Calling Out Cheaters

Everyone looks for an edge, an advantage that will catapult them above their competitors. Athletes do it, corporations dot it, politicians are masters of it, and yes, authors do it as well. You would think an author would stand on his/her ability to craft a compelling story and let that speak for itself but, sadly, this is not the case. We have heard the debate about reviews and rankings. Many would say reviews don't matter and rankings matter even less. The thing is, when authors cheat, I'm not sure I can agree with that idea any longer. In recent weeks I have read a number of articles that are both disturbing and enraging. I'm sure you have head of some of these names and you may know the articles but it is important to draw attention to them again as a cautionary tale to new authors. It all started when I clicked on Vincent Zandri's blog and read his latest post titled "The Cheater."



In his post he describes how self publishing sensation John Locke paid thousands of dollars (approximately $6,000 for 300 reviews) to a group of individuals to write 5 star reviews for his titles. The majority of these reviews appear on Amazon. How serious is this? It is believed that one of the 'reviewers' attempted to blackmail Mr. Locke and to avoid that he came clean. You can read Vincent's post here and also click on the source of his information. http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/



But the news doesn't stop there, it gets worse, next we have Stephen Leather. Leather is, from many accounts, a very good writer. That alone makes all this very strange and hard to understand. In the end, he did what he did and now must pay his dues. Stephen Leather made sock puppet accounts on Amazon in which he gave his own titles solid reviews and 5 stars while he gave his competitors really bad reviews and 1 star ratings. That may not sound like a big deal but ask yourself this - how many reviews can a person write in a few hours over the course of a few weeks or months? Now you see the bigger problem with this. Just think, a writer makes 20 accounts and gives you 20 one star reviews while you wait for the actual reviewers to post their 4 or 5 star reviews. What do you think a reader will do if they see a book with 20 one star reviews and 4 or 5 five star reviews?



Wait...it gets even worse. This one blew my mind when I read it. Yes, we have another author who used sock puppet practices but also went as far as to bash his competitors in forums and chat groups. Wait until you hear these credentials - he has 10 novels published and has sold over a million copies, he won the award for crime novel of the year in 2010 and his novels are included on must read lists all over London. With all that said RJ Ellroy still felt it necessary to write fake reviews and attempt to destroy his competition with negative and false information. You can check out the article about Ellroy here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9521564/RJ-Ellory-admits-posting-fake-book-reviews-over-past-10-years.html



What are these authors thinking? Don't they know this gives all of us a bad name and makes an already difficult task all the tougher for new authors? There really is no place for tactics like this in the publishing industry but it continues. These three have lost all credibility and I believe it is safe to assume their writing career is in serious jeopardy. The moral of the story, don't cheat, if you get a bad review so be it but don't cheat. Don't write reviews for your own book or trash another author's book because you feel they are your competition. Send your novels out to reviewers and let them review it. I'm not sure what Amazon will do to try and stop this practice but if they go to an extreme it will get very difficult for all of us.