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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Mar 29, 2020 6:58:47 GMT
She published a lot of smut and paranormal romance back in 2014-2015, and then she just kind of disappeared off the internet. I've been trying to figure out what happened to her for years. I don't know if the stress got too much for her and she quit, or what. I just hope that wherever she is, she's doing okay and happy. We were friends back then and even collabed on a fun bear shifter book. I know she published at least a couple of PI books back before the pornocopalypse, but she took them down and was pubbing shifter and billionaires when I knew her. I hope she didn't get her account banned.
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Post by writeway on Mar 30, 2020 18:34:46 GMT
I've never heard of her but many people switch pen names and go into other genres. Many smut writers have done this because the money just isn't in erotica like it used to be. If she is still writing my guess is she might be writing steamy romance now. This is where a lot of ex-erotica authors have gone. Many even write sweet and women's fiction now. Or, of course she could've just stopped writing for whatever reason. I too often wonder about authors who disappear.
I reread your post. If she wrote PI then she most likely probably went into another genre. That's been a death sentence for erotica for years. Too hard to promote and can't find anywhere to publish it.
Writing erotica normally gets very boring and tedious after a while. Many just grow out of it noting that even though writing about sex sounds fun, it gets to where it isn't.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 3, 2020 19:22:17 GMT
She was already writing romance when she disappeared, she'd ditched erotica long before that. The last I heard she was shutting down her real name accounts everywhere to go all into Amri. And then Amri disappeared, too. It's one of life's greatest mysteries.
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Post by writeway on Apr 3, 2020 22:12:11 GMT
Hmm, could've been blocked or was going against the TOS to just disappear like that after she had plans to keep writing under that name. Unfortunately a lot of these "bestsellers" turn out to be scammers. Not saying she is one, but it is definitely a possibility and would explain why she disappeared again.
ETA: I just looked her up on Amazon and ALL her books are gone. Her author page is completely empty, which is suspicious because even when authors stop writing they often don't take their books down. I see she wrote bad boy romance. That genre was full of scammers. Also, it's weird to see NO mention of her on FB. I understand not having a profile or page but I typed her name in and saw no mention of her books by anyone. Usually someone would mention an author's books if she is very popular.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 3, 2020 22:39:42 GMT
Hmm, could've been blocked or was going against the TOS to just disappear like that after she had plans to keep writing under that name. Unfortunately a lot of these "bestsellers" turn out to be scammers. Not saying she is one, but it is definitely a possibility and would explain why she disappeared again. ETA: I just looked her up on Amazon and ALL her books are gone. Her author page is completely empty, which is suspicious because even when authors stop writing they often don't take their books down. I see she wrote bad boy romance. That genre was full of scammers. Also, it's weird to see NO mention of her on FB. I understand not having a profile or page but I typed her name in and saw no mention of her books by anyone. Usually someone would mention an author's books if she is very popular. The only mentions on FB are a couple of posts by her VA to various facebook groups. And then if you type in Jessie Ann Haynes, her real name, you get a couple of posts where I tagged her. I don't think she was a scammer cos we talked a lot about not doing scammy stuff. But she did publish P.I., and I know she was worried about not getting in trouble again after she unpublished it. She was a member of Dirty Discourse, so it's possible she could have gotten involved in some scammy marketing stuff. I just don't know. I hope not. She was a really nice person who helped me out a lot with encouragement and talking and stuff. I even learned some writing stuff from her because we published a book together about bear shifters. It was going to be a series, but she was really busy and stressed with a lot of personal stuff, and I didn't want to add to her stress, so suggested we end the series. It could have been really fun though, and I'm still disappointed. Having a co-writer was so much fun! But I'm not the best with social skills and I feel like I was really rude to her when she was trying to help me learn how to write sex. And so then I kind of stayed away from her because I felt bad, and I was probably doing my too clingy thing that annoys people. So I didn't follow her to her new Amri Ackers page, and I regret it to this day. If I had I might have found out what happened, and we'd still be friends. You can still find her books on Goodreads, as well as one of the pen names she used before Amri. But you won't find any of her books anywhere legally. |
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Post by writeway on Apr 5, 2020 3:52:44 GMT
Don't even mention Dirty Discourse. That scam-pit. At first, it seemed like it was a decent place then it turned into Scam-A-Rama and you could quickly tell it was the birthplace of most of the KU scammers and TOS breakers. Didn't take long to see that and it made me queasy to see the so-called advice they gave authors, especially bright-eyed newbies who sucked up everything the vets said with a straw. What took the cake for me was when they were defending Chance Carter and the so-called Masterminds (who were all regular DD posters) and defending Rebecca Hamilton yet dogging Kboards because authors dared to call out Chance and RH on their crap. It was sickening and I remember a thread where DD posters (Chance and RH's minions) were calling on others to one-star the authors on Kboards. Disgusting. So if anyone wondered where most of that one-starring crap came from when people on Kboards dared stood up to scammers, it was DD! What's sad is a lot of the DD people used to be Kboards authors who went to the dark side. I remember them revealing the real pen names of Kboards authors who posted on KB under secret names and telling each other to one-star these authors' books. I suspect that's why so many authors disappeared from Kboards back then and we all know folks were scared to say anything about RH. This is why. When I saw the majority of DD defending the scammers, I was beyond DONE. I never visited much anyway because their "advice" was always to those who wrote the trendy stuff and I don't write stuff just because it's popular. I write plots I want to write. So DD didn't help me. And on top of praising scammers and cheats, it was full of sleazy ghostwriters who sounded like they were plagiarizing other people's work. Note: I'm not calling ghostwriters sleazy. The profession is a legitimate one. I'm talking specifically about those that were hocking cheap services on DD. DD was like the Fiverr of erotica.
I notice most of the decent authors moved on from there and like me, lost a lot of respect for that place. Not to mention that once Amazon started cleaning out the scammers and toughening their rules, DD miraculously wasn't so helpful to authors anymore. Hmm, wonder why?
Oh and how could I forget how they dogged and dragged David Gaughran through the mud? He was enemy number 1 over there! He and Phoenix Sullivan. They hated David. Sickening.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 5, 2020 5:32:26 GMT
Don't even mention Dirty Discourse. That scam-pit. At first, it seemed like it was a decent place then it turned into Scam-A-Rama and you could quickly tell it was the birthplace of most of the KU scammers and TOS breakers. Didn't take long to see that and it made me queasy to see the so-called advice they gave authors, especially bright-eyed newbies who sucked up everything the vets said with a straw. What took the cake for me was when they were defending Chance Carter and the so-called Masterminds (who were all regular DD posters) and defending Rebecca Hamilton yet dogging Kboards because authors dared to call out Chance and RH on their crap. It was sickening and I remember a thread where DD posters (Chance and RH's minions) were calling on others to one-star the authors on Kboards. Disgusting. So if anyone wondered where most of that one-starring crap came from when people on Kboards dared stood up to scammers, it was DD! What's sad is a lot of the DD people used to be Kboards authors who went to the dark side. I remember them revealing the real pen names of Kboards authors who posted on KB under secret names and telling each other to one-star these authors' books. I suspect that's why so many authors disappeared from Kboards back then and we all know folks were scared to say anything about RH. This is why. When I saw the majority of DD defending the scammers, I was beyond DONE. I never visited much anyway because their "advice" was always to those who wrote the trendy stuff and I don't write stuff just because it's popular. I write plots I want to write. So DD didn't help me. And on top of praising scammers and cheats, it was full of sleazy ghostwriters who sounded like they were plagiarizing other people's work. Note: I'm not calling ghostwriters sleazy. The profession is a legitimate one. I'm talking specifically about those that were hocking cheap services on DD. DD was like the Fiverr of erotica. I notice most of the decent authors moved on from there and like me, lost a lot of respect for that place. Not to mention that once Amazon started cleaning out the scammers and toughening their rules, DD miraculously wasn't so helpful to authors anymore. Hmm, wonder why? Oh and how could I forget how they dogged and dragged David Gaughran through the mud? He was enemy number 1 over there! He and Phoenix Sullivan. They hated David. Sickening. Wow! I was only on there for a month. I tried to sign up but the Visa gift cards I use won't let me sign up for subscriptions. I wrote an email to Scarlet asking about it, and she was nice enough to comp me a free month. I'm pretty sure this was long before the RH/Chance Carter stuff. I don't remember the year, and I deleted all of my emails from that time. It was just a really nice, friendly place at the time. As far as I could tell, anyway. I think there were parts of the site I didn't have access too, but not sure. It's a shame they went to the dark side. I don't see how anyone could see David or Phoenix as an enemy or think RH was an innocent victim. I've been rereading all of the RH kboards threads since yesterday because I lost all my saved webpages during a crash. It sucks cos I had all the stuff that got pruned away, so now I'm stuck with what the wayback machine saved. But there's still lots of good stuff left. And all the Imgur pics seem to be up still. |
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Post by writeway on Apr 5, 2020 20:21:17 GMT
I first tried DD in 2016 I believe for about a month and it was getting sleazy then but still had some legit advice and decent authors there. I quit my membership because after a month, I got enough out of it and didn't see the need to keep paying. I then checked back into it in 2017 and UGH, it was the complete dark side then. Scarlet was nice but she knew all the crap going on and scamming and did nothing about it. It was so riddled with scammers and sleazy players that I knew I made the right decision walking away for good. I just hate I'd wasted that money a second time because I couldn't stand to be there a week. I talked to other authors who used to go there and asked if they still went and they said, "Oh, God no. That place is the black hole." A shame Scarlet or whoever allowed it to change but she probably didn't care as long as folks were paying to access it. Sorry, but if I had a forum, I couldn't condone scammers being on it especially when I know the damage their "advice" can cause to people. This is why so many folks got upset with the mods on Kboards whenever people called out scammers and the admins wouldn't let you be honest about what they were doing. There were many newbies on DD who thought some of that sleazy stuff was okay and that's the bad part. Scarlet condoned it because it was her board so she knew darn well what went on there.
It's definitely not what it used to be because I never hear about it anymore and as I said, most of the decent people won't go anywhere near it. I suspect the scamming stuff has leveled off only because Amazon cracked down so it's not so easy to scam like it used to be.
Most of those scammers started right in DD. They hated David because all those bad boy KU scammers were in there and that's the group he always signaled out the most. And with good reason because they were the ones doing all the scamming.
There were a few positives I got from DD. If you peeled away all the scammy advice, there were some nuggets in there but you had to know what to look for. The erotica and romance subgenres was where all the scamming was. It wasn't so bad in other subforums so those were okay. I did get invited to be in a few box sets after coming in contact with some authors on DD. These were legit sets, not RH-type stuff. So that was cool. Unfortunately, all the authors I knew from DD don't seem to be writing anymore. Just like the woman you mentioned. All have disappeared, which makes me wonder if they were legit after all. Sad thing is, never knew who you were networking with on DD and it was just too much of a risk IMO.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 5, 2020 22:38:28 GMT
That's interesting and sad about how so many authors from DD have disappeared. Although, scammers disappearing isn't sad. It's a nice forum turning into a hive of scum and villainy that is sad. Great idea for a mystery novel though! Did they all take one new identities and join a top secret Facebook group? Did they all quit writing entirely after being banned from amazon? Are they all in the witness protection program? Are they DEAD??? Create an author character who is a world class troll, scammer, and sociopath and then turn her into a serial killer. Put it at a writing retreat on an island, then strand everyone on it, ala Harpers Island, and kill off everyone one-by-one. Or you could do it ala Agatha Christie's "And then there were none" and have everyone being killed off be a scammy scammer. Mwahahahaha
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 5, 2020 22:54:55 GMT
If people still did box sets that would be a fun theme - scammers getting their comeuppance.  |
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Post by writeway on Apr 6, 2020 5:07:37 GMT
Unfortunately scammers are like Gremlins and roaches. They don't die, they multiply. LOL! They never leave forever. They just keep changing pen names and recycling books. Because they are scammers they open new KDP accounts easily. Now, I have no proof of this I'm about to say but it's been said that these scammers might be involved with identity theft and use other people's information to open accounts. That explains how they keep opening KDP accounts in different names. Places like WritersSanctum and Twitter often "out" these scammers when they have new identities. Chance Carter has had about three since he got caught and I think all three were banned. He's probably still slinking around under a new name.
So what I said before about scammers disappearing, I should've said, their pen names because scammers never go away for good. The only way scammers will stop for good is if Amazon takes real action. I mean REAL action to where folks can't just steal someone's information (or use someone's information) to open a KDP account over and over. That's another thing some of them do, they use their friends' and relatives info to open up KDP accounts. It was a rumor that right after KDP blocked her, RH tried to sneak back in under a different account and got caught. I think she is back though. I mean I'd be shocked if RH isn't on Amazon again under a different name. With as shady and crafty as she is, I know she's found a way back in. At one while she had her co-writer putting books on the co-writer's account but that didn't seem to last.
What's sad is those that fought against scammers seem to have given up because they weren't getting anywhere. How many times can you report something to Amazon only to have the scammers return over and over? I don't think David worries about this anymore and I don't blame him because he got so much hate from authors for reporting scammers so it's probably not worth it. Phoenix seems to have disappeared or at least I don't see her on any sites I visit. There were authors on FB and Twitter who used to fight scammers but they got tired of Amazon not taking it seriously.
So it's a good and a bad thing going on. The good is scamming doesn't seem to be anything like it was a few years ago. You still got some there (or some people suspect or doing shady things) but most have moved on. Scammers do get tired so I think after getting caught over and over some do give up and leave writing alone but you'll always have scammers who keep trying to get by for as long as they can. The bad thing is that people like David seemed to have moved on from the fight as well.
I can understand that. It's Amazon's responsibility to clean up their store. Not ours.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 6, 2020 5:37:56 GMT
Rebecca is definitely still on amazon. I was just looking at her author page. She has all her books still up. Most of them with co-authors names on them. Miranda something is her newest one. www.amazon.com/Rebecca-Hamilton/e/B0072J4RS8/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_2You don't really need identity theft to get back on amazon. I'm not saying that has never happened, but it's not necessary. You can get others to publish you on their account, or just set up a corporation and a dba. The reason most authors who get caught when they try that approach is they aren't careful enough. It has to be a complete break and separation from the person who was banned, totally different books, different name, new IP, new IPS, new computer, new name, new tax id number, new address, new bank, and zero connection to any old accounts or friends or family. Accidentally log in once to your old Facebook account in the same browser as the one for new amazon, and they've caught you. But scammers are tenacious and they do keep trying. They are like weeds. And then of course there is just doing tons and tons and tons and tons of emailing/calling amazon, sobbing lots of tears, making lots of excuses and just not giving up which I think can also eventually get your banned account reinstated. You have to be the adult version of a screaming toddler. Phoenix probably posts in private FB groups now. She deleted most of her Kboards posts and said she wouldn't post on writer sanctum. I don't blame anyone for getting exhausted and discouraged from being on scammer watch. I'm sure all the lawsuits of a few years ago didn't help. And with kboards only being a shell of its former glory and writer sanctum, not quite setting the world on fire, although being much much busier than here. I just think the writer community is more scattered and fractured than we used to be. Success is much harder and more expensive now, and so yeah, it's just different. |
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Post by writeway on Apr 7, 2020 23:10:27 GMT
I agree with everything you said about how the writing community is these days, especially the indie community. It definitely seems fragmented but there are still some great people in the industry which offsets the scamming losers. LOL! Man, that gets me about RH being able to back on Amazon. How come legit authors get treated like criminals by Amazon but the scammers keep getting their way? That's why people don't want to report to Amazon anymore, because they don't do anything to stop this stuff in the long term. There is no way in heck RH should be on Amazon even with a co-writer.
USA Today and NYT should make her stop using their letters too because she got them by scamming. They have every right to say she shouldn't use them and we know they know what she did. RH is the reason NYT stopped counting indie ebooks. They found out she was scamming to get all those box sets on the list. Both should sue her for using the letters. She is a fraud.
Why should people who cheat get to walk around claiming letters to get clout? RH is the reason why letters (at least concerning indies) mean nothing these days.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 7, 2020 23:45:25 GMT
I wonder how many authors who have ever gotten letters actually deserved them? Do trad pubbers cheat for all of their authors or just some of the time? The truth could be that book letters have always been as meaningless as the Oscars. That's probably why they haven't taken RH and her minions letters. They might have been annoyed that lowly indies had found a way to scam, but scamming is scamming whether indie or trad. I would have to research to find out where the truth lies there. But I don't really care enough. Letters, awards, whatever. All I want is money.
I think the honest authors give up too soon. You need the type of personality that would lead you to die on a hill to prove you're right, no matter how small the stakes are. Most reasonable people will become discouraged after a while and give up. You need to be totally unreasonable and floating about in a world where you are always right and you always get what you want - the rest of the world be damned. And the thing is, those people do tend to get what they want. Look at the Trumpynator? He wouldn't recognize a fact if it bent him over its knee and spanked him. He creates his own reality. He has zero shame and zero tether to reality. Authors with a similar personality type will always win on amazon. Even when they lose.
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Post by kateelizabeth on Apr 21, 2020 15:18:01 GMT
Oh, my goodness! When I was on DD, everyone was very nice and helpful, but I was there at the beginning. I was there for a year or two, but left when they started talking about charging a monthly fee. I was too broke to deal with even $5.00 a month. Plus, I pretty much stopped writing erotic stuff. That's really sad that it turned into that mess.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 26, 2020 6:23:36 GMT
*teehee* And now I have decided to unpublish all my books on Kindle. All 47 of them. I didn't have to delete all of them, but I tend to be a wee bit impulsive, and I like to either be all in or all out on things. A few of the books I published have names and place names and characters that were originally created for TUOK that I'd throw away when TUOK was frustrating me. But I have gotten really serious about TUOK for the past two weeks, and I want to be able to use everything properly. Plus, I've decided that I don't want to write Femdom stuff anymore, especially the way I wrote it. TUOK will have lots of trans and genderqueer characters and it just felt wrong to me to be writing all of this inclusive progressive stuff when I've got all these smutty shorts out there that are the complete opposite of that. And then I decided to delete all the rest just cos. But anything good can be added into my magnum opus.
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Post by writeway on Apr 26, 2020 14:55:17 GMT
*teehee* And now I have decided to unpublish all my books on Kindle. All 47 of them. I didn't have to delete all of them, but I tend to be a wee bit impulsive, and I like to either be all in or all out on things. A few of the books I published have names and place names and characters that were originally created for TUOK that I'd throw away when TUOK was frustrating me. But I have gotten really serious about TUOK for the past two weeks, and I want to be able to use everything properly. Plus, I've decided that I don't want to write Femdom stuff anymore, especially the way I wrote it. TUOK will have lots of trans and genderqueer characters and it just felt wrong to me to be writing all of this inclusive progressive stuff when I've got all these smutty shorts out there that are the complete opposite of that. And then I decided to delete all the rest just cos. But anything good can be added into my magnum opus. Wow! That's a big decision to make but I respect it if you feel it's right for you. What are you gonna do with the stuff you want use? People are selling their back lists now when they switch to new things. Maybe that's something you want to look into. Wishing you well on your new beginnings! |
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Post by writeway on Apr 26, 2020 14:59:46 GMT
Oh, my goodness! When I was on DD, everyone was very nice and helpful, but I was there at the beginning. I was there for a year or two, but left when they started talking about charging a monthly fee. I was too broke to deal with even $5.00 a month. Plus, I pretty much stopped writing erotic stuff. That's really sad that it turned into that mess. Yeah, it's a common case of good things going bad. What happens is that more and more of the "trash" started hanging out on DD and no one seemed inclined to do anything about it. This is what happens when you have a paid forum. The owners often look the other way because they are getting money. You'd think it would be the opposite where if you paid, then the site would be policed better but that's not what I saw on DD. It got so bad that it was not only like the admin looked the other way but that she encouraged what was going on. No way in the world could she not have known when in the romance and erotica sections over 50% was dedicated to scamming, TOS breaking and improper practices. Sorry, but if you have a forum (especially one you are charging people to join) it's your responsibility to keep the trash out. But as I said, didn't seem like she worried about it and even encouraged it. I never hear about DD these days and not sure what goes on there but I was so sickened when I last visited I don't ever plan on going back. The scamming and all that was bad enough but when they started dedicating threads to bullying authors on KBoards, encouraging one-starring others' books and doxxing KBoard authors they didn't agree with, I wanted nothing to do with it. It had become the Warrior boards of romance and erotica. Sending mobs after authors and the admin just sat there taking money. No thanks. |
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 27, 2020 0:51:18 GMT
*teehee* And now I have decided to unpublish all my books on Kindle. All 47 of them. I didn't have to delete all of them, but I tend to be a wee bit impulsive, and I like to either be all in or all out on things. A few of the books I published have names and place names and characters that were originally created for TUOK that I'd throw away when TUOK was frustrating me. But I have gotten really serious about TUOK for the past two weeks, and I want to be able to use everything properly. Plus, I've decided that I don't want to write Femdom stuff anymore, especially the way I wrote it. TUOK will have lots of trans and genderqueer characters and it just felt wrong to me to be writing all of this inclusive progressive stuff when I've got all these smutty shorts out there that are the complete opposite of that. And then I decided to delete all the rest just cos. But anything good can be added into my magnum opus. Wow! That's a big decision to make but I respect it if you feel it's right for you. What are you gonna do with the stuff you want use? People are selling their back lists now when they switch to new things. Maybe that's something you want to look into. Wishing you well on your new beginnings! Thanks!  I probably won't do anything with the stuff I don't use. I almost made $30-ish dollars a month, on a good month from all of them. So it's not a huge loss. This reminds me I need to take down my author site and twitter at some point. |
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Post by possiblyderanged on Apr 27, 2020 11:28:01 GMT
I was there early on, back when it was just five bucks to join for always (snort), and it was starting to show scam roots even then. Oh, Scarlet said we don't do that here, blah blah, but you could tell it was in those hidden groups that you didn't know about unless she let you in.
When it went to a monthly fee, and Scarlet got nasty about it, and others started being nasty to those who couldn't afford to pay even for the basic forum, I knew I wouldn't be there long. I miss some of the people from there, but it wasn't worth it, being put down and insulted for being poor and apparently too dumb to run the scams.
Oh, well. We did have some good discussion about what KUv2 was about, and how the page reads were being figured.
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I probably won't do anything with the stuff I don't use. I almost made $30-ish dollars a month, on a good month from all of them. So it's not a huge loss. This reminds me I need to take down my author site and twitter at some point. 
