|
|
Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 5, 2018 9:12:24 GMT
There is currently a mega thread going on at Kboards about peeps who break TOS and scam the KU system, stealing money from legitimate authors. A lot of authors are fighting for permission to post a list of names of those who have been banned from amazon, or a list of marketers who are still scamming, or even just a list of different scams to prevent newbie authors from getting involved with them. Kboards doesn't want to allow any naming cos I believe they don't want to be sued or because they don't want to damage their adsense account. Kboards is a wonderful place for information, but there is a ton of censorship that goes on there to protect the site. I don't really blame the mods, but it's still frustrating. I invited peeps to come over here and post the lists and proofs, but my site is invisible still, so no one would see it. The lists would be better on a well-known author's blog or something. But anywho, one of the posts in that megathread mentioned cross promotion, which is when other authors promote your books to their audience and you promote their books to yours. If you get a whole bunch of authors involved you can get your book introduced to hundreds or thousands of new readers. One popular way is to hold a contest giving away a chance to win a kindle or amazon gift card. In order to sign up the entrants get added to the email lists of every single author involved with the giveaway. Cross promotion can be a great way to grow your audience and email list, however, like the peeps on kboards said, you need to be really careful who you enter into a cross promotion with. If the people you associate yourself and your book with are unethical, tos violators, then you and your books will become linked with them by amazon, and you could end up getting purged with them. Or they could give you advice that sounds really great but because you're new you don't realize what they suggest is against amazon's rules, and then you get in trouble when they finally get caught. Here's the mentioned Kboards thread, if you're interested. www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,263872.1275.html One problem that new authors face is that other authors tend to not say anything when they see bad behavior going on. The reason is usually fear of reprisal via bad review storms, lawsuits, doxxing, or being reported to amazon for violations they didn't commit. But of course because no one ever says anything the newbies end up learning the hard way every time. And places like Kboards don't help by shutting down conversations or editing out entire posts when someone says something unkind about a spammer. Kboards does let you say what you have experienced, if you've been cheated or whatever, you just have to do it in a nice way. Tone policing basically. So it is possible to get the info you need, you just have to be available to read the super long threads and make sure you don't miss anything, and be willing to do some research off the boards.  |
|
|
|
Post by possiblyderanged on Jul 8, 2018 13:37:06 GMT
Most boards won't allow people to name and shame, which in some cases is probably for the best. Some people tend to go off without any proof. But someone like PhoenixS or David Gaughran (I probably spelled that wrong, but too lazy to look), who know what's going on and have spent time researching and verifying, could be allowed to do it. Kboards won't ever allow it, I don't care how much they say it's being discussed.
Some people tried to warn others about folks like Rebecca Hamilton, but that was shut down pretty quick and posts deleted. Turns out, it only allowed her to continue to do her dirty work and threaten authors who tried to fight back.
The thing is, if you have the information out there, then you're at risk of being on someone's hit list. If it's in private groups, then those who need to see it never will. It's a conundrum, for sure.
|
|
|
|
Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 8, 2018 17:00:27 GMT
When I first made this board I had a Name and Shame board and then I got worried about doxing, in case a miracle happened and this place became the next Kboards or something. *teehee* So I deleted it. Then I deleted all the boards cos I like the cleaner look of having it all in one. But I still wouldn't have a problem with peeps warning others about particular scammers. Just use pen names and company names, offer proof when you have it, and when you don't say this is my personal opinion or this is what I suspect. Indies have to look out for each other!
|
|
|
|
Post by thanos on Jul 9, 2018 4:52:49 GMT
Is it though? I've never really understood this massive urge to protect authors from "slander". If you falsely accuse someone who is not cheating you'll get put in your place pretty darn quickly. And if an author truly is successful, some yahoos saying shit on a forum will have zero impact on them and their readership. The truth of the matter with kboards is a LOT of the regulars are into all kinds of grey hat tactics. Many of them who shout the loudest about how horrible they find the cheats, are themselves cheating. Notice how a LOT of the old regulars are gone. Why? They've all gone into private FB groups where they don't have to worry as much about their dirty laundry coming out. MANY "successful" indies are going stealth now because they realize being too public eventually might lead to trouble. The old ego kick they got out of bragging about their rank and being worshipped by newbs isn't worth the attention it draws to them now. If you dig into this industry and a lot of the "successful" names you'll see all kinds of data that makes absolutely no sense. Most boards won't allow people to name and shame, which in some cases is probably for the best. Some people tend to go off without any proof. But someone like PhoenixS or David Gaughran (I probably spelled that wrong, but too lazy to look), who know what's going on and have spent time researching and verifying, could be allowed to do it. Kboards won't ever allow it, I don't care how much they say it's being discussed. Some people tried to warn others about folks like Rebecca Hamilton, but that was shut down pretty quick and posts deleted. Turns out, it only allowed her to continue to do her dirty work and threaten authors who tried to fight back. The thing is, if you have the information out there, then you're at risk of being on someone's hit list. If it's in private groups, then those who need to see it never will. It's a conundrum, for sure. |
|
|
|
Post by possiblyderanged on Jul 17, 2018 21:45:51 GMT
I suspect a lot of folks who show up to protest the "witch hunts" at kboards are probably doing a lot of those gray/black hat stuff. If you notice, the same ones show up on every thread. A few probably pull out those old sock puppet accounts they set up years ago to do it. Some of them are probably wondering when they'll be banned. They are probably looking for the latest ways to get around Amazon's enforcement while they decry the lack of empathy for those poor, poor people who were just trying to make a living!
I mean, if it wasn't allowed, Amazon would have stopped it, right? So what's their excuse now that Amazon is stopping it? Oh, right. The dolphins are getting caught up in the tuna nets. It's not right. Of course it's not right that innocent authors might be harmed, but I suspect there's a lot less of them than some would like us to believe.
|
|
|
|
Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 17, 2018 22:00:22 GMT
I suspect a lot of folks who show up to protest the "witch hunts" at kboards are probably doing a lot of those gray/black hat stuff. If you notice, the same ones show up on every thread. A few probably pull out those old sock puppet accounts they set up years ago to do it. Some of them are probably wondering when they'll be banned. They are probably looking for the latest ways to get around Amazon's enforcement while they decry the lack of empathy for those poor, poor people who were just trying to make a living! I mean, if it wasn't allowed, Amazon would have stopped it, right? So what's their excuse now that Amazon is stopping it? Oh, right. The dolphins are getting caught up in the tuna nets. It's not right. Of course it's not right that innocent authors might be harmed, but I suspect there's a lot less of them than some would like us to believe. I've had similar suspicions. It's so easy to be anonymous on the internet, but it's harder to disguise your character. If someone tends to deeply sympathize with anyone caught breaking TOS, or if they seem to harbor a great deal of fear over "witch hunts" those are all smoke signals that a wolf is among the sheepfold. To badly butcher a few metaphors, as we do.  |
|
|
|
Post by possiblyderanged on Jul 21, 2018 17:12:26 GMT
When I see people like that, especially if they have a low post count, I go check their profile and look at their previous posts. I got dinged about mentioning that on a thread, but the truth is, look at what these people do. Look where they post. Look at how long some have been members, how few posts they have, and how long ago it was they posted. One of those people had posted a rather gushing thing on Chance Carter's thread about that Booklinkr thing, or whatever it was. Then they disappeared for a while. That to me says sock puppet, or paid troll.
I'm a cynical sort, though.
|
|
|
|
Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 21, 2018 17:26:25 GMT
I'm sure there are many sock puppets and trolls over there. Every board has them. But of course you can't ever ever call a troll a troll cos you might hurt the troll's feelings. And we wouldn't want that. (shakes head) So all you can do is let the trolls keep trolling along, trolling their song, across the beautiful briny boards. If only there was some other way, but I'm afraid there isn't. We're all at the trolls mercies. Sad.
|
|
|
|
Post by possiblyderanged on Jul 22, 2018 15:24:28 GMT
Yeah, every board has them. Most don't go out of their way to protect them, at the cost of regular users. But, their board, their rules. All I know is, check people out. Their post history will tell you a lot about them.
|
|
|
|
Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 22, 2018 17:13:41 GMT
I feel like IAH is going to be not only a safe haven from trolls, but also snobs, and cliques, and bullies with god powers. That's the nice thing about being small and unfancy. We're not important enough for the trolls to notice us, the snobs disdain us, and the bullies don't have any power, so there's no reward for them to come here. Now this could change if we ever mega-grow, but for now we're in our glory days, and it's quite lovely. |
|
|
|
Post by possiblyderanged on Jul 25, 2018 13:32:59 GMT
This could be due to an author launching a new pen name that they've announced to their mailing lists, on their blog and so on. They could have done massive promos to launch the book. A search should turn up if it was done on any open site.
Again, could be an established author who has been working to get a number of books ready. Or they could have hired ghostwriters. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
That I would find suspicious. This to me signals the use of bots and other strategies. I actually found MSE to have a number of books filling the top 100 in colonization books (a category I don't think was appropriate) when I was doing some research. He pretty much had about half the top fifty slots, at least, and apparently had done so for a while. This is a smaller category, true, but it still struck me as odd. And now, he is gone from Amazon. Things that make you go hm.
I can see why some things would happen legitimately, but when you take into account how hard it is to get visibility, certain things happening can certainly make you wonder. I'm naturally suspicious of these things myself, especially after the things I've seen in this business.
|
|
|
|
Post by davidvandyke on Jul 27, 2018 21:40:44 GMT
This could be due to an author launching a new pen name that they've announced to their mailing lists, on their blog and so on. They could have done massive promos to launch the book. A search should turn up if it was done on any open site. Again, could be an established author who has been working to get a number of books ready. Or they could have hired ghostwriters. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. That I would find suspicious. This to me signals the use of bots and other strategies. I actually found MSE to have a number of books filling the top 100 in colonization books (a category I don't think was appropriate) when I was doing some research. He pretty much had about half the top fifty slots, at least, and apparently had done so for a while. This is a smaller category, true, but it still struck me as odd. And now, he is gone from Amazon. Things that make you go hm. I can see why some things would happen legitimately, but when you take into account how hard it is to get visibility, certain things happening can certainly make you wonder. I'm naturally suspicious of these things myself, especially after the things I've seen in this business. Kinda like the "ten warning signs your teenager is abusing drugs" or something like that. It's all about patterns. You could make a checklist of indicators, like intelligence analysts do. One out of ten indications present don't mean much. Five out of ten mean pay attention. Ten out of ten means it's highly likely and needs to be dealt with. Kind of like the "top ten indications your teenager is abusing drugs" or something like that. |
|
