Authors Who Are Trolls

When a group of unethical competitors worked to destroy my good name and reputation online, it wasn’t difficult to trace the nonsense back to source in each instance. My day job is as a computer expert and technology writer. In my spare time, I write children’s fiction. As one of the world’s foremost Internet/computer experts and a former intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency while serving in the military, digital forensics and analysis is something I know absolutely.

These competitors were largely unsuccessful when they started this nonsense and very frustrated with their failure, as evidenced by many of their posts during this period of time. They in fact spent much of their free time in forums and discussion boards, as evidenced by their posts by the hundreds in various message forums over many years.

These competitors had not a clue about the changing state of publishing. They were simply disillusioned, disgruntled, and angry. They needed an outlet for their frustrations, and somehow I became that outlet. That scapegoat for their bottled up rage and resentment.

As I’ve written about in Authors Who Trash Competitors, the nonsense began with fake one- and two-star reviews being posted to my books. The third review ever on Amazon for Keeper Martin’s Tale began: “I’ve been had. This is nowhere near a 5 star book like all these reviews claim.” A flood of fake reviews was followed by an article from David Langford in Ansible, where in typical fashion these competitors tried to turn something they’d done to me into something I supposedly had done to them. The claim was that I was writing fake 1- and 2-star reviews of other authors’ books when in actuality these were the people behind the 1- and 2-star reviews being dumped on my books.

The lies of these competitors led to all sorts of additional nonsense. Suddenly, I was being trashed everywhere these competitors could think of online: Terry Goodkind's forums, SffWorld, and beyond. Soon after I was being trashed on several author bashing sites as well with fun names like cr*p authors and dog sh*t—sites set up by certain authors and their friends to bash authors they disliked and/or wanted to ruin for whatever reasons.

The nonsense morphed into how I was supposedly writing fake favorable reviews of my books. How supposedly if it wasn’t me it surely had to be my family and friends writing the favorable reviews.

Soon the nonsense became about how supposedly anyone who liked my books and was talking about them anywhere online had to be me. How supposedly if it wasn’t me it surely had to be my family and friends talking about my books.

When The Kingdoms & The Elves of the Reaches was Audible.com’s #1 bestseller for 12 consecutive weeks, the attacks became about how supposedly none of my books had ever been a bestseller anywhere. How I was never a bestselling author—and on and on. (This was in 2005, btw. A time when I had 100 published books to my credit, translations in over 20 countries and over 5 million books sold.)

When The Kingdoms & The Elves of the Reaches was recommended and reviewed by the library staff at VOYA magazine—the leading magazine for YA librarians—and written about in several printed books, including The Complete Idiots Guide to Elves & Fairies and The Ancient Art of Faery Magick, the attacks became about how supposedly none of my books had ever been reviewed in magazines or recommended in print sources. How any mention I made that print sources had were lies. How my books weren’t even available in libraries—and on and on.

Starting to see a pattern here? Because I certainly did. It was Disinformation 101 and it worked because they spread the nonsense everywhere they could online.

Knowing their pattern of twisting the truth around, turning something they did into something I  supposedly did, I began to trace back to source exactly who was talking about these competitors online, who was writing these competitors reviews and commentary. I suspected the answer would likely be that these competitors were writing their own reviews and commentary or that they knew the persons who were—and my suspicions were proven true.

I found a wealth of single-use / throwaway accounts. I found many accounts used just long enough to work these competitors names and books into discussions, then faded out. I found accounts that traced back directly to friends and family. I found accounts that traced back directly to these competitors.

A wealth of single-use / throwaway accounts also were used to trash me online. Accounts used just long enough to work my name into discussions to trash me then faded out also were used. I found attack accounts that traced back directly to friends and family of these competitors. I found attack accounts that traced back directly to these competitors themselves.

For over a decade these competitors have used these and other unethical tactics to tarnish my good name and reputation while trying to position themselves within the industry. They’ve hired promoters to spread falsities while spreading praise for themselves, set up fake websites to do the same, compelled others to disparage. They’ve used intimidation and harassment to prevent readers from talking about my books in public forums. They’ve coerced distributors into dropping listings, hired lawyers to send notices—and much more. They did this because they thought I was an easy target. They did this because they thought they could get away with it.

Isn't that right? David Langford, Stephen Leigh, Jim C. Hines, Victoria Strauss, Maureen Johnson, David Louis Edelman, Patrick Rothfuss, Melissa Foster, Tim Spalding, Carolyn Arnold, et al.

Silence is Never the Answer When It Comes to Bullies and Trolls

By now you’ve probably heard of #twittersilence—a day of silence to protest abusive trolling on twitter. After reading the Daily Beast article about it on Aug 2 and seeing #twittersilence trending on Aug 3, I participated in the tweets but was soon astonished to see author Maureen Johnson participating. Not only was Maureen Johnson a twitter troll, having participated in several online attacks against me, Maureen Johnson was someone who egged on my stalkers and thought it was hilarious that they were sending me threats, as did her author friend, Victoria Strauss. Apparently, author Maureen Johnson also blogged recently about how she wished “all stalking would end.” Odd as she and her friends goaded on my stalkers with their words and actions time and again.

Participating in the #twittersilence wasn’t about Maureen Johnson, however. It was about raising your voice or taking a silent stand. Hundreds raised their voices and spoke out against bullies and trolls. Hundreds took a silent stand and did the same.

Personally, I was glad to see twitter take a decisive stand so quickly. Amazon had allowed my readers to be harassed and attacked on its site for years and had never done anything about it, except to punish readers who dared to report the problem while often allowing the harassers to continue without consequence. Why? Because Amazon chose to ignore the problems and pretend such problems don’t exist. Hello, Amazon, when you allow discussions and comments on your site, such problems will and do exist.

Perhaps Amazon will learn a few lessons from Goodreads.com, a company Amazon recently acquired. When faced with similar problems, Goodreads.com didn’t ignore the problems or pretend they didn’t exist. Goodreads.com took action.

In 2012, Goodreads.com added privacy controls to profiles to control who can see member profiles. Members also were then able to control who could follow their reviews, who could send them private messages, who their email address could be shared with, who their reviews could be shared with, and who could see their birthdate and age.

In late 2012, Goodreads.com banned sexual role-play in its discussion forums. Although sexual role-play was a large part of its daily traffic, Goodreads.com took this step to help ensure the safety of children at its site. Why such a site ever allowed sexual role-play is another matter altogether, but at least thousands of children who participate in Goodreads.com are safer now.

In early 2013, Goodreads.com took action again to prevent harassment and intimidation by adding an option to ensure only friends of a member could comment on a member’s reviews and profile.

All these things together make Goodreads.com a better, safer site. Your turn, Amazon. You willing to make your site a harassment/troll-free zone?

Speaking Out About Haters

I’m William Robert Stanek and I’ve been a professionally published author since 1995. Over my long, distinguished career, my books have been translated into many languages and read by millions around the world. All my life I’ve been a writer—well most of my life anyway, as I really got my start in the 4^th grade when I wrote two regular columns for the school newspaper.

I’m a successful writer by any standard and yet bigger success has been derailed time and again by despicable competitors—competitors who I call the architects of hate. For years they’ve been at work trying to destroy my good name and reputation in the industry. I’m rather sick and tired of it. I’m also sick and tired of running into people almost daily who seek to harass and intimidate me regarding these matters. So here goes, the Wall of Shame by name:

David Langford

Stephen Leigh

Jim C. Hines

Victoria Strauss

David Louis Edelman
Maureen Johnson
Melissa Foster

Patrick Rothfuss
Tim Spalding
Carolyn Arnold

This isn’t by any means a complete list. It is, however, a list of the most egregious offenders (along with the blogger friends of these persons who I've talked about previously like Adam Whitehead and Patrick St. Dennis). These are the ones who got the mobs riled up intentionally. Primarily, these also are professionally published competitors who have been at this nonsense for years. Some since at least 2002. Some who continue the nonsense to this day.

These persons are primarily authors of science fiction and fantasy, and as such, direct competitors. How all this nonsense began is with ignorance and arrogance. These competitors blindly believed  that they were the gatekeepers who determined whose books could be talked about and whose couldn’t. They were largely unsuccessful at the time and very frustrated with their failure, as evidenced by many of their posts during this period of time. They spent much of their free time in forums and discussion boards, as evidenced by their posts by the hundreds in various message forums over many years. Some working their hustles and making connections; others setting up places where they could show their teeth and attack others under the guise of trying to be the Internet police.

They had not a clue about the changing state of publishing then or how independent authors were about to take center stage. They were simply bitter and angry and hateful and frustrated. Disillusioned, disgruntled, maybe they watched books like Harry Potter take off into the stratosphere and careers of unknowns like teen author named Christopher Paolini blast off on rocket ships while they were left behind to hustle on the message boards only to become increasingly bitter.

Along came another book from another author they’d never heard of, a book from an independent press and what seemed an easy target for all that bottled up anger, rage and resentment inside them. It was my bad timing to be in the wrong place when there was blood in the water, especially as these competitors saw people start to talk about my books when they and their works were rarely, if ever, mentioned except perhaps when they worked themselves into discussions, even after having spent endless hours trolling about the Internet.

Nobody ever deputized these persons to determine whose works could be talked about and whose works couldn’t, whose works could sell and whose works couldn’t, but that didn’t stop them from appointing themselves as judges, juries and executioners. So they and their friends went out to places where my books were being discussed and told people they knew in these places: this guy’s a fraud, no one but the author himself would be discussing this book, no one but the author himself would be writing reviews of this book and on and on. That was, of course, was likely their experience as they had largely failed after months and years of trying to get people to talk about them and their works and/or months and years of trying to break in to publishing in a meaningful way.

They never stopped to think for a moment and consider that thousands of people were buying and reading my books at the times they were shouting the loudest, that the books had debuted very successfully in e-format months earlier or that Reagent Press had given away numerous advanced reading copies before ever releasing the first printed books for purchase. Instead, these competitors stoked the flames of hate, filed bogus complaints and enlisted others to do the same. Not only did they get forum moderators to remove discussions of my work and ban users who were discussing my books, they then more often than not got others to start hateful discussions of my work and me personally, turning positive word of mouth into negative word of mouth. 

But it wasn’t just message forums they went to. They and their friends went to Amazon and other places where my books were available for purchase and began filing bogus complaints while enlisting others to do the same. In their complaints, they told these places this guy's a fraud, that any positive reviews or discussions about my books were written by me, etc, etc. They backed up their bogus claims with bogus statistics about how many reviews the customers had or hadn’t written, how many votes a review did or didn’t have, how positive reviews were supposedly being used to push negative reviews down the page, how a reviewer had or hadn't written reviews of several of my books, and it went on and on. They continued to complain and stomp their feet until the sites took action. They did this time and again.

As sites like Amazon evolved, so did the gorilla tactics used to damage my reputation and sales. If they and their friends deemed too many people had written Listmania lists or So You Like It guides with my books in them, they went to the message forums and ranted about fake lists, fraud and sock puppets, etc, etc until they stirred people up and got them angry enough to run rampant on Amazon, file bogus complaints, etc. They kept it up until the lists and guides were removed or they simply No voted the lists and guides into oblivion. If they saw a discussion about my books on Amazon, they went to the forums to whine about how that guy was using sock puppets to talk up his books, how that guy was a fraud, and more until they stirred people into action to file complaints, report posts, vote No on posts to make the posts disappear and more. If my books got positive reviews, they used similar tactics to get people to report the reviews, vote No on the reviews and/or to ensure negative reviews appeared at the top of book pages instead of positive ones. If they couldn’t cajole Amazon or other sites into removing positive reviews, they added hateful comments. Often they organized these “hate-ins” as I call them in public message forums, which is how I tracked these activities to their sources. They had no fear of getting caught as they blindly believed, and largely continue to believe, they had/have a right to do whatever they want without consequence whatsoever. Anyone who dared to question what they were doing? Well, they got the same treatment as anyone who dared to talk about my works.

So at times when my career should have taken off and soared, it instead was being derailed, like when my books were #1 on Audible and being bought and read by thousands of people every single day. Here, these competitors and their friends were out en masse at Amazon and other sites, getting the sites to block and/or remove any positive reviews, discussions or mentions of me and my work while simultaneously posting negative reviews, discussions and comments about my work and me personally and enlisting others to do the same. It was the changing nature of publishing that largely made this possible and the fact that willing participants worked at some of these sites.

Imagine how my readers felt, and I’ve heard from many of them over the years. These readers were fans of my work, yet they found that if they discussed my work that not only would sites remove the discussion posts, reviews or whatever regarding my work they’d written, the sites often would go in and remove and/or block their entire accounts. These fans were literally bullied into silence and made to feel they had done something wrong simply by discussing me and my works in the first place.

The net effect was these competitors, and the sites that participated, were ensuring I lost my most ardent fans as fast as I gained them. For anyone working in the entertainment industry, word of mouth is critical to success and sales. Equally important are ardent fans who are far and few between on the whole. My competitors absolutely knew this and that’s why they worked so hard to not only block any and all positive commentary regarding my works but to get positive commentary removed and replaced with negative commentary.

The architects of hate are still out there. Some still at it more than a decade after all this nonsense started. They've never had to answer to any one for what they've done, meanwhile I continue to get hate and anger thrown in my face almost every single day. Amazing world we live in when a guy who has dedicated his life to the written word, with over 150 published books to his credit, has to endure such nonsense daily because of unethical competitors.

Authors “Writing” Their Own Reviews

I’ve been silent on the topic of authors “writing” their own reviews for far too long. Partly because I’ve been tracking the activities of certain architects of hate and identifying the tactics they were using to simultaneously trash my public image while promoting themselves. What I found were networks of authors, which included many of these same unethical competitors, who were:

a) Writing their own reviews and other commentary

b) Having friends and family write their reviews and other commentary

c) Swapping reviews and other praise like bubble gum with other authors

or d) All of the above.

Digging deeper, I found authors who were buying reviews in bulk either from paid review sites or through enticements/promises of possible remuneration to readers and others. Not to mention, the countless authors and publishers who were paying marketers to get reviews for their books, either through direct solicitations or indirectly through promotional activities designed to garner reviews.

The worst of these employ companies like SoulKool. Soulkool for those who don’t know is one of the pioneers of underground Internet promotion—and one of many similar companies that helped make some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry the biggest names in the entertainment industry. Soulkool and the related “Sons of Soulkool” are where authors and publishers look to make Harry Potters, Twilights and Percy Jacksons.

Sometimes though stealth marketing isn’t so stealth. Like when certain companies use their book fairs and related programs in schools as promotional rocket ships. Not only that, while there, they offer free books and other perks to teachers in exchange for favors, like say getting 20 students to write reviews of certain popular books online. Multiply that one example across all the schools in North America and you start to see the enormity of the problem. Disguise such bias as a literacy program and no one dares say a thing about it.

When these authors and publishers put enough of these unfair/unethical review and commentary practices together, it’s how an author whose first book was published yesterday can appear to be a rock star on Day 1. And let me tell you, there are plenty of Day 1 rock stars out there.

In the real world, very few readers will write a review of a book they read (without some incentive). How few? Generally, only about 1/10th of 1% to about 5/10ths of 1% of readers will write a review of a book they read. Or put another way, a book 50000 people have read will likely garner at the most 200 reader reviews ever.

I've been writing for 30 years, and have over 150 books to my credit. My own books have very few reader reviews relative to the 7.5 million people who have read them (and not including those reviews due to certain tactics of unethical competitors). And that's because in the real world, it's a rare reader who writes a review of any book.

Yes, It is a Problem

So back in 2009 an indie author picked up the nonsense from Rothfuss and friends and started posting hateful reviews of my books and hateful rants on my Facebook pages—under a few dozen accounts before I finally got fed up, called her out and told her to knock it off. She did but in typical fashion she then got her friends involved because she believed that it was her right to harass whoever she wanted to.

One of the same friends, Angela Perry, who had written comments to my Facebook page at that time, came back recently and posted a hateful rant to my blog. The next week she went to Amazon and posted nonsense. A few days later, she went to Goodreads and posted a few hateful reviews.

She then posted nonsense along with links to her reviews and other nonsense to 1) my Robert Stanek facebook page, 2) my William Stanek facebook page, 3) the Reagent Press facebook page AND 4) my personal facebook account.

Clearly by including links to her nonsense, she wanted to me to know what she had done. I ignored all of the above until she started tweeting nonsense directly to my twitter account. When I replied and called her out on using multiple accounts to harass me, she replied with

@robertstanek This is my only account. Not everyone behaves like you do.

@robertstanek Ha! Erm, okay, you call the police and tell them I tweeted you three times. I'll mention your fraud. G'ahead. I'll wait.

Her goal obviously was to twist the truth, get her twitter friends riled up, etc. This is typical of what these people do. Angela Perry is of course a friend of those involved in the twitter nonsense last fall. Two new one star reviews on Goodreads recently from her friends as well and more nonsense elsewhere recently from the same.

Which brings me to the real point of my post: How a few malicious individuals like these cause harm, not just to me but to everyone in the book industry. They try to seem like a majority while in fact being only a few malcontents. Most of these people are other authors--competitors who believe they can do anything they want to harm another author.