It’s the first
Wednesday of the month.
And this month, I’m
one of Alex’s minions and
will be visiting as
many ISWG posts in my assigned section as I can.
Sooooo…I had all these good things I wanted to share
regarding my progress on Amazon. With
the assistance of a well-liked promoter who’s helping me spread the word of a
forthcoming event, I was able to reach the attention of a particularly
influential book blogger who then subsequently posted her intention to read my
book on both her Facebook page and my book’s Goodreads page.
As a result, I enjoyed a profusion of GR TBRs and Amazon
sales, and my rank dropped to its lowest level ever in the mid 4-digit arena. That was an amazing moment for me.
But then this thing
exploded on the Internet at about the same time and kind of sucked the wind
from my sails.
Seems there was a new contemporary romance released on
Amazon and Barnes & Noble called Amazingly
Broken. It was all the rage and
immediately became an Amazon bestseller.
Shortly thereafter, romance book blogger, Jane Litte of Dear Author, noticed
some passages in this new book that sounded eerily similar to two other books
she’d read, reviewed, and loved—Tammara Webber’s Easy and Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful
Disaster.
Of course, the online book blogging community went ape over
this revelation, with good reason, I imagine, as they take a great deal of
their time to read and review books for many indie and small press authors who
otherwise get very little publicity. The
trouble was, these bloggers, especially Jane Litte, who felt somehow betrayed even though they’d
received the books for free and enjoyed it enough to give it 5 stars,
immediately became suspicious of all
indie and small press authors and proceeded to conduct a witch hunt of sorts,
calling out authors who use pen names or don’t use headshots for their avatars as probable fakes
and plagiarists. Funny thing is, Jane Litte is a pen name, too.
While I understand their anger at feeling duped and am just
as outraged by this brazen incident as they are, the backlash their reactions
are having on indie and small press authors is significant. Many are now being frozen out, or made to prove who they are
and that they actually wrote what they’re claiming is their book. So now these bloggers, who proudly proclaim
to support and promote indie authors, are lashing out at them. And just as word and reaction to this event
has spread like wildfire among the blogging community, so has the fear this
backlash has created spread among us hard-working, honest, and legitimate
authors.
Compliments of GR
user Candace
As if it wasn’t already hard enough to find and convince a highly respected and heavily followed book blogger to consider reading, reviewing, and promoting our books, now we have to prove we are legitimate, all because one wannabe “writer” decided to take the lazy way and steal the work of others. While I am highly irritated at those bloggers who lashed out so hatefully, especially Jane Litte who continues her march on this witch hunt, I also have an issue with this fake author, Jordin Williams, who's making it hard on the rest of us. But that’s as much time and effort I’m willing to give these thieves and haters. Okay, rant over.
