The F Plus - 213: You're Reviewing It Wrong

Episode Date: May 27, 2016

A self-published author has a difficult job to do when it comes to promotion. They've got to follow sales, trends, promotions, press, design, and beyond all that, they go on Good Reads and yell at people who didn't like their book. Well, maybe they shouldn't do that last part, but the subjects of today's episode do that anyway. We're looking at authors who, around the internet, show up to berate, insult, and argue with people who say unfavorable things about a book they've written. It's kind of like the Correct The Record PAC, except without the funding. This week, listeners will say wonderful things about this episode (and they already are), but who in the world are you?

My name's Amazon customer. I read this as a PDF. Five stars. I love PDF. The format was awesome. Okay. It was like right there. I swear to God, I'm reading this.

Together, Vanks and his dog familiar Sir Poops-a-Lot Thorn, Cheldaflar and her elven lover Moonzy, along with Garilal, Prince G Crescent and a host of others give all they have to keep the Trigon from destroying the heart tree now Moonzy is just offensive toast that is our word

you can't use that word you can't use Moonzy back. This is the F plus podcast, a very well read place for terrible things. Red with enthusiasm in the room tonight. We have John toast. MT Dismuke is a new self-published author who just wanted to know why the readers weren't more grateful for getting free books, which is a perfectly legitimate question. Bunny bread. The Tale of the Sword and the Elf and the Dragon and the

Shield and the Dildo and the Goblin and the Other Dragon and the Golden Clit. Yes, Fahan. This episode was a lot funnier before that idiot Isfahan messed it up in editing. Boots ring here! Queen Coridallis needs a certain shard to cast a beckoning so that the emerald-eyed champion of lore might come and save them all,

for he is the one who can end the horror witch. And Lemon. This isn't a book about lesbians. It's like Indiana Jones meets Alice meets alice in wonderland only with swords and pixies and wild creatures instead of rabbits but it's a great book join thorn bristle and barb the pixie queen's fiercest smartest and most loyal elves as they take a thrilling journey out of the most protected world into the true overland where danger hides right every corner oh come, come on boots.

You had me at elves. I was led to the edge of yet another Matthias cliffhanger. And there he gave me whiplash and reminded me why his stories are so unpredictably good. No cliffhanger this time. Let's call it a shocker. Oh, let's not.

Thanks. And his new companions decide to travel deep into the Bitter Peaks, where a fable before witches' miracles was supposed to be a sex crime. You see me higher, higher, higher. You see me higher, higher, higher. You see me higher. Hey, F-Less. Yeah. Hey, Lemon. What's up, Lemon? Hey, what areLess. Yeah.

Hey, Lemon. What's up, Lemon? Hey, what are your opinions on literature? Ain't got none. Not a fan of it. Reading's for nerds. You mean like webcomics, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Webcomics. You mean like pictures of titties? Oh, my God, right? Webcomics aren't for nerds. You know what? You mean webcomics aren't for nerds. You know what? You people are so uncultured that it's really annoying because you haven't been spending enough time on goodreads.com.

Oh, that's pictures of booties. No, no, it's not. I don't know how you would infer that from what I just said. I'll bow out of this, then. I'm clearly not the target audience. bow out of this then i'm clearly i just i'm not the target audience yeah so goodreads uh is a website um where people uh can sort of read or write about the books that they've written and communicate with other people that they've written um and then sometimes and every once in a while the author shows up um to respond to the reviews of the author's own books. Classy. I'm sure it's always quite

civil, right? Well, I don't know for sure, except for I know that this is a document given to us by Cheapskate and it is entitled, Authors Who Can't Take Criticism. The kind of authors who have to keep an eye on Goodreads and jump in whenever

they see something that needs policing. Yeah, so we're going to learn about these authors and how they respond to the criticism put upon them and the conversation they're in. So we'll start off with you, Esfahan. Your name is Dylan Sacocchio. Sacocchio? Sacocchio.

Yeah. Dylan Sac. And you've written a couple novels, but I need you to just tell... Oh, you have a Wix site that's down. But I want you to tell me a little bit about yourself, would you? All right. I am a douchebag wearing some sort of frilly outfit, and I have a steampunk revolver, it looks like.

Sure do. I grew up in Boston, Mass... I thought that was a bow. No, no, it's a pistol. Oh, okay. Dylan... Who is me? Dylan Succocio is me.

I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island before moving to Manhattan at 18 years old to pursue my career as an actor. That's why I'm writing books now. Oh, good. And since I'm obviously not the person who wrote this, I will just go to the third person. Okay.

He grew up playing every sport. Every sport. Like what? Fishing, sailing, and breaking rules. Those are the three sports that there are. Did you do letter and breaking rules? Yeah, no. Well, I was JV.

That's not embarrassing. It was such an upset when Norway got gold in Breaking Rules. Yeah, there's just a bunch of bad boys up there in Scandinavia. Anyway, he's been writing for as long as he's been acting. And playing guitar for 12 years in the style of John Frusciante and Jimi Hendrix. My fingers are so bloody. That sounds painful. I wish I could stop.

Have you been doing drugs in the style of John Frusciante and Jimi Hendrix as well? His roommate has. He did drugs and then set his guitar on fire. All in the same day. He moved to Los Angeles at 20 years old, so he's in Manhattan for two fucking years. Temporarily, before moving there permanently the following year. Good, good.

This is important shit. Yeah. Not sure of the logistics of that. After 12 months, he's like, no, I'm not leaving your couch, Brad. Fine, I'll get my own place. Jesus Christ. He had an apartment that was too high in rent, and then after looking for another apartment,

he found one that was lower in rent, and then lived there. And this bed was just right. Tired of reading these bios of authors just to move from one place to another. I need to know about the process. Well, in his never-ending journey to attain his highest and best self... Oh, God. All right, Patrick Bateman. What's the audio equivalent of making a jerk-off motion with your hand?

We can explore many different avenues. The 2008 crash jolted him to awaken from the American nightmare of being a gangster for capitalism. You weren't making any motherfucking money! Yeah. The 2008 crash affected people who, like, owned things. Had money. Things any motherfucking money. Yeah. The 2008 crash affected people who owned things. Had money. Like property. Anyway.

Among the many screenplays he wrote, his magnum opus is The Tale of Onora, a series... Do you want me to click more and keep reading? Yeah, sure do. A series that is a metaphorical tale of his life. Yeah. Moving around from city to city. For every thousand people hacking at the branches of evil, only one is hacking at the root of it.

All right. In The Boy and the Peddler of Death, every conscious solution to today's collectivist problems is blended into a fantasy tale that tells the story of us all. For there is no great story that did not dance with the truth. Oh, my God. Dumb words have never been spoken. And can you tell me all of the books that you've written, Dylan?

Sure. I have written four books. Okay. Okay. The Boy and the Peddler of Death, of course, which is the tale of Onora of Volume 1. Right. The tale of...

It's got one and, like, three-quarter stars out of five. The Girl with the Solar Eyes, which is Volume 2. One and one-third star. That sounds painful. Yeah, that's one and less than a half a star. So, then there's The Tale of Onora, The Boy... No, that's the same one. Okay.

So, I wrote two books twice. Took a while, but, you know, you can't think of a better way to copy things. That's the same one. Okay. So I wrote two books twice. Took a while, but you can't think of a better way to copy things. And the second time I wrote The Boy and the Peddler of Death, it got a lower rating than the first time. It seemed kind of derivative from the first one. There's a click on Goodreads to combine editions, and if you click that, it wants you to log in. Eh, fuck it. So, toast uh your name uh is kate um and uh you've read a bit of uh dylan's work you read the boy and the peddler of death i'm not sure which edition

um but you had an opinion about that would you uh tell me your opinion i will and this was just so unnecessarily wordy and pretentious. I just did not enjoy it at all. Which makes me sad because the summary says it's for fans of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and World of Warcraft. Yep. I wonder why it says that. Hey, do you like popular things? This. AKA three of my favorite things.

Writing on the coattails of something more popular, what? So how did I load this so entirely from page one? I don't know. Ooh, I do, I do. Hands up, pick me. Oh, Dylan, okay. Thanks, maybe you can give me, tell me, tell me. Oh, yeah, I'll review, thanks.

Tell me why you suck so bad. Yeah. Suck so bad she was confused by it. Okay. And what's your response to Kate? Sorry that my book evoked such a horrible response. Oh, no problem. It's fine.

May I ask how you discovered it? I'm an indie author. I work over 100 hours a week. No, you don't. Monitoring Good a week. No, you don't. Monitoring Goodreads. No, you don't. He counts monitoring Goodreads as work. Well, then yes, you do.

I work over 100 hours a week to get my books to succeed, so I don't have to be a slave anymore. This review is not good for my business, so unless your desire is to ruin my dreams, it would mean a great deal if you could remove this review from my work and forget about it. But if it's your desire to hurt me

financially and ruin my business, then it's understandable why you would post such a harmful review. I'm just curious as to how you discovered the book, as most of my sales are made through people I meet on social media. Um, Dylan, it's me, Kate. You shoved it in my hands like 50 times a day saying, hey.

And here's my passive-aggressive ending. Best, Dylan Sococcio. Aw, that's nice. Well, you certainly shouldn't apologize. I don't think you did. The book has a number of good reviews so far, so obviously plenty of people enjoy it. I just wasn't one of them.

I found it on a Listopia list of books released in April, to answer your initial question. Poor Kate. She's such an innocent soul. Skip that middle paragraph. All right. I'm not going to remove my review, because that would be a lie. I've read it. I did not enjoy it. I'm within my rights to say so. However, I did

write it in a rush to move on to other things and if you'd like, I'll go back and reword and expand. I'll come up with more words for I don't know. No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Get rid of this review. Do you want me to write more? The characters were terrible.

Slang. Three R's in that terrible. Slang out. He's like three R's in that terrible. Happy? I'll go back and reword and expand to say more that I simply didn't like it so that others may see it and think those things might not bother them. Okay. I'm not here to police Goodreads. It's just a side benefit. Leaving a one-star review on a book

says much more about what kind of person does such a thing. One that doesn't like your book? And then tax it for being, get this, pretentious. As if that's a real word. Yeah, I don't know what that word is,

and I'm a writer. Which is an erroneous statement that is a defamation at best. Yep, not pretentious. By all means, if you feel like this is what's going to make you a righteous person, leave the up. Just leave it up there. Get out of here! Get the fuck out of up! And they stay there, and they stay there.

And they stay there! I'm happy I could be your capital Ego's stepping stone. He's really trying to lay a guilt trip while abusing her at the same time. How dare you! But I don't care! I mean, it's whatever you want to say, but still, how dare you! Your opinion,

as you acknowledge, is a minority. No! I mean, there were like 500 reviews and so on that boy in the Peddler of Death. Look, I'm a great writer, but I don't know how important prepositions are when saying stuff like, your opinion is a minority. I'm just always amazed that someone would go out of their way to slander someone's work like this.

What the fuck? Again, all she did was say, I didn't like it. I'm writing a three-sentence review. I like your book. Oh my god. I didn't like it, and you have sex with animals. That was an aside, by the way, listener. You know what kind of podcast this is.

That was towards you, the listener. Yeah. You know who you of podcast this is. That was towards you, the listener. Yeah. You know who you are. Yeah. Unfortunately, capital A authors don't get to choose if their books go up on Goodreads. It's like Yelp, where essentially the only people that use it for negative reviews are those that have nothing better going on in their lives. Or they didn't like the thing.

What about the people that use it for good reviews? Well, now he's insulting the people who exposed his work on Goodreads. You're within your rights to say whatever you want. Doesn't make a right or moral action. And considering that you can read 10% of the book for free, why would you still buy it after reading the beginning? And furthermore, if you paid for it, why wouldn't you just get it refunded? How dare you buy my book, motherfucker? Bitch. You're the beginning. And furthermore, if you paid for it, why wouldn't you just get it refunded? How dare you buy my book, motherfucker?

Bitch. You're the problem. People who buy my book, they're the people I hate. This rant goes on for a very long time. Not only this rant, but this fight goes on for a very, very, very long time. Pages, pages and pages and eventually...

There's a lengthy David Lynch quote in the middle uh yeah so eventually uh kate scrubs uh scrubs the thing off of the internet uh but of course it's kept in the um uh wayback machine except for um uh kate before scrubbing this off uh you had one more thing to say well i did read the sample for free first. However, the first 10% of a book is never a really good indication of what the whole thing is like, in my opinion. A lot of things get better or they're... No!

Oh! I don't want you to do anything because you're immoral. Whoa! Wow! Leave this up so that every person henceforth can see all of you for what you are. Someone who reads books.

My books. Destructive to consciousness and humanity. Holy shit. I don't like your book. You're destroying the world. When the reckoning comes, God will reach down and smite Kate herself. The first up against the wall is the lady that didn't like this book. What you've done to me, you do to yourself.

Because if you knew anything about anything, you'd know we were all connected to each other. And instead of destroying each other's work, you'd be supporting each other. Which is why I will never behave like any of you immoral people. And I won't go seeing that you've written or done in the world so I can destroy that. No, I will only defend

my work against evil. I'm not crazy, you're all crazy. And today, all of you see why evil is kicking humanity's ass, and why the human condition is slavery. That's what the tale of Enor is about.

And if you can't grasp that, then be gone. So mote it be. Did it work? Did Cape disappear? Oh, no. Pure evil, when faced with truth, dissipates from the universe. You guys think

Dylan does cocaine or Adderall or something? No. He's in Los Angeles. Oh yeah. And then he wasn't. And then he was. And then he wasn't. We have another

person to meet here and her name is Candice Sams. She's an award winning author. It says so on the top of her WordPress page. Candace Sams. So, yeah. So, Candace Sams, just briefly, she graduated from Texas A&M with a B.S. in agriculture, worked as a police officer with the state of Texas.

A brief stint with the Texas Department of Public Safety and Undercover Narcotics Task Force. And then over to San Diego. Then she wrote fantasy novels. All of that points to her being a great wordsmith. But Lemon, you're forgetting, Candace Sams isn't her

only name. Candace Sams is not her only name. What is her other name? It's C.S. Chatterley. Ooh. Ooh. Did you hold your pinky up while saying that? Mm-hmm. It's C.S. Chatterley. Boo! Boo! Boo! Did you hold your pinky up while saying that? Mm-hmm.

Good. So, Boots, you read a book by C.S. Chatterley. I do not, can't tell right now. Oh, wait. Oh, no, I don't know what book you read. But you read a book by C.S. Chatterley know what what book you read um but you read a book uh by cf chatterly and uh what did you think of it i'm lb taylor and i think save your money oh what what yeah i wish pbb's review was here when i ordered this book and i could have saved my money what was supposed

to be a light-hearted futuristic romance with laughs was anything but. Sagan Carter, an Earth police woman, meets up with Captain Keir Trask. An Oceanum. An Oceanun. He's an aquatic nun.

Meets up with Captain Darwin Dawkins. An Oceanun. An Oceanun, yeah. Ocean nun. Together, they're supposed to thwart an intergalactic weapons plot in L.A. that could potentially kill thousands from throughout the galaxy. Only thousands?

Across the whole galaxy. I'm glad I get a primer on the plot. That sounds helpful. Within a week, they clash because their dominant personality is but pine for each other. The weapons plot is passed back and forth throughout the story, and the romance is weak and unbelievable between Sagan and Kier. There are hidden lies, and Kier cannot trust his best friend, and second in command even though they have known and worked with each other for years.

I figured out who the number one baddie was long before it was revealed and yes there is unnecessary meanness and spite which does not help the storyline don't spoil everything if anything it diminished it all over a sad excuse for romance mystery and humor save your money you've been warned great all right so to that end um bunny bread uh your name is night flyer one um and the the important thing to know about night flyer one is night flyer one is not the author night flyer one if you only remember one thing it's that night flyer one is not the author of this book okay how could you look into the button eyes and cotton body of Nightflyer1 and think that kind of thing? It's all right, it's all right.

Those aren't fingers moving. How dare you. I'm Nightflyer1. Hello. It looks like this reviewer has something personal against the author. Apparently, he slash she doesn't know that most titles of this kind are written to please an editor these days, and the editors are sometimes wrong in asking authors to rewrite to, quote, their, quote, specifications. When will we get the director's cut of this book?

vacations. When will we get the director's cut of this book? She thinks this book sucks, but it only sucks because there's an editor. Okay. But this review was more a diatribe on a comparison of, quote, other stories the reader liked

as opposed to reading the title and reviewing based on the new kind of work that it was meant to be. Hey, I forgot, how many other books did you cite when you were reviewing the book? Oh, none. Okay, just checking.

Okay, just like I said, glad I could help. Well, Candace Sam sure is lucky to have somebody like Nightflyer1 in her corner. Indeed I am! She is, yes. You know what? They think alike somehow.

Yeah. Great minds do that. As stated before, it's easy to post criticism. Not so easy to, quote, accept it. These hobbies-posters are known in the professional publishing world as hit-and-run reviewers. I would suggest readers view Harriet Klausner's reviews. She's not me. She's totally not me, and she's a reviewer with experience.

And she liked my book. I mean, her book. Why is there not an Amazon feature to only show Harriet Klausner's reviews? Also, SC Chatterley is quite good. As before, and ad nauseum, clearly it is much easier to rate a book poorly than it is for the reviewer to take criticism of his or her own review. Wait a minute, now you have to take criticism of your criticism of other people? You, yes, yes.

Three lines of abstraction with criticism. This becomes less an issue of review protocol and more an issue of do unto to to others, but not do I do to do to do to unto me. Let's say do unto to others. Do not do unto to me. I'm not good at words. Do not do unto me. Let's say do unto to others. Do not do unto me. I'm not good at

words. Do not do unto me. Hey, I'm not the writer here. I'm not an author. Hey, uh, uh, skip forward to in short,

which is like the fourth last paragraph of this rant. Yes, in short. Let me sum this up. I think Goodreads should just, if you log in and register

yourself as an author and, you know, you get your own page of reviews, they just give you a no-fuck-you button. That would save a lot of typing. Yeah, I really do love how she's all, do unto others as you would do unto me. I mean, I think that's what she was getting at. Don't write a bunch of bullshit saying someone sucks, which is totally not what I'm doing to you. Like, don't write a bunch of bullshit saying someone sucks, which is totally not what I'm doing to you. Okay, so after I've posted everything from the Marine Universe, including the Who is John Galt speech, in short, the power Amazon gives, some would-be reviewers take to heart and readily, quote, slam, quote, books over and over and over,

as the reviewer in question has done time and time again. Now it sounds sexy. This becomes less a review issue and more, sad to say, someone's willingness to wield a bit of power rather carelessly. Power? Power! Anybody can review anything on Amazon. I know, and it gives them so much power! They can type things on the internet.

There are better, more intelligent ways to review even poorly written books. For some less experienced and less well read, this becomes an issue of either the book is a five or it's a one. See, that's how numbers work. You count one, five, ten, thirty, five again, then five. Thank you, I'm a mathematician. To be honest, and then five. Thank you, Mathematician. To be honest, from my experience in this podcast, most people in the world, I believe, operate at either a one or a five. That is true.

That is true. And then, so the one thing that we have to know about this review, that really hurtful review that Booth read, that super-duper hurtful review, is that it was a single review by L.B. Taylor that received 411

responses. At one point, Amazon actually went through and removed a whole bunch of NotCandaceSams comments and purged most of her responses, at which point not Candice Sam's opened up a website

at CandiceSamsArchive1.blogspot.com CandiceSamsArchive1.blogspot.com to only show her own responses that have been purged. She couldn't let all her work go to waste. I mean Nightflyer won's work go to waste. Wink wink wink, wink.

Um, and then, so yeah, so yeah, so it goes on for a while. She has, uh, she has her comments purged and that makes her angry. Um, and then on page 10 of her response to this review. Christ.

Okay, guys. I've just downloaded all the comments made on this site as per the FBI's instructions. That must have been a hell of an act, too. We skipped over. There is a credible hit on your credibility. I don't care if you believe it or not.

The threat wasn't made on this site. Please read what I wrote. It was sent elsewhere. And I don't care if you believe it or not. The threat wasn't made on this site. Please read what I wrote. It was sent elsewhere. And I don't care if you believe that either. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. So that was Candace Sams.

Sure was. Nightflyer 1, thank you. No, you're right. I'm so sorry. Nightflyer 1. I just read the comment below it and it's apparently at some point they blame the editor maybe maybe she's the editor of the fbi

the editor was the one who sent the threats sounds like her books are mainly like uh sci-fi kindle porn um prince of Luster, Griffin's Quest. There's a lot of like hunky male chests and then Starfield. It's sci-fi Kindle erotica. Thank you. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Sorry, Nightflyer1.

Do you even read, bro? Just a small bit of information. This Blogspot site is a repost of information. This blog spot site is a repost of a live journal site that had all the stuff on it. It's got double backups. This is just a Matryoshka doll of internet bullshit.

Jesus. Jesus. So, I got a review of a book. It's a book called Venice Under Glass by Stephen J. Harper. Oh, the former Prime Minister of Canada. Yeah, I think so.

I think so. He had some time, you know. Right. So, the plot and execution. The tale is recounted by the protagonist, one Basil Barker, a self-described sleuth, seeker of truth, has been summoned to Venice by his uncle Clive to help solve a rash of thefts of priceless Venetian glass from private collections and museums. A civic catastrophe described by the press as Il Maladora di Venezia. So far, this sounds like a book written in my British accent. Right.

Stog's British accent. As Basil pursues various leads and clues, he meets a wealthy philanthropist, an art historian slash tour guide with a black belt, a stereotypically clueless police inspector. No, come on, we're getting there. This is a Magritte, yeah! I'm writing out my cast of characters.

Tour guide with a black belt, a stereotypically clueless police inspector, a helpful singing gondolier, a jet ski riding gang member who is also the scion of a respected Venetian family, and a world-respected rap music artist.

He raps on the songs with the beats. Along the way, the narrator recounts various historical and cultural facts about the city, known as the Queen of the beats. Along the way, the narrator recounts various historical and cultural facts about the city, known as the Queen of the Adriatic. Oh, and also the characters in the book happen to be teddy bears. Oh. Whoa, that's wacky.

Do they go on a picnic? I hope so. I hope the forest burns down. No, this isn't the day that teddy bears have their picnic. No. I hope so. I hope the forest burns down. No, this isn't the day that teddy bears have their picnic. Nonetheless, that such a book exists at all and is published and available for sale to millions of readers encourages me. Before the bent of tools like iBooks Author and distribution channels like the iBook Store, such an exercise in self-publishing would have been an expensive undertaking for an author. While Venice Under Glass is hardly a masterpiece,

it does demonstrate that writers can now self-publish and distribute attractive books without descending into penury. Oh my god, there's a screenshot of the book and it's got CGI bear people. That seems attractive. This Second Life island sucks. So, that's my review. Isfahan, did you have anything to say about my review?

Thank you for reading Venice Under Glass and taking the time to express your thoughts. You might be interested in a new site dedicated to this entirely new genre of capital L literature made possible with iBooks author www.multitouchfiction.com

It's straight commentary, no ads, no selling, no BS. In five years, there's going to be a teddy bear mystery section of every bookstore. Well, okay, that's fair. I mean, that was a pretty straightforward thing you said. I don't think anyone

would call you untoward for that one comment that you left. So, yeah, let's just move on. FYI, a conscious decision was made not to use iBooks authors' chapter divisions. That sounds, yeah, great. Sure. conscious decision was made not to use iBooks author's chapter divisions.

That sounds, yeah, great. Sure. They look fine in a textbook or nonfiction cookbook, but they interrupted the flow of the narrative. I break the rules. I'm the John Barth of teddy bear stories. That's right. When I looked further into this, I realized why. In capital f fiction individual chapters don't have these abrupt changes that can be confusing in a narrative and were deemed inappropriate

for that reason i decided on a continuous flow with the individual chapters demarcated within the narrative like a standard novel. I do understand why you feel otherwise because not many people are aware of what iBooks author can do in this new genre of multi-touch fiction.

Oh, God. Okay, that's fine. You know, I think you clarified your point. You've said something about the review that I wrote. In fact, as of this writing, Venice Under Glass happens to be the first and only example of a multi-touch fiction novel created with iBooks author. So I can understand your confusion. Stephen J. Harper

leaves. I don't know how many of these reviews, or I don't know how many responses there are, but I would guess, just by glancing at it, I think he left a hundred responses. Yeah. To, uh, um,

This is to someone who said, basically, I read your book. Yeah, like, I didn't like this, but hey, it exists. The first two words on the next page are, ironically, crude bloviations. I really like the one part where he's getting really mad at somebody saying his writing is at best workmanlike. And then he quotes part of his book. And, I mean, yeah, they're not wrong. And then he responds. See, he's thinking, I mean, yeah, they're not wrong. And then he responds. See, he's thinking it's like some kind of QED masterstroke, but...

Yeah, but he responds, that's straight out of Fitzgerald and Keats, my friend. It's straight out. And Venice Under Glass is more a lyrical prose poem to Venice than anything else. Boots found a part you should start reading from there, Stephen Harper Ah, the non-serious come out to play

Naturally, you would be the uneducated, unfamiliar with critical review Yet, amazingly, you seek out opportunities to contribute What? Nothing of any value or substance.

My god! Your triviality. Do either of you contribute anything to the world of capital I ideas or capital A art? How many bear books have you written? I think none, sir. And just

how would you respond if you had created something of value that someone thoughtlessly tore down oh like a dumb child I think yeah if you're reviewing a book today you're in for a big surprise okay so this fight with Mr. Harper goes on for a very, very, very long time. I really think this is the former Prime Minister of Canada.

Okay, yeah. Did that Stephen Harper respond equally as well to criticism? Oh, yes. Well, no, he didn't respond to anything. He didn't make any public talk. Okay. Was he also Thurston Howell III? Yeah.

Yay! Let me introduce you a little bit here to an Amazon writer by the name of M.R. Mathias. His photo is himself, and he looks like a doughy white guy with his hat on backwards. And his photo's in black and white white and then he has a gold ring that he put a whole bunch of lens flare on and colored it. He's Green Lantern. He's a member of the Green Lantern Corps, Lemon.

Oh, of course. Oh, Bunny Bread went for that joke too. Wow. Boots suck it. But yeah, M.R. Mathias is the author of the huge international best-selling epic, The Warstone Trilogy. Book one was The Sword and the Dragon. Book two is Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools.

You cannot get any more fucking generic sounding than that. And book three is called The Wizard and the Warlord. Holy shit. There's also The Dragoneer saga. Book one was the Royal Dragoneers. Book two was Cold-Hearted Son of a Witch. Book three. Book six is Blood and Royalty.

Fantasy book. The book. Swords and magic. Jesus Christ. Book four of The Legend of Vance Malick is Jesus Christ, these just keep going. Book four of The Legend of Vance Malick is That Frigid Fargan Witch. Oh my god.

A.K.A. my ex-wife, huh? You guys know what I'm talking about. Yeah, well, also... There's the Crimson and Clover series, which has book three, The Grog, book four, The Wrath of Crimson, Killer of Giants,

and book six, One Bad Bitch. Book seven, The Copyright Infringement Injection. The Wrath of Crimson looks like a cut-rate Dungeons & Dragons third-party adventure module. Oh, really? Something on this page looks like cut-rate Dungeons and Dragons shit. Which one?

Okay, so M.R. Matthias rose from unknown to an award-winning, best-selling author at a pace most authors can only dream about. He is a prolific writer of epic fantasy novels, novellas, and short stories. Despite his busy writing, publishing, and

promotional schedule, Matthias continues to aid his fellow indie authors by posting about their books at Twitter and Facebook, etc. At them. Throws them. Matthias has taken cross-promotion to a new level in his Indie Kindy giveaways

where he gives away a free Kindle Touch! Or a Kindle Fire loaded with independently published books. Please read my books. I'll give you a tablet. I can read them. Loaded with his books. These events create a great deal of interest for the authors

involved and to independently publish books as a whole. It is a pleasure working with M.R. Mathias and watching his amazing run at the top of the Amazon bestseller list. Now please let my wife go. So

that was obviously the words of a different human being, but now some words that are from Mathias himself. The jewel you see glowing in the ring in my author's photo isn't really a jewel at all it is a crystallized tear of a real dragon hey where are you going in my novel the royal dragon ears you might find the moment where this wonderfully magical teardrop fell from a green dragon's eye. It hardened on its way down to land

in a mess of troll corpses that the dragon was laying on. And I was that troll corpse. My grandfather died before I was born, but the ring was given to me by my mother after my grandmother recently died. My grandfather had apparently

won it in a poker game near the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma sometime in the early 1900s. This is what you call world building. It's an heirloom passed down from gambler to gambler. Yes, exactly. It's not bullshit. The far off land of Oklahoma. It has been a boon to the magic of the teardrop. For it brought you here to me, didn't it? Now treat yourself to something fantastic

and try out the free sample of one of my novels. I hope you enjoy the journey. It will be spectacular! Thanks, M.R. Matthias. I think he's just thanking himself. When you said it will be spectacular, I just visualized you doing the showgirls

hand thing. Yeah, I did picture kind of a stage magician. I kind of did that. It will be spectacular. I heard it. My author's credibility isn't a trick, it's an illusion. Alright. Alright, so this is a post from M.R. Matthias. I think, Bunnybread, you take over for me here.

M.R. Matthias was an active member on the fantasy-fiction.com forums, but he has since been banned. I can't imagine what happened there. This topic title is like, this is like F plus gold a topic title like this. But yes, Bunny Red, what is the topic of your

post? Maud, please read this post! Alright, Popcorn Tub, here we go. Dad! Dad! Don't make me turn this forum around. Okay. My name is Mr. Matthew S. Oh, you changed your name.

Mr. Matthew S. I am not a small press. I am an author with 18 titles for sale. That is more titles than some big publishing houses. I have advertising currently running in Locus, Publishers Weekly,

Fantasy, and Sci-Fi and Revolver magazines. Oh, well then. Yeah. I blog advertising across the entire blogosphere. The whole thing. Did you see me wave my hand as I said that? The entire thing, too. I feel like it's a big sphere.

The whole sphere. I am not a small press or even a self-published. Mr. Mathias books are published by Michael Rob Mathias Jr. Also, he wrote blogosphere as blog hyphen O hyphen sphere, which makes it look like a carnival ride. Yeah, the blogosphere. Can you survive ten seconds on a blogosphere? No, I can't.

No, it sounds like an old... It's written like an old gimmick, like after talkies came out, like a new movie gimmick. But that's a long time. In sound-o-vision. He forgot to turn off the old man spelling part of his brain. Michael Robb, I should be treated more differently

than any big name publisher title. Why? Because I do my job as a publisher too. So please quit sending my posts into the self-published or small press draft. Oh, now we get to the chokehold of it. My titles are neater.

I have 92 bazillion Twitter followers at Dagman and 10 titles in there. The genre best-selling is there is nothing self-published or small about books written by M.R. Mathias!

There you go. Mr. Mathias Publisher, Michael Rob Mathias Jr. You just said in your post you published them yourself. That's a different guy. That's my son, the lord of Mathias. And Boots, now you're going to take over for M.R. Mathias, or Mathias, or however

you choose to pronounce it. Reply number six, and that's a response to Anne Lyle, who says, you say that you have ten titles in bestseller lists. And I say, ten titles in whose genre bestseller lists? Twitters? You publish your own books. Ergo, you are self-published. I agree with Lor. This should have been dealt with discreetly, not by throwing a tantrum on the forum. I'm, uh, M.R. Mathias.

FYI, read the heading for this post. It's for mods, not you. You broke the rules. Um, excuse me, I wasn't talking to you. You're not invited. There is no aggressive tone, ma'am. And if Stephen King suddenly started King Publishing, would he be a self-publisher?

Yes, he would! I think not. If he started a company and used that company to publish his own books, then yes, he's a self-publisher. It would be a Stephen King self-published author. Yes. I think not. Oh, never mind, he thinks not. I think not. Oh, never mind. He thinks not.

I think not. A pen name is a brand, and mine is selling books at a level above a ton of big publishers' imprints. Okay. If you want numbers behind that, go fuck yourself. Here at Sour Graves Publishing.

Not in the text, but should be. For me wanting to be treated as such is no crime, nor should it cause offense. When people see my titles and posts in the self-pubbed area that groups me with them, I am proud to have risen from those roots. And for you to chastise me over this request is, well, sick and petty.

Sick, you say? I'm no longer a member of the mewling self-published masses. I want my books to be placed on the level they are actually on. Where is the wrong side of that? To respond, though, if you don't read my books, that is your loss. Really,

it is your loss. I have a 4.5 star rating after 90 reviews on Barnes & Noble. Oh, 90 whole people. Wow. Apparently someone likes them. If you chose not to read one of the best fantasy trills

ever written, then by all means take a pass. No, I've read Lord of the Rings. Also, all of his trills have like seven books. Oh, trilogy. Okay. And then one of the fun things that happens

here on fantasyfiction.com, which I've also seen on other self-published author sites, is that there's a fucking just giant slap fight of like, uh, how famous are you? My 92,000 Twitter followers

want to know. Will my 120,000 Twitter followers think you're an asshole? Oh boy. Finally, some quantifiable dick measuring going on on the internet. By the way, he calls this e-bullying at one point, which I find delightful.

E-bullying. Also, I think he's not giving himself enough credit. Depending on what he sits on, I'm sure he could be a small press. I am a publishing powerhouse. I have all these reviews and followers. Oh, you're bullying me. You said words. I sell 18 books, which makes me bigger than large press companies.

That doesn't make sense to me. Penguin wishes they were me. They're only publishing 17 books. The next writer that we're going to be focusing on here. A little known author, I believe. Yeah, yeah. Just another independent self-published author, I think. a little known author I believe yeah yeah just another just independent self-published author I think her name

is Anne Rice ooh that Anne Rice that Anne Rice and that Anne Rice has a what do you want to say open letter that she wants to

that she wants the public to read so very good Anne if you've got an open letter that she wants the public to read. So, very good, Anne. If you've got an open letter for us to read, then we will happily do that. John Toast, if you'll take that, please. Ah, finally, the role I was born to play. Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work.

In fact... That's a good New Orleans accent you have there. Thank you. I a good New Orleans accent you have there. Thank you. I'm from... I'm from New Orleans. For some reason, we're all adopting extremely haughty tones when we read these. I like jazz and beignets.

I believe you. Which is our word for donut, I think? Yep. In fact, the entire development of my career has been fueled by my ability to ignore denigrating and trivializing criticism as I realize my dreams and my goals. However, there is something compelling about Amazon's willingness to publish just about anything. Agreed. In the sheer outrageous stupidity of many things you've said here, that actually touches my proletariat and democratic soul. Wow.

Also, I use and enjoy Amazon, and I do read the reviews of other people's books in many fields. In sum, I believe in what happens here, and so I speak. Are you speaking, everyone? Are you going to get to it? Or are we just going to... First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you who have posted outrageously negative comments here. Not all.

Okay, we're going to come back to listening. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You got me there. Yeah. I'm not 16 anymore. You are projecting your own limitations on it,

and you are giving a whole new meaning to the words wide readership. Oh, y'all fat. Yeah, that's so sick. Your mom is'all fat. Was that a fat snap? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Your mom was such a bad reader. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Was that a fat snap by Anne Rice?

Yeah. Okay. I'll let that sit. She's a triathlete. Oh, damn, I went there. And you have strained my Dickensian principles to the max to the max and Dickensian

I'm an orphan skateboarding with some Mountain Dew do you feed orphans gruel is that your Dickensian principle please sir I want some more to the max I'm justifiably proud of being read by intellectual

giants and waitresses in trailer parks. In fact, I love it. But who in the world are you? Down to the book. Allow me to point out. Nowhere in this text are you told that this is the last of the Chronicles.

Nowhere are you promised curtain calls or a finale. Nowhere are you told there will be a wrap-up of all of the earlier material. There we go. Yeah, I mean, other than, like, the nature of fiction, having a beginning and a middle and an end, but other than that, yeah. The text tells you exactly what to expect, and it warns you specifically. Lots of gay sex. And it warns you

specifically that if you did not enjoy Memnock the Devil, you may not enjoy this book. So you gotta read this other book to see if you'd like this book. Is there a warning label on the book? Warning, do not read if. This book is by and about a hero

who many of you have already rejected. The devil? Yeah, the devil. He's the hero. And he tells you that you are likely to reject him again. I just gave so many clues that you shouldn't read my book. What the fuck's wrong with you? I'm sorry, Anne.

And this book is most certainly written, every word of it, by me. We haven't mentioned it at this point, but this was all a response to a review of a book by Anne Rice called Blood Canticle. Just in case anyone cares about that sort of context. Okay. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it. You blood canticle. And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited and organized and polished myself.

Wow, she's actually saying this isn't the fault of the editor. Yeah, I don't believe you. Like, you're saying I've never been edited? I refuse to be edited? I don't believe that at all. I fought a great battle to achieve the status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands

of me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not collaborative art. Back to the novel itself. The character who tells the tale is my Lestat.

Oh, this keeps going. How does this elevator have a thousand floors? Yeah, so, I mean, the thing that I was most confused by mean, the thing that I was most confused by, Anne, and the thing that I was most confused by was the entire relationship between Lestat

and Uncle Julian. That was the part that I was the most confused by. Do you have anything to say about that? The entire relationship between Lestat and Uncle Julian is carefully worked out, but I leave it to readers to discover how this complex and intricate novel establishes

itself within a unique, if not unrivaled, series of book. Yes, book ten in the Vampire Chronicles. Why does everybody think their book is unique? It's not a book series, it's a series of book. There are things to be said. And I've said them all No, that's just there are things to be said

And there is pleasure to be had And readers will say wonderful things About Blood Canticle And they already are There are readers out there, and plenty of them Who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles Which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you, and I am warmed by their response.

Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face-to-face exchanges on the road. Hey, I like Blood Cannicle. Thank you. Bye. Finally! Thank you. Bye. Finally! Thank you, Mira. I will live for another day upon your praise. These things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post. But I feel I've said enough.

Really? Really? That's weird, because you haven't gotten to 400 pages yet, which seems to be your general... I've said enough. Actually, you know what? If this reaches one reader who is curious about my work and shocked by the ugly reviews here,

I've served my goals. And yo, you dude, the slang please. What? Lestat talks like I do. He always has and he always will. You really wouldn't much like being around either

one of us. And you don't have to be. If anyone wants to say anything about this by all means, email me at annobrianriceatmac.com She's actually saying you want to take this outside. Yeah. Oh, you want to step into my email inbox? Come on.

Bring it on, bitch. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 123... and there's an address in New Orleans. I'm not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more thank God

the end 40,000 pages and we finally got to the end so the very last thing that we're going to be focusing on here is a site called Write Absolute Reviews

Write Absolute Reviews of Bully Boards is a blog dedicated to collecting testimonials and documenting facts regarding acts of cyberbullying and defamation, bad writer advice, malware banner advertising, and various matters of charade and inanity performed on the forums of absolute rights. Well, brevity is the soul of wit.

Yeah, so I guess absolute rights would then be like a popular-ish, ugly, very ugly forum where Amazon writers talk to each other, and then this is sort of the

drama board of that very thing. Oh, an entire website dedicated to sniping at another website or forum. I'm getting so nostalgic here. I know, I know. It used to be a thing. And they always sucked. Yeah, they did. Hi, visitors from Bow News. Your website is terrible.

So. This is... Click here to bulb this section of the podcast. So, this is about the war blog and why we do this. Bunnybread, if you'll just, I guess, start reading, please. Like the mentally conflicted origins of superheroes in the comics, our origin also began as the result of a long and drawn-out bloody trauma initiated by anonymous fantasy writers resident on the tacky forum board known as Absolute Right. It began one day quite suddenly.

A friend's email alerted us. Have you Googled your name or business lately? We did so, one day, quite suddenly, a friend's email alerted us. Have you Googled your name or business lately? We did so. And there, fourth place in the search results was a link to Absolute Right. And a little comment below the link. Bewares, background check, recommendations. Wow, he's got a weird accent. My wife and I did a big, whoa, bewares, background check.

Who was background checking us and what right or qualifications did they have? Who was looking at things on the internet? And how did this link jump so high on Google? What bothered us from the start was that their wording presented us as something potentially ominous. After all, the word wasn't review. It was beware. Why did anyone have to beware of us?

We clicked. We'll get to that. We clicked on the link, and there it was. Nearly two pages of incredibly negative and misinformed snarky comments by at least seven, count them, seven different absolute right members. All. All of whom

appeared as anonymous creatures. Stones, cats, and whiffs of vapor. And all with signatures promoting their self-published or e-published fantasy books. All of them had avatars. Except for a couple of them didn't have avatars. Yes, you've heard of these things? Boys have avatars.

That is terrifying. I'm so sorry. The kind of books with the stock covers and predictable hack titles and all of the venom fomented at the top of the first page by a ridiculous floating fairy thing that called itself Hapisophic.

Did I pronounce that right? Is there a correct pronunciation? Who knows? Apparently this... So your wife and you made the enormous mistake of believing you could straighten things out, right? Maybe. Okay. So far the writing makes me think this person skews kind of older.

Now this windmill doesn't have enough jousting marks on it. Time to throw my lot in. enough jousting marks on it. Time to throw my lot in. My wife and I made the enormous mistake of believing we could straighten things out by going on the forum and telling the truth.

Oh, you precious summer child. That is adorable. Now, when I say enormous mistake, I am not even close. The things in Floaty Fairy Happisophy surrounded me like a pack of starving dingoes enormous mistake. I am not even close. The things in Floaty Fairy Hapisophy surrounded me like a pack of starving dingoes running down

their dinner. No matter what facts we pointed out, or links, or references, it was all shot down in the most arbitrary and hostile manner. Links or references to this being a good book? Yes. I reviewed it myself. The people on this snark forum were very unreasonable.

They were snarky. The snarky stones and cats and vapors began competing with each other to deliver the most biting comments while the happy Sophie dodged in and out with cheers for the others. It was exactly like this high school bully forums you read about all the time.

You read about them all the time. FootballCongress.com. I don't remember reading about those. I read about them all the time, yet somehow I was shocked when I encountered one. Could these things actually be functioning adults? What happened in the aftermath of all that horror? Yeah, yeah, I want to hear about that, too. What happened in the aftermath of that horror?

In the aftermath of that horror, we sought legal counsel. Oh! There's this forum and this site. They don't like our books. They said the book was bad! We were not in the States at the time, but managed to take a few attorneys via email.

They agreed that these anonymous things had committed acts of per se defamation against our business. But first, we had to find out who they were. Is that a second degree per se defamation? Hey, this guy is named Lawyer Q stunningly. And look, he has sales on Viagra, too. And to do that, we had to track down the real owners first.

I am 70 years old. This was going to be quite easy. There was also an issue of possible public figure status, which allowed these absolute right people to practically get away with murder, as the saying goes. That's the same thing. Yes, I'm a lawyer now, too. Skip two paragraphs, please. That's the same thing. Yes, I'm a lawyer now, too. Skip two paragraphs, please.

After bonding with a number of other anti-absolute right forces... Well, that sounds like defamation against absolute rights. I think you're in the absolute wrong, buddy. We are freedom fighters. They are terrorists. Fair enough. Yes, we are working to create a joint task force of people who have one goal. To pull the fangs out of absolute right by any legal means necessary, and to reveal the ongoing fraud they perpetrate by claiming to be a source of good information for writers.

What do you mean? They, like, take down their website? Cut off their fingers? What are you talking about, their fangs? We have one goal to stop anyone from saying something mean about me. What are you talking about? We have one goal to stop anyone from saying something mean about me. On the upper level for Melody Sherman, the owner,

it's about selling click-through banner and Google advertisements in the forum trenches. It's about e-published writers trying to sell their books by getting visibility and conflict threads. Or about amateur writers kissing up to the others in hopes of gain. In other words, there is no reason to be fair or good. No, there's not. No, no, no. It's, you know, it's, it's, uh, that's, uh, that's the statement of a peacetime consulary.

If absolute right were run by good people, they would have contacted us and requested an online interview and discussion in their forum. Allowed us to present our side. No, no, this is true. This is absolutely true. I am God. Allowed us to present our side and take questions while moderating in

a way that respects everyone. It's almost like none of those things were their objectives. So, um, I, so as you were reading there, um, I was, uh, learning a little bit more um, little bit more about right absolute reviews of bully boards. And the people here, the people at Bunny Bread was reading there, very, really, really crazy. really, really crazy.

And these are people who have started an entire website about the defamation that they feel that they've suffered. And one of the things that they've done is tried to dox anyone that said anything mean about them and try to post their real photos online. Their lawyers are cool with that. I would imagine. Oh my god, yeah. Absolutely.

This is great. I do love the ad they have on the side about, like, trying to, like, post pictures of the people that this site is against. Right. And one of them, they could only find their avatar, so it's like seven pictures of people and then just a picture of a cat. This cat has been writing horrible

reviews. Take them down. Oh god. This cat has been writing horrible reviews. Take him down. Oh, God. Yeah, this is a no-bully zone. Absolutely. And they started out another site against the same thing, but at Goodreads,

that we didn't have time for, but yeah, the same general tack. F+, what did we learn from any of this? I don't want to write ever. I don't think it'll come up, but I just want to declare it. Never judge a book by its thin, thin skin. I learned that if these people

had some self-awareness, turned this on themselves, and then wrote a book about the characters there being on these websites, that would be a way more interesting book than anything they ever wrote. I would totally read about the new Ignatius Day Riley of the

CyberAid. They don't have any dragons. That would actually be an... You're not wrong, too, because I would totally read that book if it was a situation of a crazy person genuinely writing about the insane paranoid fantasies that they thought were

real. That's a million times better than fucking Dragon Warlock witch bitch. Not only because that would be interesting but the other reason is they seem to put way more work into responding on these forums than in their actual books, from what we can tell. So we might as well put that to work.

I'm capable of having only one possible visual for genre authors in my head when doing these sorts of things. I grew up in a small town in Ontario where Ed Greenwood lived. Ed Greenwood is the creator of Forgotten Realms, the Dungeons & Dragons setting. Googling him now? Hmm? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, Google him

because you'll get some fun pictures. Oh, all right! Yeah, yeah. And so he was this sort of, like, Dungeons & Dragons legend, right? Oh, he looks it. Yeah, yeah, he is it. Yeah, yeah. He is it.

He looks it. I think I didn't give that man a dollar once. Yeah, when I was in grade nine, someone said, hey, Ed Greenwood's doing a one-off D&D thing. You should come check it out. I'm like, yeah, sure. I did it. And like 10 minutes into it, I was like i don't i don't want to be here this is

this is very awkward and it's very perverted and i am a child i mean come on but if you had seen a picture of him before like you kind of knew some part of your brain yeah like there's a red flag none of it like like this guy has no shame and so um that is exactly how I picture it. It's just this driven into my brain, this personality and attitude that is the only thing I can visualize when I see authors like this. With anything you create, you're going to put a little bit of your ego into it. Of course. That's unavoidable. And you should.

The difference comes if somebody doesn't like your thing, whether you take it personally or you say, okay, well, they didn't like that. And that's the disconnect here. I'm not saying people are wrong to not feel good when people don't like their stuff. Well, and it's not wrong to even take it personally, exactly. Well, and it's not wrong to even take it personally, exactly. Yeah, it's the disconnect. It's having a complete misunderstanding of how to correctly respond to these things and how to just have an explosion on the internet

that can really ruin everything. They don't like my thing, but I think my thing is good, so they obviously have some sort of ulterior motive for not liking my thing. And if you want to have a complete and middles understanding of how to respond to these things, you should go to Ball Pit! Where's that website?

Ballp.it That's right! Register and we've been getting a bunch of submissions of documents lately. They're very fun. We'll be doing virtual reality pornography very soon.

And, uh, yeah, thanks for listening. Come on back. Bye-bye. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Oh, you know what it is, Boots? You're not considered a resident of Los Angeles

until you've done a rail of Coke. And that's why he was living there temporarily until he got his first taste of booger sugar, and then he was there permanently. Booger sugar! Booger sugar! You guys never heard that? No!

No, I love it! I love it! Y'all don will do enough coke. I swear to God, I want to ask everyone for coke now, just to use that expression. Hey, man, you got any booger sugar? I love that both of us learned that from Isfahan.

Sorry. Well, I was happy to have expanded your horizons slightly. You got any, you know, booger sugar? All right.