The Catch

The first stage of the bully MO is the catch, meaning how a bully or group of bullies targets an unsuspecting author.  One approach they use is posting about something the author said or did on any social networking site such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., or the Amazon and GR fora, or even on the author’s blog.  The bullies actually go out looking for this information so they can write about it, tell their friends, and send the lynch mob after these authors.

An example of what we mean is Kat’s .  If you look at every subsequent blog post titled, Buzz Worthy News and scroll down to Scandalous Scandals, you will quickly see that Kat (one our Biggest Offenders) does this on her blog every week.

Another tactic they use is simply trying to bait authors into their trap by attempting to engage them in conversation either over a review or on a discussion thread.  This happens on Amazon and GR all the time.  G. Faso’s describes what happens to these unsuspecting authors on Amazon:

GFaso

We’ve also seen it on Jane Litte’s Dear Author (Jane Litte, another of our Biggest Offenders).  You can read about this here on our blog post Dear Reviewer (link to come).

Another example of how the catch operates was expressed by Sharon L. Reddy, a site visitor and commenter:

This is the technique used. Michael is just the latest victim. I’ve seen it three times.

The OP asked why readers didn’t do these things, just a question. The first post said “You’re saying this.” The tone of voice of petulance wasn’t in the OPs post. It was in the interpretation by the first poster and from that point.

Step two: Call in the gang.
You said this about readers.
No I didn’t.
You said this about readers.
No, I just asked a question.
I’m a reader and you said this.
I’m a reader and you said this.
I’m a reader and you said this.
Authors are this!
Authors are this!
Authors are this!
Well, readers are that!
Got him! Call in the mob!

The method doesn’t vary. They tried it on me.

The author’s first mistake is to get taken in.  This is why we always tell people on our Do’s and Don’t’s page to NOT RESPOND.  This is very important.  If you want to see an example of an author who didn’t respond and how it worked out for him, you can read here about the attack on Ryan Winfield.  Ryan chose not to respond to them and as a result the whole episode was quickly forgotten.

 

The Attack

The attack is the second stage of the bully MO.  This is where the original bullies who snare the author into responding (the ones we call minions or instigators), call in the reinforcements who attack the victim, degrading, insulting, humiliating, and provoking the author into a fight.  Cornered and trapped, most authors fight back which is exactly what the bullies want and is author mistake number two.  When this happens, the bullies migrate to other platforms where they can follow the author and attack them there.  For example, if the original attack happens on Amazon, it will leak over to GR, Twitter, Facebook, and even the author’s personal website.  This is when the original bully attack becomes cyber stalking.

Our advice during this stage is to NOT fight back, retaliate or respond in any way.  Don’t even try to explain yourself.  All these people want to do is drag you down.  It doesn’t matter what you say, they will still attack you.  At this stage, the bully crowd has become a pack of ravenous wolves with one objective and all logic and reason is thrown out the window.  Logic and reason don’t work at this stage.  At all.  Don’t even try it.

A few examples of a typical bully attack can be found on these blog posts:

The Attack on Sharon Desruisseaux

The Attack On MT Dismuke

The Attack on Rebecca Hamilton

 

 

The Kill

The last stage of the bully MO is called the kill.  When we talk about the kill, we mean the bullies’ attempt to ruin or “kill” the author’s career by spreading word among their groups (i.e. Badly Behaving Author GR group ) about the author and blacklisting him/her as BBA (Badly Behaving Author) placing the author’s books on  and shelving the books on GR using negative or derogatory phrasing.  On Amazon, they accomplish this with Amazon book tags.

It doesn’t end there.  At this point, they begin leaving nasty, one-star reviews either slamming the author’s books, or the author him/herself, or both.  They do this regardless of reading the books (many don’t even read them at all) and once the review is posted, either on Amazon or GR, the review immediately gets voted up to the top page so it is the first review that readers see when browsing books.

Deltaforce is one of our site visitors who has been observing these people for a long time and has given us a good deal of insight into the bully tactics that they use.  Here is Deltaforce’s description of a typical bully review:

I’m so familiar with the BBR tactics that campaigns are easily for me to spot now.  Simply click on successful indie ebooks on Amazon or GR and you are likely to see a pattern of the negative review business:

1.  Point out any formatting problems, and punctuation or grammar errors.
2.  Excerpt any potentially controversial text inside the book, cut and paste it in the review.  Taken out of context, it will make the writing look awful or silly.
3.  If there are no obvious formatting or grammar problems then just say the book is boring and you wasted your very valuable time reading it.  Never mind that you didn’t actually read the entire book, saying that you did is enough to deter potential readers from wasting their time (and dollars) on an indie book.
4.  When the author has several books in a series, make sure to write that the book has a lot of unanswered questions, dead-end plots, and loose ends that went nowhere.  Although books in series aren’t supposed to tie up all the loose ends until the end of the trilogy or series, the consumer isn’t likely to remember that when reading about how you were left hanging and frustrated at the end of the horrible indie book.
5.  Don’t forget to mention that the author would benefit from proofing, editing, formatting, illustrating, publishing and marketing by a paid professional in the publishing industry and how this would never happen if the indie author weren’t too stupid, lazy or talented enough to get an agent to PROTECT said author from negative reviews.  (Tsk, tsk, either hire a pro indies or expect to be attacked!  Protection rackets are so lucrative, aren’t they?)
6.  Dare an indie author or any of the author’s supporters to debate your criticism, because if they make any rebuttal whatsoever, no matter how innocuous, they will be banned from Goodreads and blacklisted across the world wide web as BADLY BEHAVING AUTHORS.
7.  Be sure to vote on Amazon reviews by down voting good reviews of all unprotected indie books and up voting negative reviews.  With enough down votes the good review will be hidden from view as offensive so consumers won’t even see the good comments unless they take the extra time to look for them and they won’t.  It will also boost the negative reviews as “the most helpful comments” pushing them to a prominent position on the author’s book page.  This way the first thing potential customers will see is a nasty comment or review.
8.  Tag the book with nasty comments or label them as self-published, badly behaving authors, etc. to alert other reviewers to the fact that this book has been blacklisted.  On Goodreads, place the book on a bookshelf labeled with similar tags such as “Do Not Read” or “Terrible Book,” so any reader or librarian who stumbles across will know the book has been blacklisted.
9.  Remind any author, artist who attempts to fight against a negative attack that they are only hurting their career.  This warning sometimes works wonders and you’d be surprised at how many targets actually end up apologizing to their attackers just so they’ll be left alone.  They may even attempt to join the group by helping to attack other victims!
10.  In the event that you are accused of being paid to review – DENY, DENY, DENY!  Here’s a sample script that usually works, “I’m just a sweet little schoolteacher, stay-at-home mom, grandma, customer, grandpa, retired editor (you fill in the blank) who is tired of wasting my valuable time reading awful books and I just want to save the public from ever having to see these awful books by indie authors.”  Yeah, that usually makes the accuser back off.
11.  Last, but not least, tell all authors to grow a thicker skin.  Nobody wants to see their “baby” attacked, but that’s too bad.

Reviewers are encouraged to search the Internet for any dirt they can dig up on an indie author or supporter who complains about the tactics of the Badly Behaving Review groups.  Copy and paste any dirt found in Amazon, GR and other book forums and connect it all with multiple links for maximum harassment of the indie author who has been targeted.  Emails and calls to the target are encouraged.  Attempt to befriend the indie author so the fool will spill potentially useful personal information about themselves or other targets.  All is fair in love and war and badly behaving reviewers have made a sport out of hunting down indie authors.