Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Hello to all authors who use this group to announce or promote their new books. I am myself an author and have seen in the last few months a specific tactic used by a/multiple troll(s) to harass and demean authors announcing their books, calling their books thrash, or racist, or other bad things, all just to be mean and to give unjustified low ratings to authors' books being promoted. Actually, this/these troll(s) are easy to spot, notwithstanding their vile comments. The same troll, using multiple fake GR accounts set on 'private' will post two to four or more messages consecutively within minutes of each other, all insulting the author or demeaning his/her book. If you click on those private profiles, you will see that all of them are anonymous, have no pictures shown and claim the same numbers of ratings (1-2), reviews (0) and average ratings (1.0). I believe that those trolls are actually the same a...hole having 'fun' harassing authors on GR in an anonymous, cowardly way. If you notice such trolling messages, I would counsel that you: ignore them and don't answer them; check if the troll(s) burdened your book with an unwaranted rating score of 1, if they did then contact the group moderator, so that he/she could erase that fake rating; flag them at once, so that GR could erase their fake accounts.

Michel, I report the fake account as soon as I spot them. Just reported 3 today. Whether it's one troll opening multiple fake accounts or a bunch of them, I don't know but I refuse to tolerate them!!!!! 😠😡🤬🤣

Thank you Michel and Gina. I was an author who was targeted and I appreciate the support. :)

No problem, Russell! They're still bugging me after 3 1/2 years. I get emails from them saying they're going to pirate my books and give my info to thugs and rapists in my area! Yeah, right! And I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them! 😜😱😵‍💫 I wish the FBI would find them and lock their arses up for the next 250 years!!!!! Ugh! 😔

One thing I noticed GR doing lately is they're deleting the whole thread instead of just the bad actors accounts, so if that happens you may have to post again.

Gina wrote: "One thing I noticed GR doing lately is they're deleting the whole thread instead of just the bad actors accounts, so if that happens you may have to post again."

So, GR is taking the easy road out: vacuum cleaning the threads instead of targetting the IPS addresses of these a...holes. This is disappointing.

I agree, it's disappointing. 😞

Ugh! if you're on a computer, Isabelle, at the bottom of the comment on the right side, you'll see "reply/flag". Click the flag and it will take you to a page to report the comment. I had to shut off my Ask the Author as well, because they were commenting on there, too!

Oh, okay, yes those emails are quickly blocked. I've gotten 4 or 5 of them in the last 3 1/2 years to my 3 emails (Yahoo, Gmail and my website mail). They're a real pain in the arse. They use the same script with a lot of authors and just change the names and book title! I really don't understand the purpose of this rubbish. They're trying to scare authors and get money out of them, which is extortion! One author they wrote to, they told her they wanted her to take them out for dinner and drinks every night! Hahaha! yeah right!!!!! Guess they've never seen the movie Arsenic and Old Lace! 😆😂🤣

Isabelle, I just sent you a friend request if you're interested. 😊

Report these fake accounts to Goodreads and fake reviews they will delete them here and on Amazon. Then erase or delete your post and redo it later on. Report through your profile or account get any fake names too and report them. Hope this helps. I too have these problems.

Gina wrote: "Oh, okay, yes those emails are quickly blocked. I've gotten 4 or 5 of them in the last 3 1/2 years to my 3 emails (Yahoo, Gmail and my website mail). They're a real pain in the arse. They use the s..." Yep, I got several of them, as did a review site that I had linked in one of my posts. It was quite distressing because the reviewers got the email and thought I had done something wrong to drag them into it, almost costing me a bad relationship with them. :(

Question for anyone on this thread who will see this entry: do you have access to your notifications? I haven't had any notification appear on my GR site for over four days now. Is it me or is it a GR-wide problem?

I've been getting notifications, Michel. I'm not particularly interested in the topics but I'm still getting them. 😊.

BTW, does anyone know what happened to Isabelle? She doesn't seem to be on GR anymore? 😔