Author Throws Tantrum, Curses out Reviewer

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

I had an author comment on a review I gave on Amazon once. He just thanked me for the kind review. I didn't feel creeped out by it, I thought it was nice that he showed appreciation for people taking the time to write reviews. I believe it was his first (or second) book so I was a bit surprised at how good it was. I only bought it initially because he was so polite on the Kindle boards. Honey catches more flies...

Author Robert W. Walker once commented on an extremely negative review I posted of one of his "Glenn Hale" books (Dr. O). It was one of those reviews where I wondered if the book was a Silence of the Lambs rip-off or a parody. His reponse was actually quite a lot of fun and gave me a new perspective on the book. (Whoops, it was meant as a parody. ) I ended up buying the Kindle edition, which is non-DRM'ed by the way. I also added some of his more recent stuff to my wishlist.

Edited to Add:
All the new one-star reviews of the Howlett book have me rolling my eyes, however. If they really read the book and posted a review, that's fine, but many sound like they're just getting in their digs because they read about it on the blog, on Twitter, on Salon, or whatever. OK, OK, I get the point. It needed to be edited. Can we stop circling the wagons around the poor adjectives and adverbs? Some of them need to slowly amble out onto the windy plains.

[wvcherrybomb]

Originally Posted by Critteranne

Edited to Add:
All the new one-star reviews of the Howlett book have me rolling my eyes, however. If they really read the book and posted a review, that's fine, but many sound like they're just getting in their digs because they read about it on the blog, on Twitter, on Salon, or whatever. OK, OK, I get the point. It needed to be edited. Can we stop circling the wagons around the poor adjectives and adverbs? Some of them need to slowly amble out onto the windy plains.

Many of them have downloaded and read the sample, myself included. Only one that I saw admitted to only reading the description. That's hardly a fair review, even though the description is horrid.

There are also excerpts on the "authors" blog.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

Many of them have downloaded and read the sample, myself included. Only one that I saw admitted to only reading the description. That's hardly a fair review, even though the description is horrid.

There are also excerpts on the "authors" blog.

There was quite a lot to the sample, far more than the usual copyright info and acknowledgements you get with some books. I think the first three chapters are included in total, far more than enough evidence of.... well, you know.

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

Many of them have downloaded and read the sample, myself included. Only one that I saw admitted to only reading the description. That's hardly a fair review, even though the description is horrid.

There are also excerpts on the "authors" blog.

I wish they'd spend the same amount of energy reviewing other books. Where are all those reviewers when I'm trying to find out if a book is worth my time? Most of them all surrounding one bad book. Dang.

I love blog trainwrecks, especially "Authors Behaving Badly" trainwrecks. They're funny, sad, scary, and entertaining, all at once, and a great teaching moment for aspiring authors. But after a while, even I get tired of it.

Besides, the Night Travels of the Elven Vampire review still had more comments. (Now that's an author who had to change her name with her next book. It didn't help.)

[MrPLD]

I'd say the worst of the whole fallout is that no one gained any ground in a positive way.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by queentess

It's always funny to watch

My thoughts exactly.

Looking at the negative reviews mount on Amazon, I can't help but to wonder what the author thinks now.

[HansTWN]

One would almost think that someone pretended to be the author (sort of like a "fake Steve"). Because nobody could be that stupid!

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

One would almost think that someone pretended to be the author (sort of like a "fake Steve"). Because nobody could be that stupid!

wouldn't it be funny if that were the case?

and somewhere...the author is unaware, while a rival who pretends to be her ruins her already fragile reputation.

it's a plot for another story

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

wouldn't it be funny if that were the case?

and somewhere...the author is unaware, while a rival who pretends to be her ruins her already fragile reputation.

it's a plot for another story

It certainly wouldn't be funny for the author. Especially all those grammatical mistakes in her replies lead me to seriously consider they were written by a "pretender". Either that or she has a great editor

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It certainly wouldn't be funny for the author. Especially all those grammatical mistakes in her replies lead me to seriously consider they were written by a "pretender". Either that or she has a great editor

'course not. it's harassment :P
the reviews said the book itself was full of errors so i guess people weren't surprised when her replies were also full of mistakes @_@

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Especially all those grammatical mistakes in her replies lead me to seriously consider they were written by a "pretender".

Yeah, but it's unlikely that a "pretender" wrote the comments. She mentioned some details from prior email conversations with Big Al regarding the reformatted version of her book. Big Al more or less confirmed those emails in his comments.

Options:

• Big Al communicated with a pretender from the beginning.
• Big Al himself was the pretender.
• It was a pretender and he also hacked Howett's email account.
• Howett herself wrote the comments.

Conspiracy theories are always a nice topic.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by queentess

1. Do we even know this is the author? Or just a puppet?

The comments are posted from her logged-in blogger account, so I'd expect them to really be from the author.

[wyndslash]

anyway, i do think this might be getting out of hand...

she's only just human, and this type of thing seems not to be as uncommon as i'd like to think. i hope she tries to improve herself. still, i can't help but wonder what others have said about her having a condition of sorts. reading the introduction of the author in the review, i find it hard to believe that she could write something as ...well, full of errors as the reviewer claims it to be.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by netseeker

Yeah, but it's unlikely that a "pretender" wrote the comments. She mentioned some details from prior email conversations with Big Al regarding the reformatted version of her book. Big Al more or less confirmed those emails in his comments.

Options:

• Big Al communicated with a pretender from the beginning.
• Big Al himself was the pretender.
• It was a pretender and he also hacked Howett's email account.
• Howett herself wrote the comments.

Conspiracy theories are always a nice topic.

You are probably right. "Conspiracy theory" would be too big a word here, though. Trolling comes to mind

[kacir]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

jeez. authors should never respond to negative reviews ...

Well, if you respond in an intelligent way, you can even turn whole situation and benefit from the review.

Some time ago there was very critical and very funny review of GHOST, a book by John Ringo. Yes, THAT John Ringo that wrote lots of great books that were published by Baen.
But GHOST is ... different. It is totally awful. It is so awful and the review is so entertaining that an Internet meme "OH JOHN RINGO NO." has been created. John Ringo even started to sell merchandise, such as T-shirts with "OH JOHN RINGO NO."
http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%...Ringo_novel%29

The book is available on Baen for free, and the entire series was quite successful. See link from Wikipedia article.