Glynn Marshes writes:
Trouble on the literary scene!
A couple of Brit writers–RJ Ellory and Stephen Leather–were caught posting sock puppet reviews on Amazon.
Their probable undoing: they didn’t stop at giving their own books 5 stars. They also posted negative reviews of other authors. Heh.
Now a “group of leading British authors” (49 in all) “including bestselling writers Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Susan Hill, Val McDermid and Helen FitzGerald” are mounting a spirited assault against fake book reviews.
Their plan of attack, naturally: write a letter.
“These days more and more books are bought, sold, and recommended online, and the health of this exciting new ecosystem depends entirely on free and honest conversation among readers . . .
“But some writers are misusing these new channels in ways that are fraudulent and damaging to publishing at large.
“Few in publishing believe they are unique. It is likely that other authors are pursuing these underhand tactics as well.”
(According to the article, btw, Ellory has sold over a million books. Can you imagine sitting on those kinds of cumulative sales numbers, and then wasting your time playing sock puppet games on Amazon?)
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
I love this post. Thank you! Me, I feel so sorry for writers these days. Publishers put all this pressure on them to have these great Amazon reviews and Facebook pages and Twitter followers. When in reality, in most cases, none of that sells books. But they have to satisfy their bosses. BUT they shouldn’t be publishing negative reviews of writers they see as competitors. And yet, that still strikes me as one of the awful things that publishing today has done to writers — god forbid anyone should have a better Amazon ranking than you do, even if it’s only for one day.
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Funny story, tks for the link and the thoughts. Fake reviews … I dunno. I can see some ways they’re bad things. But I’d hate to have anything really stern done about them. I think most people (or at least many people) are aware that not all reviews are purely “objective” (and “ha” to objectivity anyway, of course), and that they’re likely to run into reviews by friends, authors, publishers, etc in and among the more legit reviews. Plus: getting too moral about the question might make some places start to insist that participants use real names. As a big fan of writing-on-the-web-using-a-pseudonym, I don’t want any of that!
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@QL thanks!
@Paleo — one of the things that amuses me about this story is that the writers are more upset than (I imagine) readers would ever be.
Many years back –when self-pubbing was still vanity press — I helped to out a self-pubbed writer who littered Amazon w/ sock puppet reviews. The writer responded by threatening to sue. One of the people he threatened — a guy who ran a small literary publishing house — backed down and removed everything he’d written about it from his website. But I figured hey, it’s not libel, it’s the truth. I screencapped all the evidence in case I’d need it, and left my posts up.
Finally took them down a year or so ago as part of a general blog-cleaning — and because now that I self-pub it seems indecorous to be too harsh on others who do, even if they’re pretty clueless . . .
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