Domestic Violence and My Cat Kyle

The furballs found a GFM to shed some fur over.

“My cat Kyle witnessed a MURDER… a domestic violence  (DV) incident between his former humans that ended fataly.”  My Cat Kyle is raising money to support and educate DV shelters that want to co-shelter women and their pets. Pets are not immune from the physical damage caused by a domestic abuser.

This is My Cat Kyle. This is the link to his  GoFundMe.

No Trespassing

Some people actually believe the content of my blog can be negotiated for their own agenda.

 

They are wrong. And should leave me alone.

We Are The Lions

International Women’s Day, it’s not about you, Laurell K Hamilton

I’m still working on my companion piece to Homework but I have this belated International Women’s Day post for you.

On Sunday author Laurell K Hamilton blogged about IWD, Hamilton, or Lala as some of us call her) is not known for being deep or sympathic. No, I’m not linking to her POS blog, you want to read it you can find it on your own.

It’s all about how we shouldn’t need a day to remind us that women are important. And then it goes downhill into how equal her house is. Before we go on I would like to say that if we didn’t have an IWD on November 19 Lala would be wailing about the inequality because that is International Men’s Day. And World Toilet Day. Really.

Lala waxes on  (and on) about her household and how they “celebrate” equality every day and I guess we should all just be ever so grateful for her showing us how wonderful life could be.  But that isn’t what IWD is about, it’s about things Lala seems happy to ignore, things that aren’t pretty or easily solved within a paragraph in a blog. I wonder if she knows who Brianna Wu, Caroline CriadoPerez or Malala are.

Well, she certainly inspired an online poster so I’m going to post her reply here because this is what IWD is about.

 

“”There are women athletes, police officers, soldiers, politicians, weight lifters, firefighters, every job that men can do we do, except sperm donor, and there the men have us, but then we are the only egg donors. It takes both of us to make a new life, a new human being, of either sex.”

Notice that she tries to prove women’s worth by insisting that they can do traditionally male jobs. News flash LaLa, women aren’t equal only when they can do traditionally manly things, they’re also worthy when they’re mothers, nurses, teachers, makeup artists, clothing designers, and a millions other “feminine” jobs. They’re worthy and equal to men just by existing.LaLa, this is the angry feminist me talking right now, because I know you’ve probably got some one creeping on this message board if you’re not doing it yourself.
The reason why we need International Women’s Day:1) because globally 1 out of 3 girls in developing countries will be married before they are 18
2) because millions of girls are forced to drop out of school every year because they’re so poor that they can’t afford basic feminine hygiene products once they start their period so they can continue with their education causing them to miss up to a week of school every month, making them fall behind and eventually having them give up on their education totally,
3) because still even in this country for every dollar a white man makes a white woman makes $.75, a black woman makes around $.60 and Hispanic/Latino women make about $.50
4) because globally women make up the vast majority of people living in extreme poverty of less than $1 per day and many times far less than that.
5) because statistically when women speaking makes up 30% of a conversation when asked afterwards men and women both say that women dominated the conversation.
6) because 1 in 6 women in this country will experience rape or sexual assault and they still get asked questions like what they were wearing or if they’d been drinking as if that is a reason to rape them, and the rates are even higher globally.
7) because racist white people ask the same question ever year as to why February is still Black History Month(notice it’s the shortest month of the year)
8) because you write one of the worst examples of a self hating female gender character I’ve ever read as if anything that makes someone female or is seen as feminine is inherently bad and all of the qualities that are seen as masculine are good and superior, and by the way, you don’t write strong male or female characters.
9) because female politicians like Hilary Clinton are asked how they’re going to juggle being a mother/grandmother if they’re going to run for office again and men are literally never asked that.
10) because in Iowa where I live a women is beaten by a partner or spouse every 9 seconds and of all the women killed in Iowa every year 75% of them are killed by an intimate partner and they’re 70x more likely to be killed within 2 weeks of leaving their partner.
11) because I could go on for 20 pages worth of reasons why doing something as little as having a single day to bring attention to all of the amazing accomplishments that women throughout history have done and all of the many things that women still suffer but continue to fight on in spite of.Because you, even as a women don’t recognize the privilege you have in terms of your race, your economic status, the fact that you were born in a country where your life isn’t threatened by war, poverty or sickness and think that because your life is relatively easy that everyone else must have the same privilege. I thought I’d read the most asinine thing LaLa had ever wrote but this one makes me want to spit nails it’s so full of carp.

*passes out and falls off soapbox*” – M. Winnike

” As women, we need to stand up and say no to this defeatism. To this status quo that views us and our needs as expendable, the first thing to go when we need to save money. We need to start getting together, determining what the parts of our society are that foster a climate where women are seen, but not heard, abused, but not given redress, and fighting back. The internet is without doubt an enabler of misogyny – but it’s also an enabler of other voices. Women’s voices. Women are using the internet in ways that give them a platform like nothing has before. We start and we win more campaigns than men do. We support other people’s campaigns more than men do (these are actual stats, not my feminist propaganda). We need to start understanding how formidable we can be, when we stand up together, start fighting back, start making demands of our politicians, and not backing down.”- Caroline CriadoPerez

Maybe next year Hamilton could focus on the world beyond her doorstep, just a thought.

Thomas or Weinberg?

After several days the interest has died down and I have counted the views and it looks like Eve Thomas triumphs over Kevin Weinberg/parogar.

Sorry, kev, you’re not as interesting as a middle-aged English woman with delusions of her own importance. By the by, how’s that leaving Wattpad/changing your alias/leaving GR thing going?

My FBI Story (so far)

I love doing new things. First there is a half wall and glass barrier with a window where you tell a man with a badge why you are there. He then takes your bags, purse , phone, and coat and sends them through an x-ray machine. Then you go through a metal scanner and then reassemble yourself and proceed.

It’s a small local office. My case agent, I have a case agent(!), was on the phone so the receptionist escorted me to the interview room. I sat down at a long table and looked up to find this on the wall:

 

*snort*

Somebody has a sense of humor. The room had wall cams and mics and a separate video camera probably for those times when they lose their sense of humor. It took me a while to stop giggling and look behind me.

 

Only the one on the wall was addressed to my local office and signed by Jimmy Stewart. Be still my heart.

I met with my case agent and we had a pleasant conversation on an unpleasant subject. As with any case they look into, there isn’t an instant fix but I have a return visit to make and after that? Who knows.

I wasn’t dismissed, they will give careful consideration to the documents I provide and proceed from there.

On the way out I checked the 10 Most Wanted list, relax, I didn’t see any of you on it.

Strange Roads

Two years ago this month I started this blog. I had a vague plan of posting reviews and articles I found on books and book related matters. That happened but so did a lot of other things. Some interesting, some funny, some truly strange.

I don’t think any of us ever thought that we would be stalked or harassed or physically attacked. But that has happened. It’s easy at times like this to only dwell on the bad and lose sight of the good. I’ve met some incredible people doing this- readers, reviewers, bloggers, authors.

Of all the things I could conceive of doing when I started this, this was never anything I could have imagined. I’ve had a little problem in the last couple of days, and so I went to do something about it. What happened was not what I thought would happen.

We travel strange and fascinating roads. Tomorrow I will be going to a place that book bloggers have never considered a part of their experience but now with all the unrestrained actions of certain members of the book community  it might become one. I get to go to my local office of the FBI.

Strange roads.

I get more hits on my blog when I mention Eve Thomas

Sorry, kev, you’re only a legend in your own mind.

And I guess I have a new job, why didn’t anyone tell me?

He can’t even get my name right.

The Sad, Sad Tale of a Basement Living Mama’s Boy

 

Hello, dear readers, y’all remember my little admirer, Kevin Weinberg aka parogar? Well, it seems I’ve upset him. You know what happens when he gets upset? No? Read this and this and make sure to read the comments.

You have read this, I hope.

Let me entertain you with a few choice comments kev/paro has posted the later deleted, the better to try to deny, on Amazon. Enjoy or trigger warning for violent content.

The “girl” kev is referring to in the first ss is Trainwreck Maggie, the woman who called me this summer. Ah, just look at these posts by sweet little kev, isn’t he just a charmer? Don’t you wish your kids were just like him?

No?

Well, kev has emailed on a couple of occasions. Just last week to apologize for the comments he made about me including the one above. That sure wasn’t worth the time I took to read it.

Tonight he emailed me again. Uh, you all remember I have posted that I’m not a nice person, right?

As you will see saying that you will call his mommy makes little kev wet his pants. However he now makes his first serious misstep.

There are two, possibly three men who can give me an order, oh alright, four since Gregor posted a goat just for me.

 

 

 

 

 

WOW! Did sweet little kev just threaten to take me out? Why, yes, I do believe he did. At this point I downed my glass of Coca Cola and picked up my sharp, pointy stick and, well, you have to know this won’t be pretty.

 

Because I do take that to be a definite threat and considering some of little kev’s other posts and his little group of psycho-followers I think other people will, too.

Okay, did I threaten kev’s family? No, no I didn’t. But notice how just the mere suggestion of informing his mom of his online activities makes him lose it.

Yes, it does make me wonder and, yes, I am going down to grace the boys in blue with the honor of my presence. Now kev’s tune changes.

 

So now he didn’t say he would take me out? And still he tries to make change reality and say I threatened his family and he will take appropriate legal action.

 

Yes, indeed I do have some very interesting screenshots. And not for a minute do I believe that he doesn’t wish me physical harm. He has said he does wish several of us harm all too often.

I’m not the one making the mistake here. So in 9 minutes he has managed to tell his mom and the rest of his family I’m going to be calling? Yeah, sure. He might have run upstairs from his basement boycave and told his mom- what? Oh, I’m sure that totally fictitious conversation would have been one I would love to have heard.

Yes, I really am going to the cops. I don’t have any sympathy or patience for this little boy who despite his claims of adulthood denies responsibility for his actions and tries to shove the blame on someone-anyone else.

Like maybe me or Linda, his drones just love her.

 

 

 

 

 

And now he’s written a whole ‘nother rant about me “threatening” his family so I can just imagine what they are hoping happens to me.  There’s just one very large problem for kev and his drones, they picked the wrong women.

Another very dangerous word (very long rant)

[reblogged from Linda Hilton on BookLikes]

 

(Yes, I should have been writing LiNoWriMo.  I wrote this instead.)

 

Honesty.

It does not pay to be honest.  It is not safe to be honest.  Honesty is a very dangerous commodity.

In the past, with my blogs and reviews and other writing, I have tried to be as honest as I can.  I believed very sincerely that that was what was needed.

Honesty may have been needed, but it was not wanted.  I learned that over a year ago when Goodreads instituted the infamous September 2013 Purge.  I learned it again last month when Goodreads permanently banned me.

It doesn’t make any difference.  I don’t know how to be dishonest about these things.  I can lie about other things — I assure you, I’m no saint — but what point is there to lying in a book review?  Or in a discussion related to books and writing and reading?  What’s the freaking point?

Authors need to get a clue.  I am amazed, yes truly amazed, that there is so much ignorance out there still, after all this time.  Maybe it’s more willful ignorance than the innocent kind.  And yes, this is the kind of not-nice-but-honest comment that gets me into trouble.  No doubt I will get into trouble again before this post is finished.

Reviews are not commercials.  Reviewers are not there — wherever there is — to write ad copy for authors.  How difficult is this to understand?  Leaving out the semi-pro reviewers — by which I mean those who have formal book blogs and regularly obtain advance copies for the explicit purpose of reviewing — most reviewers are just readers.  They’re consumers.  They bought the damn book, or obtained it free when the author was giving it away, or checked it out of the library, or whatever, and then they read it.  Where in that commercial transaction is it decreed that the reader owes the writer anything at all?  Where is the requirement that the reader help the author sell her book to other readers?  Or help the author become a better writer?  Or fix the mistakes in the present book?

That’s right.  It’s not there.  Readers do not have any obligation to review at all.  They don’t have any obligation to rate a book on Goodreads, or shelve it on Leafmarks, or proofread it or anything else.  None. At. All.

And readers are most certainly not obligated to lie for you, the author of a terrible book.

You know who you are.  I don’t have to put your name out here for everyone to see.  You know who you are.

I’ve read your books.  Or at least I’ve tried to.  And they’re terrible.  And you just can’t stand to have that truth held up in front of you.  You just can’t stand it.

Truth is a very powerful thing.  It can be painful, very painful, but if it has the power to hurt, then it must indeed be very powerful.

You will hate me, if you don’t already, but you cannot stop me from being honest.  You can, like someone else about whom I dared to tell the truth, take revenge against me.  I already know, however, because I am capable of at least a certain amount of honesty with myself, that I cannot be anything but honest with others, especially if they are being dishonest in a way that would hurt the innocent.  I know, because I do try to be as honest with myself as I am with others, that this makes me Not a Nice Person.  I know that people will dislike me because of it.  I know that I have almost no defense against them or that revenge, because my only defense is the same damn honesty that got me into the mess in the first place.

Your book is terrible.  Whether you’re so ignorant that you can’t see it for yourself, or you’re in total emotional denial, or you know it but you’ve decided to just lie about it anyway, the fact remains:  Your book is terrible.  But you want me to lie about it so someone else will buy it?  Is that the name of your game?  You want me to try to get someone to believe that they will be sufficiently entertained by this piece of tripe you have written and published so that they will fork over $2.99 or $3.99 or whatever the asking price is?  The only way anyone will think this piece of garbage is readable is if people lie about it.  People like me.   Well, no, not exactly.   People like me won’t do it.  We won’t lie.

What will you do then?  You can, if you so choose, pay people to lie about it.  You will pay them to post online that they loved your book, that it’s the greatest thing ever written, that it should be made into a movie starring George Clooney, Orlando Bloom, Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian.  Some people will believe those lies.  Most, however, won’t.

Your writing stinks.  But you don’t want anyone to point that out.  Rather than be honest and want honest “reviews” of your book, you want to silence the honest voices.  You throw up a litany of reasons why low ratings and negative reviews are by definition  invalid.  You think no one should read books they aren’t enjoying, that they should not rate or review books they have not completely read, that they should think of the author’s feelings and only review books they can give five stars to.  You declare only other authors are qualified to write negative reviews because they are the only ones who know how much blood, sweat, and agony goes into the writing of a book, any book.  And then you accuse any author who posts a negative review of being jealous and cruel and unsupportive of her “fellow authors.”

By that standard, authors are only allowed to post positive reviews . . . or none at all.  And readers, who by that definition are disqualified from leaving negative reviews, can only post positive ones.

You want readers to lie by omission.  You want them to shut up and say nothing about your awful book, as though that will make your writing any better.  It won’t.

Your book is indeed awful.  You can’t write.  Your story is banal, your characters are wooden, your plot is implausible.  Your cover looks like something knocked together by a couple of 12-year-olds, and your formatting is an embarrassment to MSWord.  This product has no redeeming features whatsoever.

Yet if I say that, and if I provide evidence to substantiate my claims, you will call me a troll and a bully and a meanie.  You’ve done it in the past.  You will accuse me of jealousy, and I will laugh hysterically because there is no reason for someone who is reasonably competent with the English language to be jealous of you and this file of putrescent gibberish that you call a book.

You will tell me that I should think of your tender feelings, but I should not care at all about the potential readers to whom my silence is a lie of tacit approval.  Those readers are nothing to you, or at least nothing more than their credit card numbers on their one-click accounts.  To you they have no feelings worthy of respect, worthy of honesty.

You want me to be what I am not.  I am not a liar.  And I will not lie for you.

A few people stood up with me when I took on Goodreads (which is well on its way to becoming nothing more than the advertising arm of Amazon if it isn’t already) but most did not.  A few have spoken out since my banning, but most of gone back to their previous silence.  It is one thing to “take one for the team” by reading and then reviewing a terrible book, because of course that is done voluntarily and there are a lot of laughs to go around in the process.  And one really doesn’t take any kind of risk when doing that.

I took one for the team over and over and over.  Under my real name.  The blog posts are still on here.  And there are screenshots of many of the now-erased posts on Goodreads.

I put my Goodreads account on the line in the name of honesty.  I am not one to blow my own horn when it comes to my books, but I will blow my horn ’til the cows come home over what I did on Goodreads:  I documented the dishonesty.  And that’s what I was banned for.

The excuse that will probably be given, if there ever is one, is that I wasn’t nice enough.  And that much is true.  I wasn’t nice.  I was honest, but I wasn’t nice.

When authors came onto Goodreads threads and asked whether or not they should buy reviews, I was honest:  I told them they shouldn’t.  I told them those reviews might be removed.  I told them those reviews could be identified and then their books would be labeled as “This one is so bad the author has to pay people to pretend they read it.”

Could I have been nicer?  Could I have written, “Oh, dear, I don’t think that would be a very good idea.  What if people found out you bought those reviews?  What would they think of your book?  What would they think of you?”  Yes, I suppose I could have written it that way.  Would it have got the point across?  Maybe, or maybe not.  Would it have been me?

No, it would not.

I understand the allure of reviews.  I recognize that they are repeatedly touted as the key to making sales.  One has only to read the posts of the frankly desperate authors who beg for reviews because reviews are, they believe, needed to generate sales.  They believe this as surely as they believe night follows day.  Except that night really does follow day; unfortunately, reviews do not generate sales.

Amazon, however, has a vested interest in fostering that belief.

Amazon wants people to keep uploading books.  The cost to Amazon is negligible, since they do none of the actual work of publishing.  They do not edit, provide artwork, or market those author-published works.  They do, however, get a cut of each one that’s purchased.

Though these are rough numbers and there are exceptions on all, these are the basic figures.  On a 99-cent Kindle book, the author’s royalty rate is 35%.   Amazon keeps 65 cents off the top, the author gets 34 cents.  The same percentages hold up to $2.98.  At $2.99 and up, the author can elect a 70% royalty, which means Amazon’s cut is 90 cents plus they charge a few cents to cover the cost of digital storage and delivery.

Amazon is much better positioned to cover the minuscule costs of those thousands of free downloads than the authors are, even the perma-free titles.  Will that benefit someday disappear?  I expect it probably will, but that’s another discussion.

So who benefits from the Kindle Direct Publishing platform the most?  Amazon.   And it doesn’t matter how good or how bad the product is, Amazon still gets a cut.

Crappy books do not sell.  Not even hundreds of glowing 5-star reviews can push crappy books into best-seller status — and profits for the authors.  Some of you who are reading this are very well aware of what you’ve done to rack up those reviews and ratings.

Have you given the books away free and then asked readers to leave a review?  Have you used social media to make friends with your readers, in Facebook groups or on Twitter, on Goodreads and Amazon and Booklikes, and then solicited just a short review from them, telling them how much it would help you?  Did you make them feel obligated to do so?  Of course you weren’t really pressuring them.  You just sort of left the suggestion in their minds, and they of course being flattered were more than eager to do so.  (“She’s such a nice person, isn’t she?”)

Why is it then that the next book, the one you didn’t give away free and didn’t pressure readers to buy and read, didn’t get hundreds of 5-star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads?  Why do you suppose that is?  Maybe because people didn’t like it?  Maybe they lied in their reviews on the first book because they’d been flattered by your attention, but in reality they knew the book was garbage?

Amazon doesn’t care why your second book didn’t sell.  Or your third, fourth, or any of the subsequent titles.  Did it ever occur to you that maybe Amazon is using you as their loss leaders to put the competition out of business?  Probably not.  Probably not any more than it ever occurred to you to read the 1- and 2-star reviews that were left for your crappy books on Amazon and Goodreads, on Leafmarks and Booklikes.

Nor does Amazon care if you buy reviews.  Many of you do, of course.  Many of you have been caught red-handed on fiverr.com.  Many of those reviews have been removed from Goodreads and the reviewers’ accounts have been terminated, but very few of you have lost your author status there, unless like Michael Beas and Cheryl Persons you were also selling reviews on Goodreads.  But do you remember how this paragraph started?  “Nor does Amazon care if you buy reviews.”

Amazon doesn’t care because they’ve got that wonderful “Verified Purchase” button.  It’s supposed to imply that the accompanying review is a legitimate consumer opinion, the kind that’s required under Federal Trade Commission guidelines.  There are probably a lot of genuine consumers who trust that label.  But you’ve figured out a way around that, which is exactly what Amazon wanted you to do.  So now when you buy your “reviews” from fiverr and the other shill outfits, you buy another “gig” so the reviewer can buy your book and get that “Verified Purchase” stamp.  And Amazon gets their cut and they’re happy to turn a blind eye to the transaction.

How’s that working for you?  Two fiverr gigs are going to cost you $10.  On your $2.99 book you’ll net roughly $2.00.  You’ll get that back when the reviewer buys your book, and then you have to hope they don’t return it and pocket the extra $2.99.  Even if they honor the agreement and don’t ask for a refund, that review has to generate four more sales just for you to break even.

Amazon got 90-some cents for doing pretty much nothing.  That’s why they don’t care if you buy reviews that say your paranormal YA chicklit book is better than Tolkien and Herbert and Martin and Gabaldon and Rowling all wrapped up together even if anyone with more than twelve functioning brain cells can see it’s absolute dreck.  Amazon has a vested interest in not caring about, well, about honesty or integrity or ethics or quality or any of that bullshit.  Honesty and integrity and ethics aren’t profitable.  And Amazon, like all corporations, is all about profit.

None of the Amazon accounts identified as belonging to fiverr “reviewers” have been removed from Amazon by Amazon.  None of their reviews have been removed by Amazon.  Some of those individuals attempted to establish new Goodreads accounts but were quickly identified and quickly removed.  However, Amazon doesn’t remove them.  Even though Amazon’s review guidelines explicitly state that paid reviews are a violation, no amount of reporting “abuse” will get them removed.  I know this because I’ve reported them.  Repeatedly.  They’re still there.

During the months that I routinely monitored Goodreads and Amazon reviews to connect them with fiverr “reviewers,” I came to be very familiar with the names under which they posted their reviews.   They’re still posting.  That means you’re still buying.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m still monitoring.  I’m still taking screen shots, though not as many as I did before.  And of course I’m not reporting to Goodreads.  Why should I?

I already took one for the team, a big one.  I did my part.  Now it’s someone else’s turn, if they care enough that is.  My guess is that they don’t.

Does that mean you’re in the clear?  Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.  Maybe I’ll get angry enough with you again and start posting more screenshots here on Booklikes.   Because remember,  I’m not a nice person.  I have no reason to be nice any more.  My being nice or not nice really has nothing to do with it, does it?  No, the real issue is that I’m honest, and you just can’t stand that.  You just can’t stand it at all, can you.

Maybe you’re one of those authors who self-righteously brags that you never bought a review and you didn’t stoop so low as to give your books away to anyone.  You put time and effort into your books and you don’t think you should let someone benefit from your effort without, by God, paying you for the right to read it.

But when I look at your book on Amazon, I see more familiar names.  No, not fiverr shills but the names of other authors, other self-publishing authors, other self-publishing authors who have been desperately looking for people to buy and read and review their books and they’ll do the same in return.  It’s different, you insist, when you agree to swap honest reviews with each other.

You and I both know those reviews aren’t honest in the least.  You and the other author are going to stroke each other’s egos because you’re afraid that if you don’t tell him his steaming pile of manure is the next Hunger Games, he’ll retaliate and let the world know your book isn’t the next Interview with a Vampire.  Both of you believe that 5-star reviews will generate sales, and that’s what it’s all about.  You’re no different from Amazon in that respect (pun intended).  You don’t care one fig about honesty.  You only care about sales.  You will lie, and you will ask someone else to lie, in the name of selling your terrible, terrible book.

The CJRR continues — that nefarious group of self-publishing authors who rate each other’s absolutely suckworthy spewings with unalloyed 5-star ratings and attack anyone who dares do otherwise.  The sockpuppet ratings continue unabated.  The fiverr shills haven’t missed a beat.  It gets worse instead of better on Goodreads and Amazon, because that’s the way Amazon wants it.

Readers may ask, “But why?  Why does Amazon want to promote crap?”

Because it sells.  If it doesn’t sell itself, it at least sells advertising.  Every time a reader clicks on a free book, other items pop up.  Try it sometime.  Recommended.  Readers who bought this also bought.  And so on.  And Goodreads is just an advertising platform for Amazon.  So Goodreads doesn’t really care either.

They cared a little bit for a little while.  They cared long enough to remove a few of the shadier accounts.  Michael Beas with more than 350 purchased reviews.  “Meghan” from Manila with almost 800.  The publicist and her sock puppet army who had over 2500 5-star reviews posted on Goodreads.  Did someone from Amazon come along and tell the Goodreads staff that they had to axe Linda Hilton’s account because Linda Hilton wasn’t being nice?

Did Amazon not like it that I was posting screen shots that linked Amazon “Top Reviewers” to fiverr accounts?

Were publicists like Kelsey McBride buying enough ads for their clients on Goodreads and Amazon that those websites took the cash over ethics to let those publicists, their employees, their sockpuppets, continue to post reviews in violation of FTC regulations and didn’t want Linda Hilton to publicize (pun intended) that information?

Yes, I’m angry at you uploaders — you’re not really authors at all — because you’ve fouled the nest we all need to live in.  I despise you, and I know the risk I’m taking even in posting this screed.  Amazon is big enough and powerful enough, and I am insignificant enough, that they could refuse to publish my books.  Believe me, the loss of my sales wouldn’t hurt them financially.  (Actually, it probably wouldn’t hurt me financially very much either.)  If they do that, you’ll know and I’ll know that what I’ve written here is important enough for them to want to silence me.

They don’t go out of their way to silence the insignificant.  Honesty is never insignificant.  It’s too dangerous to be insignificant.