Everybody Isn’t Doing It- The Reblog

Because some authors believe the only path to success is by doing “it”, I’m reblogging this piece from 5 years ago. 

Posted by 38caliberreviews on August 5, 2014

You all know that excuse, you  all have heard it. You’re cruising along through some online discussion about this or that and what authors shouldn’t do to promote their books when, BOOM, some fool drops those words your mother hated to hear, “But everybody’s doing it!”

It could be about rather important but honest things like not getting a professional editor but it’s usually about such things as buying reviews or spamming discussions. I swear the post actually whines.Everybody does it.  How can I get noticed and sell my book(s) if I don’t? Everybody does it. (You can hear the whine, right?)

Got news for you, cupcake, not everybody does it. Why? It’s simple really, some people are just honest and believe that hard work and talent will eventually bring them the rewards of their labor, some just believe in following the rules and searching for acceptable ways to get notice, and some are scared of getting caught.

Because getting caught brings about a special kind of attention. Sure, you may get some sales and “pity” reviews because there are always those who seem to think that people are being mean to you when they express their displeasure for your actions by writing about it or giving your book a negative review.

“It isn’t about the book,” they protest, but it really is.  Every act of lying, scamming, cheating to get your book noticed is exactly about the book and  the author. You may have written the Great American Novel, probably not because most writers in this group seem to barely rise above mediocre,  but you have also shown your naked butt in public and it is not a pretty sight. You are not to be trusted.

You have tried to cheat your potential readers, you have tried to cheat your fellow authors. Why would we want anything to do with you?

For the rest of your career this will follow you like a loyal dog, right there at your heel where everybody can see it. From now on your every action, every review, and in the case of plagiarism, your every book will be scrutinized closely and even if it seems acceptable the doubt will linger.

There will always be those who will support the poor beset author, defending them, trying to minimize their misdeeds like an overly fond parent defending their child when s/he’s caught stealing a car or defending them because they themselves have done something they shouldn’t and are hoping for a little tit for tat when they are caught.

So if you have to defend your actions by claiming everybody’s “doing it” you might want to reconsider those actions because most assuredly everybody is not “doing it” and those are the authors readers, reviewers, and bloggers are going to support.

Ruth Mahala Burlingame

Second Chances

I believe in second chances. I think almost everybody deserves one. Contrary to what some people believe I will give someone the benefit of the doubt almost every time and I struggle when it becomes apparent that the second chance looks to be in vain.

I wanted this one to work, I thought it would but it looks like the path traveled before will be the path traveled again. I guess if you can surround yourself with enough people that tell you you did nothing wrong and all those people who “attacked” you, who “harassed” you, who pointed out your missteps and mistakes were just being “mean” and “jealous” then you can move comfortably ahead down that same path towards the inevitable.

I admired your restart, your dedication to what you built, but maybe the red flags were there in the timeline. You have worked hard but for what end? 

No self-awareness, no professional growth, no fucking clue.  

Book review soon.

Was It The Word “Drinking”?

This post is for just one person, if you are dropping by as often and as obsessively as I think you are. I could be wrong but, Dear Readers, that happens  so rarely.

So, the answer is yes. I do know. And I have some not so pretty screenshots.

 

Okay, Who’s Been Drinking?

Remember Mandy Baldwin? I guess she’s still around but her last two books have not exactly hit the NYT bestseller list. Anyway, back in May of 2014 I wrote about her and her sleazy review tactics, twice on the 11th because I had to include a response to the Ugly Green Hate Site and once on the 14th because TUGHS just couldn’t seem to grasp what I was talking about and were flinging their usual poo with all the hysteria and enthusiasm they could muster.

Today I was skimming my emails and found this little gem:

Because, really, not posting anything on Mandy in over 4 years is the very definition of a stalker. (rolls eyes) And as for being anonymous, hello? Sometimes you just have to wonder how someone so stupid has managed to survive. And, of course, 9MM  is him?/her?self anonymous.

I needed a good laugh and 9MM (really?) provided.

 

The Faleena Video- Pt I

Okay, Dear Readers, let’s get this video flogged. Sorry that I can’t post it but it seems Princess Pickled got it taken down everywhere- except for those copies we all are keeping in our libraries in case they’re ever needed, say in court when she tries to deny her actions or her words.

I think she thinks dramatic pauses will make her mess look better. It just makes it cheesy and already I wonder about her acting ability. But I forgot this:

Threatened to the point of dangerous? Does not even make sense and she tries for a “significant look”. Tries and fails because- whiskey. What a llama.

Then she “beseeches the money grabbers to back the fuck off “.  Okay, princess seems to not know the definition of beseech because you would not “beseech”  in the same sentence where you insult those you are beseeching and then order them to “back the fuck off” but then we have to take the whiskey into consideration.

Big dramatic pause, Faleena’s mind.

Okay, she has this smile, it looks sort of like a shark, all teeth and weird eyes. She claims to be building a brand and gives the camera the smile and you try to ecide what brand she’s going for, Smirnoff? Baileys? Maker’s Mark? She’s building a brand, Dear Readers, and you, you know who you are, are writing. One. Book. Then the whiskey tricks her into saying that that one book off of which you are piggybacking her series.  I replayed it to make sure and, yes, that is what she says.

 

Then she assures us that it’s not all writers using her success. But how is she going to distinguish between who is and who isn’t? I guess the answer to that is if a writer isn’t Tara Crescent then they probably aren’t using her success for their own monetary gain.

States the obvious more writing=more money so go write then leaps to leave  my fans, family, models alone.

And then  comes one of the most bizarre moments  she starts saying,”shes the bully she’s the bully” while making  stabby gestures and then a noise somewhere between a cat hacking up a hairball and a minah bird got caught in a garbage disposal.

Calls those who disagree with her decisions sick bastards for bothering people cause you know nothing is saner than a drunk woman making stabby motions on a video where she’s claiming to be building her brand.

She again demand we focus on her (something she really likes).

Did she really say make your face? What’s behind the avatar, heda tilt, mmm-hmm “you know who you are”. Man, she really is jealous of Tara.

And it’s her who made this mess, but only in the sloshy brain of a jealous, jealous woman.

Everybody likes her world, her readers are great (but easily confused and sadly unsophisticated) and wouldn’t do what we have done. Yeah.

Reads a card of thanks about her book. So there.

Reads several cards. So there and there and there again.

I thought I would enclose this ss of a card for Faleena,

Cause I read a couple excerpts from your books, sweetie, and believe me, you have my sympathy. Damn.

But her people, they love her her writing, her looks, her winning personality.

Her books save lives. Nothing new here. Once again, Laurell K Hamilton makes the same claim. I’ve read this claim from authors and usually authors that write crappy books. I have to wonder if the people who claim these books save their lives read them and then think, “Well damn, my life is bad but not as bad as this book,” then go off to breakfast and a new, better life.

What are we doing is working against goodness and light.

Then she indulges in some wishful thinking, saying there are shadows on authors we love and they are going down because less people are following them because of the actions of their followers (us).  Now I hate to point out mistakes to a drunk (no I don’t) but there is an uptick in books sales for authors you have attacked and I’ve read a number of posts from your now former followers.  I myself have purchased The Cockiest Cowboy Whoever Cocked, Cocktales, Cocky Doctors, and Cocky Firefighters.

people don’t like us, and once again she’s projecting.

Only hurting ourselves not her, people won’t buy your books. Well, I don’t write books so I’m not at all bothered and let me just point out again the four books I bought from authors I assume she’s trying to refer to.

She didn’t bully anyone, she sent private, legal cease& desist letters and she’s mad they were posted but what anyone wants to do with their mail is not for her to dictate. I am quite sure she didn’t want her lame-ass attempts and intimidation posted for all to snicker at.

She repeats the whole “she’s the bully” with stabby motions  and hairball and minah bird noises. Holy shades of Psycho.

There are good people out there  and she’s sold half million book in series and it’s not porn. I’m picturing the floor around her looks like this:

 

World’s in a sad place and we’re an example of why.  Weepyness.

And then she bounces back to demanding we keep attacking her, please, she doesn’t mind.

But leave the innocents alone.

She’s just a good business woman trademarking her series (and a common use word), her font (which isn’t hers and she can’t legally TM). Please explain the good business of being drunk online.

You know who you are she’s done lunch with you. Meaningful look.

Ah, it becomes very apparent she means Tara.

Okay, now she says “maybe your writing is amazing” and I’m thinking she is so jealous of Tara’s writing and success that I wouldn’t want Tara to be left alone with her.

A weak person destroyed her instagram account.

Millions of readers wouldn’t do that (but they did) and those millions are her tribe. Wait, she has a tribe of millions but sold only half a million books?

She tries to claim again we are destroying our authors  by hating her. Here she makes a hand to the hair gesture that screams she knows it’s a lie. And once again we have Projection By Faleena as she claims her readers write other authors saying they are calling Faleena’s readers stupid, and their kids are stupid because they are autistic and autistic is called stupid. I would like to think she isn’t calling autistic individuals stupid but she’s drunk and after reading her post on what women should do to empower men I no longer can give her the benefit of the doubt. Read it here .

She fails to see what’s wrong with trademarking ‘cocky”. Yep, it’s about Tara. She’s furious about Tara’s cocky books. Tara started a cocky series but Faleena is building a brand and Tara’s just riding her coattails to stardom. She needs to go write a better book and leave Faleena alone with cocky.

She demands we give her hate, please.

Well, first she tried to shame everyone then she tried to scare everyone about losing support for their favorite authors and neither has really worked. Too much to drink to really make it work.

At 13 minutes one last word.

Long sad pause, soft voice, bring it she can take it (home from the nearest liquor store).

She’ll be writing (Dear gods, no, but if she must then I hope she sobers up first)

Longggggg pause then 1 more thing.

Wonders if that (her vid) was okay. Um, how do I put this? NO.

Swearing fights, with her inner sober self. Sober loses bigtime.

There’s 2 minutes I won’t get back, more sighing and squirming, now 4 minutes I won’t get back.

OMG, she gets that life’s hard. She’s been through some shit, the last 4 days are nuthin.

Bring it, with crooked finger.

Now she loses track of what she started out with and starts handing out advice on how to live our lives. While drunk.

She understands we got opinions, we are all good,  rambles on, on, on, on, on, on, I guess about writing for a living. What happens if we want something try and fail?  If we all did what we want there would be no hate.  But, Faleena, what if we want to kill people?

Then this quote:

We have lost our way and our minds, we can have everything our hearts desire. And now she’s talking Master Class. This is 31 minutes, 50 seconds. There is an hour and 12 minutes left, i really want a drink but watching Faleena good example of a horrible warning I don’t think I can.

More after chocolate.

 

 

 

Faleena Hopkins Denies Revised

She’s baaa-ack! This was on her Twitter this morning:

Mmmm,yeah. Right. Sure. It seems Princess Pickled might have a short term memory problem so some kind soul helpfully posted this:

From the replies it doesn’t seem like other authors and readers are buying what she’s trying to sell.

There are more replies on Twitter but as you can see things still aren’t going in the direction Faleena wants. it would be a huge help if she didn’t try to claim one thing in court and the opposite in her author group and on Twitter.

So, are her readers so unsophisticated that they can’t tell if who wrote a book with the word “cocky” in the title? Do they believe all books with a cover model used by Faleena means the book’s author is plagiarizing Faleena? Is it truly impossible for them to return an ebook?

Does she keep them locked in the trunk of her car?

And what’s with this stuffing of her books?

Paul really wants to know about book stuffing. Do you? Linda Hilton has written an excellent post here .

Revision or addition:

Hold the phone, Faleena, Wells Fargo ? Not exactly the workplace to brag about.

 

 

Please Help An Author Fight This Crazy Court Case

Ah, Rebecca Hamilton yet again. What can I say, probably quite a bit if I can find the screenshots.

Scammers Break The Kindle Store

Found this through Ilona Andrews blog post on the subject.

Mad Cow Alert! Elizabeth Llewellyn

Dear, dear Readers, it has been too long. Get out your popcorn and beer. Ready?

You read my review of Putting My Foot Down? Fairly innocuous, I thought, but I guess I was wrong. (Well, no, but that’s the reason for this post) Turns out my old, dear friend, Elle, she of Suicide Ride infamy has also posted a review of the “book”.  And she gave it 5 stars.

Whatever.

But it now seems that between revisiting my review of her book, trashing her family and mother-in-law, proclaiming her deepest admiration for tRump, and using her dead husband to bolster her claim of victimhood, Elle has found the time to take exception to my review. Of someone else’s book.

Someone needs to take her bottle and keyboard away cause she’s a nasty piece of work even without the booze.

One of my (many, cherished) minions sent me this:

I did not have it taken down, I sort of wanted the cray cray to remain for all to see but it did get taken down, along with several of her other comments but we’ll get there in a minute, so she returned because Elle has to have the last word.

My “stank toe”… oh, yeah, this one is a writer. Not half as much as she thinks she is. But wait! There’s more! There was one other one star review and Elle just had to drive by and take a shot (first from the bottle then on the keyboard).

No dissenting opinion is safe. And before any more of you ask, that is the way she writes, drunk or sober and if you keep asking I will post parts of her now unavailable books to prove it.  (She claims she removed her books to give them to a legit publisher so they will get what they deserve. Yeah.)

Well hell, what do I care if some drunk, desperately searching for recognition  heifer from the South wants to take what she fondly think of as the greatest potshot in history? I don’t but Monday afternoon after I had spent the day doing things in the life I don’t have (according to so many of my adoring followers like Elle) I opened my emails to find this.

What the everloving fuck? If you guessed Elle, you guessed correctly. She commented and down voted all these reviews. Some comments Amazon had erased before I got there and a couple didn’t make any sense, once or twice she made more than one comment.

This is a woman who claims all of us haterz  want to be her. No. Oh, no. Hell to the no.  Who in their right mind would want to be this mess? Want to know who the heifer follows on Amazon? Not her friends whose books she reviews (in violation of the TOS), no not them, she follows one woman.

I’m so, well, not flattered. Maybe a little creeped out. And a little concerned for the people she is fixated on living close to her. Okay, she had her fun, moo-ving on. But wait! There’s more!

Tuesday emails brought this.

I think she managed to comment on all of them. Who doesn’t have a life? I’m thinking it’s the heifer, must be the grass looks greener outside of her pasture.

An image of a Belted Galloway. It takes a brave bovine to wear a wide, white belt around the widest part of their body but the BG is a fashion forward cow.

Back to our heifer of the hour. Since I didn’t respond and Elle is desperate for attention she interrupted her regularly scheduled post about being a grieving widow to post this.

Yes, I have pissed off a few deserving souls and I own it. The most amazing part of the post above is if you go to that Google search one of the top posts listed is one I reposted about Weinberg’s limp attack on John Green.  But they all mentioned my name so they all must be about how terrible I am.

I have a lovely collection of screenshots (no surprise) all about Elle but leave you with this link and this screenshot.

 

Is this enough recognition for you, Elle, because all those screenshots do not paint a flattering picture of you.

 

California’s New Law Could Halt Live Author Book Signings

R. Gardner Goldsmith reports on a California law affecting author signings.

 

So, I’m a writer. Hopefully, that comes through not only in the fact that I’m setting caveman fingers to keys, and you’re reading the results, but also in the quality of what I write, the idea that it has value. I write non-fiction on political economics and ethics. But what some folks don’t know is that I also write scripts, short stories, novels, and novellas. As a result, I’ve become familiar with how publishing works, and have become friends with a number of terrific authors.

Many of those truly fantastic writers don’t have the backing of big-name publishing houses. Some sign with small “indie” publishers, while others split from the old guard and self-publish. And what every author, even the well known who have the backing of promotional departments, will tell you is that personal, hand-to-hand and word-of-mouth connections are what sells books.
As a consequence of this, making appearances — at conventions and at book signings offered by local booksellers – is not only essential for authors to exist in the pro field, but the crowds these events generate are also important for the bookstores to stay in business.
But, on January 1, an amendment to a California law kicked into effect that makes it virtually impossible for authors and booksellers to conduct “book signings” the way they once did. And only the folks of the Pacific Legal Foundation, hired by an indie bookseller based in San Francisco, are fighting it.

Read more.