Dishonest Reviews and Blackmailers

I read about something on FB yesterday and then again on a friend's blog this morning about a writer who is being blackmailed.  She got an email from some unknown person telling her that if she didn't pay, they were going to flood her books with bad ratings/reviews.  She didn't pay, and they did it.  (On Goodreads, at least.)  This dropped her new book from probably a 5-star average to a less than three star average - so far.  

First, this is a total shit thing to do.  They're screwing with a woman's livelihood here.  

Second, as readers, we should all be aware that not all ratings/reviews are honest.  In this case, it's blackmail.  In other cases, it's individuals with an axe to grind against the author.  And there are always the 'paid for' good reviews we should all already be aware of.  

If you're a reader, going off reviews and ratings helps you decide which book to lay down your hard-earned cash for.  And like many, you probably don't have the time to parse through stuff to figure out what's a real review and what's not.  Here are a few steps you can take to help you decide what's true.

Are all the questionable reviews lumped together in a short span of time?  

Do the reviewers have any kind of information about themselves on their own Goodreads pages?  No bios and no pictures are a big flag.

If there are reviews, do all the lumped reviews contradict all the other reviews?  Do they sound canned like the person couldn't have possibly read the book in question?  

Be a dear and spend a little time.  If you read the blurb and the book sounds interesting, check out the reviews themselves instead of going by the star average.  Read a little of the 'look inside' at Amazon (even if you don't buy your books there).  If the book still sounds interesting, give it a chance.  You can always return the book if you find it's not for you after all.  

And if you hear this has happened to a writer, I know the urge is to then go and give her a bunch of 5-stars to offset the bad ratings.  But this would be dishonest, too.  If you're interested in helping, shine a light on the practice so these cockroaches have nowhere to hide.  If that's not enough, and you have the spare cash, maybe buy the book and see for yourself if it's any good.  If it is, tell loads of people about it.  And then give it 5-stars.  

I hope this never happens to any of my friends.  Personally, if they tried that kind of blackmail on me, I'd have to fall over laughing.  You can't squeeze water out of a dry sponge.  Or maybe I'd turn it around and tell them that they need to pay ME a load of money so I don't report them to the authorities.  (Which I would still totally do, but hey, turnabout is fair play.)

Stealing Cover Art is Wrong, Too.

Recently, I ran across something disconcerting on Facebook (I know, I know... big surprise).  I belong to several groups for independent authors who want to post links to their books in hopes of finding new readers, etc.  On one of these groups, a person - who shall remain nameless - has been posting about their book and the cover caught my eye.  Not because it was a particularly good cover.  Nope.  The cover had the look of being homemade and the image used seemed to have been ripped off from an old crime novel. 

As you may know, I am a huge fan of old crime novels, so it wasn't hard for me to think that.  They all have a certain flavor.

So, being the sleuth, I applied my Google-fu.  I searched 'old book covers' and then the key elements of the cover in question.  Then I scrolled through the images.  Took me like five minutes to find the old cover that this author had stolen for his new book.

That rubbed my fur the wrong way, of course.  For numerous reasons which I will elaborate on later.  But I tried giving this modern-day author the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe he'd contacted the original author or artist...  Umm, they both died a long time ago.  Then I thought maybe he got permission from the original publisher.  Yeah, they're no longer in business.  Or rather, they got bought out by someone who got bought out by someone who got absorbed by one of the BIG 5.  I rather seriously doubt the BIG company gave this self-published dude permission to use an image they own, no matter how long ago it was published.

Then I wondered if maybe the copyright had run out.  Umm, if I read it right, the work doesn't become public domain for like another 27 years.  (Anything before 1923 is okee dokee, but after that, not a chance.)

So, yeah, this dude ripped it off. 

Then I went to this dude's Amazon Author Page.  He's got a ton of books and almost all of them have covers that appear to have been ripped off from old pulp fiction novels.

Gah.

Anyway, it kind of makes me wonder... If someone doesn't give a rat's ass about stealing cover art, how much of his work is actually written by him.  :shrug:  I am not willing to waste my time and money to find out.  I did do a quick 'look inside' on one of his books and noted three things - 1) he doesn't give credit to anyone for his cover art, and 2) he made damn sure he had all his copyright verbiage on HIS stuff while blatantly ignoring other people's copyrights, and 3) he fully admits to writing a fifth book in someone else's four book series from back in the '30s.

This pisses me off no end.  First, because it's STEALING.  Second, because self-published authors have a hard enough time struggling against the negative concept of the reading populace without this shit.  Third, because it was so obviously a hackjob of a cover.  You can still see pixels of where he erased the old cover.  He didn't even bother to hide what he'd done.  People like him make people like me look bad, and that really grinds my ass.

Arrgghh.

Anyway, not really sure what to do with this.  I thought about calling him on it publicly, but I really don't need a shitstorm raining down on me from a potential psycho or his psycho fans.  I thought about contacting the BIG publisher, but I doubt they would want to put forth the effort to go after this twerp.  So, here I sit.  Frustrated and angry and wanting to smack someone in the back of the head. 

And I can't even go fishing to drain off the negativity because the weather sucks and the fish aren't biting.  Ugh.

All I can do is the best I can do.  Stay on the legal and ethical side of things.  Try not to worry too much about shitheads like that.  And hope that readers will see the HUGE difference between morons like that and honest self-published authors. 

Peace out.