I belong to Goodreads and a couple of the groups that have been started over there. It’s a good site, and a very good resource for the indie and self-published authors. That’s why I’ve been bemused, nay, DISGUSTED by the shenanigans of the STGRB’s web site and one of its chief protagonist/apologists. I swear, people – NOBODY could make this stuff up!
STGRB stands for Stop The Goodreads Bullies, and was started by a female author wannabe who wasn’t happy about her reviews there. She got steadily more angry and abusive over what she perceived to be bullying by the members, and enlisted another male author wannabe in these battles – with the result, finally, that she and her male counterpart caused so much trouble that the two of them finally got themselves banned. I don’t have a problem with that (I’ve been banned from a few sites myself, although not for as good an apparent reason as these two folks have been), and the two of them (although they deny this) started the STGRB website for all folks that didn’t care for Goodreads policies. They squalled, and they bawled, and they got a lot of publicity.
There has, of course, been a real backlash about this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foz-meadows/stop-the-gr-bullies-a-response_b_1690469.html, http://behindstgrb.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/top-8-reasons-why-stgrb-is-the-biggest-bully-in-romancelandia/, and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-losowsky/stop-the-gr-bullies-an-ap_b_1690134.html. Read the articles, and form your own opinion.
Unfortunately, this – apparently - is really what STGRB is all about: http://behindstgrb.wordpress.com/. And it gets worse. A LOT worse.
Now, the male apologist/protagonist is busily setting up websites that are dedicated to destroying people that he doesn’t like and who are openly critical of his tactics:
John Green
http://johngreenisapervertedbully.blogspot.com/
Jude Henderson
http://judehendersoniselsa.blogspot.com/
Amanda Welling.
http://amandawellingisgenx.blogspot.com/
GenX
http://genxpose.blogspot.com/
Mr. Carroll Bryant. That’s his name, and destroying peoples’ reputations is his game. I’ve read some of his writing, and, while it’s not bad, I would far rather read OhOhOhLookLookLookSeeSpotSeeSpotRun because it’s a lot more comprehensive and coherent than what Mr. Bryant writes. Yes, it’s personal prejudice on my part; I like a book to have focus, coherent plotlines, reasonable editing for spelling and grammar, and characters that I actually care about (CYPRESS LAKE by Joe Basara comes to mind – not to everybody’s taste but it’s well-written self-published book, Faulkneresque). Mr. Bryant also considers himself a poet as well as a musician. I’ve read his poetry which is boring - not bad but sounds more like high-school angst than poetry. I haven’t listened to any of his music but I am going to presume that it’s about on the same level (garage band).
That’s the real tragedy, of course. To ALMOST have the talent to be a break-out author and poet, and to lack the self-discipline to do anything other than try to trash people that have never done him any harm except to post that his talent is a very minor one and that his writing is boring. The fact that this particular book was published through a for-pay company is just icing on the cake. Of course, a for-pay publishing company is not in the business of helping an author make the book better unless the author is paying for services like spelling and grammar checks, editing of all sorts and so on. I honestly don't have a problem with this, since part of the package is multi-site promotion - but, still, I also know a lot of self-pub and indie authors that do it all themselves.
What he’s doing is shameful, to put it mildly. What the STGRB site is trying to do is – well, if it isn’t criminal, it should be. This is McCarthyism at its worst and most virulent: To attempt to silence by fear people who’s only sin is NOT agreeing with you like good little sheeple, to attempt to put them in harm’s way by publishing their personal information, to attempt to whitewash your own atrocious behaviour – this is wrong. And it’s shameful.
Mr. Bryant has further accused the Goodreads site and some of its groups as promoting paedophila because there is sexual role-playing supposedly going on in said groups and there are suspected minors in these groups. What’s interesting is that he openly admits that he based the female character in his unreadable book YEAR OF THE CAT on one of his female “friends” – who happens to be underage. Didn’t Vladimir Nabokov write a book about that? Called LOLITA? He also admits that he used her image and her real name WITHOUT her permission.
H’mmmmmm
{{according to Mr. Bryant's blog, he's taken down three of the four cited blogs}}
STGRB stands for Stop The Goodreads Bullies, and was started by a female author wannabe who wasn’t happy about her reviews there. She got steadily more angry and abusive over what she perceived to be bullying by the members, and enlisted another male author wannabe in these battles – with the result, finally, that she and her male counterpart caused so much trouble that the two of them finally got themselves banned. I don’t have a problem with that (I’ve been banned from a few sites myself, although not for as good an apparent reason as these two folks have been), and the two of them (although they deny this) started the STGRB website for all folks that didn’t care for Goodreads policies. They squalled, and they bawled, and they got a lot of publicity.
There has, of course, been a real backlash about this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foz-meadows/stop-the-gr-bullies-a-response_b_1690469.html, http://behindstgrb.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/top-8-reasons-why-stgrb-is-the-biggest-bully-in-romancelandia/, and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-losowsky/stop-the-gr-bullies-an-ap_b_1690134.html. Read the articles, and form your own opinion.
Unfortunately, this – apparently - is really what STGRB is all about: http://behindstgrb.wordpress.com/. And it gets worse. A LOT worse.
Now, the male apologist/protagonist is busily setting up websites that are dedicated to destroying people that he doesn’t like and who are openly critical of his tactics:
John Green
http://johngreenisapervertedbully.blogspot.com/
Jude Henderson
http://judehendersoniselsa.blogspot.com/
Amanda Welling.
http://amandawellingisgenx.blogspot.com/
GenX
http://genxpose.blogspot.com/
Mr. Carroll Bryant. That’s his name, and destroying peoples’ reputations is his game. I’ve read some of his writing, and, while it’s not bad, I would far rather read OhOhOhLookLookLookSeeSpotSeeSpotRun because it’s a lot more comprehensive and coherent than what Mr. Bryant writes. Yes, it’s personal prejudice on my part; I like a book to have focus, coherent plotlines, reasonable editing for spelling and grammar, and characters that I actually care about (CYPRESS LAKE by Joe Basara comes to mind – not to everybody’s taste but it’s well-written self-published book, Faulkneresque). Mr. Bryant also considers himself a poet as well as a musician. I’ve read his poetry which is boring - not bad but sounds more like high-school angst than poetry. I haven’t listened to any of his music but I am going to presume that it’s about on the same level (garage band).
That’s the real tragedy, of course. To ALMOST have the talent to be a break-out author and poet, and to lack the self-discipline to do anything other than try to trash people that have never done him any harm except to post that his talent is a very minor one and that his writing is boring. The fact that this particular book was published through a for-pay company is just icing on the cake. Of course, a for-pay publishing company is not in the business of helping an author make the book better unless the author is paying for services like spelling and grammar checks, editing of all sorts and so on. I honestly don't have a problem with this, since part of the package is multi-site promotion - but, still, I also know a lot of self-pub and indie authors that do it all themselves.
What he’s doing is shameful, to put it mildly. What the STGRB site is trying to do is – well, if it isn’t criminal, it should be. This is McCarthyism at its worst and most virulent: To attempt to silence by fear people who’s only sin is NOT agreeing with you like good little sheeple, to attempt to put them in harm’s way by publishing their personal information, to attempt to whitewash your own atrocious behaviour – this is wrong. And it’s shameful.
Mr. Bryant has further accused the Goodreads site and some of its groups as promoting paedophila because there is sexual role-playing supposedly going on in said groups and there are suspected minors in these groups. What’s interesting is that he openly admits that he based the female character in his unreadable book YEAR OF THE CAT on one of his female “friends” – who happens to be underage. Didn’t Vladimir Nabokov write a book about that? Called LOLITA? He also admits that he used her image and her real name WITHOUT her permission.
H’mmmmmm
{{according to Mr. Bryant's blog, he's taken down three of the four cited blogs}}
No comments:
Post a Comment