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Publishing Industry Cults, Weaponized Amazon Reviews, and Organized Cyberbullying
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Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about the dangers of author-on-author cyberbullying.
A few years ago, a group I called “Mean Girls-meets-Lord of the Flies” terrorized authors on Goodreads and Amazon. A lot of us left Goodreads and never went back.
The ringleaders were mostly unsuccessfully self-published authors who harassed established stars as well as newbie writers. They criticized successful authors for their “greed” in charging money for their work and gamed Goodreads for free hard-copy books, which they’d give bogus one-star “reviews,” then sell unread on ebay.
Newbie authors who didn’t know the group’s unwritten “rules” were punished with sadistic glee.
They attacked victims with swarms of one-star “reviews” on Goodreads and Amazon that contained character assassination lies, personal attacks, rape threats, and even death threats — what I call “weaponized” reviews.
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