pack up and move on.  Once you start experiencing the backlash from your actions in other areas of your life, you will begin to understand that the problem is not the world.  The problem is you.

 

Now, if you have the time (and the patience) to read some of the comments on B&B’s post, the bullies seem to be complaining about the “poison in the water” these days, but what they don’t understand is that they are the ones who put the poison there in the first place.  There are, however, a couple of them like Grim who’ve realized that by letting go of the whole BBA crusade, their lives are much happier (a fact we’ve been trying to get across to them ever since we started our blog):

Grim

But the rest are growing more unhappy and appear to be blaming Anne Rice and Todd’s petition:

AnneRiceBlownUp

For the record, this didn’t start with Anne or Todd.  This whole online bully vs. the world conflict was a time bomb waiting to go off.  In the past few years, much to the dismay of the bullies, it has gotten a lot of media attention and if the bullies keep it up, it will continue to get more.  In fact, just this week, we checked Todd’s petition and it’s still going strong.  It is now up to 7,522 signatures:

7522

This alone makes a very strong statement about how deep-rooted this problem is.  Lets hope Amazon listens and puts an end to it.

We just recently received this comment from Rob (whom you will all remember from New Bully Attack):

Autumn again shows her complete lack of empathy, integrity, and discretion:

In , she says:

MRPost

You’re making two big mistakes here, Autumn.  One, Annette never contacted us about your bully attack on her.  Other people witnessed the attack and informed us.  Two, you have published Annette’s PII here.  It is against the law to publish someone’s private information as Angela H. of BBA Whisperer is learning the hard way:

DigitalMediaLaw

Private email addresses are PII:

The following data, often used for the express purpose of distinguishing individual identity, clearly class as PII under the definition used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (described in detail below):[5]

If Annette wanted, she could take you to court for what you did.  To save her the trouble, we’ve provided links, here, to sites where she can report you.

Good luck, Autumn.  You’re going to need it.

Powered by WordPress & Web Design Company