Crazy Authors Continued. . .

More inappropriate author behavior from Candice Sams from the ever-growing comment thread on Amazon. Here an enterprising commenter found an interesting plea on her Facebook page. (And here’s an LJ post with the full text in case Amazon deep-sixes the original comment.) So here we have someone pulling a reverse Deborah MacGillivray, piling on a reviewer and then calling out the internet stormtroopers to game Amazon. What follows is her Facebook plea, with my commentary in red.

Hi all,

If you have the time or the inclination…might I prevail upon you for a small favor?
Would you please click on the link that I’ve inserted…go over to Amazon.com and just click YES under… the helpful reviews left by amazon reviewers, Harriet Klausner, C. Roberts and Tammie King (these are wonderful ladies who first gave me a chance when I started writing about thirteen years ago and I cannot thank them enough). [What is with this woman and ellipses? I thought I had an ellipsis problem, but three random ellipses in the same paragraph? And since when do reviewers “give you a chance?” That’s the sort of acknowledgment one usually gives the people who buy your book.]

These lovely reviewers left very kind remarks but were undercut by two individuals who are known as hit-and-run reviewers (reviewers calling themselves BBB and LB Taylor). [So not only do negative reviews reflect badly on the book, they are undercutting poor Harriet Klausner. Coming soon, Amazon reviewer cage matches.] These two people repeatedly give very poor rankings on books; they’ve done this many, many times. [A guy in the comment thread actually did an analysis of LB Taylor and the rankings of those reviews fall on a pretty nice (and flat) bell curve.]

If the authors take issue with their reviews, they insult the authors in a public forum and get on the internet and troll for anyone who’ll support their bad review of that book….. [Yay! Bonus ellipses.] AND their bad opinion of the author. [You know, my opinion of the author has nothing to do with the review, or the reviewer.] Now…they have the right to hate any book they want, but then they try to shut the defending authors up [Except the people goading you on for the entertainment value. After you did shut up, there was a vague feeling of disappointment in the air.] when they question the reviewer about the comments. If you read the comments they’ve left, they admit to having done this. [Meaning a few people told her she was making herself look to be an idiot.]

In my case, this is what happened: [Now we repeat ourselves for emphasis, like all caps but more wordy and author-like.]

Rather than stay on the comment section of their reviews and talk to me like adults about the poor reviews they left [So someone telling you that they really for true thought your book sucked ass would have made this all go so much better?], BBB and LB Taylor went on a blog where they got commiserating infants to get on the book’s sales page (on amazon) and insult me. [You know, when an author goes batshit on Amazon, word does get around.] Both reviewers then disappeared entirely and let their blogging friends (people who’d never read my book at all) come after me, like the cowards they are. [i.e. The reviewers had some class and didn’t want to be involved in an author implosion.] One of their blogosphere friends even called me ‘insane’ [Gee, I can’t think why.] and left that comment on my book’s sales page. (under LB Taylor’s review comment section) All because I disagreed with a review. [You know, I’d like to think most authors don’t believe their work sucks, so it stands to reason that the vast majority of them don’t “agree” with one-star reviews. But the only author I’ve ever known to engage a negative review and not have it end up a train-wreck is John Ringo.]

Well …I’ll let ‘you’ be the judge of whether I’m nuts or not. [Why the ellipsis? Why the scare quotes on a pronoun? Your grammar scares me.]

If you have the time and would, please just go to the kinder reviewers comment section….under their reviews click on the ‘YES” button for those reviews having been helpful. [Because when authors ask their fans to game the system on Amazon, it never goes badly.] This will bump the nicer reviews ahead of the bad reviews and maybe the nastiness will stop. [Because this is why that comment thread is closing on 40 pages long, the good reviews aren’t ranked highly enough. Right.] I’ll ask you not to involve yourself in the comments section of LB TAYLOR’s review unless you want to get sniped as well. These aren’t tolerant people; they’ll attack anyone who takes issue [By “taking issue,” we mean going on a vindictive sociopathic whine fest over dozens of comments while insulting everyone in the room.] with those two poor reviews…in their minds, it seems this isn’t America…they can have an opinion, no one else better have one that’s contrary [Saying your postings are shit Twinkies around a creamy center of fail is not infringing on your freedom of speech. The first amendment does not give you a right not to be perceived as a complete loon.]. To end this little request, I want you to know that I’ve received poor reviews before…this isn’t what this was really about.[ORLY?] I just wanted to know why LB Taylor and BBB, whoever they are, left such vitriolic reviews about my book.[They probably, just guessing, thought the book sucked. People are allowed to, you know. That freedom of opinion thing you said folks are allowed to have.] JEEZ LOUIS folks…it’s just a darn romance novel[That’s taking pride in your work there.]….and to make this clear…these same two people have done this same thing to authors Christine Feehan, Linda Lael Miller and others who are much more famous than I. I just commented on why they’d want to leave such a bad review when it might have been written more tactfully….they fled the site and let their amazon blog minions come after me.[Why can’t I hold a private one-on-one conversation on a public forum on the internet without all these unrelated assholes coming by?]

Once again, if you can take a moment, just go click on the kinder commenters reviews…[Yeah, didn’t get that the first time.]saying that those reviews were more helpful. Just click the word “YES” under the nicer reviews that were given.[Gee, this is complicated.] Again, this puts the poorer reviews on another page where they aren’t seen right off by any perspective buyers. [Because the flame war was being fed solely by people on Amazon randomly browsing her book, and has nothing to do with postings on Twitter, Facebook, and various blogs.] Readers can still read the bad reviews, it’s just that they won’t be the first ones under the book’s sales buttons. I will do the same thing for any author who is ‘hit’ by reviewers LB Taylor and someone anonymously calling him/herself BBB. [I’m glad to see that this is purely altruistic gaming of Amazon.]

See…it’s so easy to get on the ‘net and say whatever you want to about someone. [Yeah, and it gets me free blog content, whee.] Not so easy when that someone catches up with you.[Especially when that someone is yourself.] LB Taylor and BBB got scared when I commented on their reviews…[I’m scared by your ellipses]they ran but not before they got some infantile children[This is a writer folks. But, maybe repetition is a motif. Perhaps that explains the ellipses.] to haunt my book’s sales page with a vengeance, stalking me all over the internet. [So your book’s sales page is all over the internet? I want your publicist.] Perhaps, if they see that others don’t like their behavior, they’ll go into hiding again…until they find the next unfortunate author [i.e. next batshit crazy author with a thin skin and a persecution complex.]. This happens all the time, folks. You know these cowardly types…this is how they operate. They want to say anything about anyone they please…if you call them out on their behavior…their worlds fall apart[Project much?]; they can’t take the challenge to their opinion. I’m no psychologist but I happen to think that these are some sick, sick people.[I’ve said it before; Pot. Kettle.] I wonder if they’d pick up a stick or some weapon and come after someone who challenges their opinion or authority if the challenge ever came in person. [This is full of more unjustified hyperbole and fear-mongering than Nancy Pelosi at a NRA fundraiser.]

Many kind thanks and hopefully there are others out there who’re not so scroogish this season ….
Candace S.