Thank you for your many heartfelt words of support. Your flood of letters and emails really means a lot to me. To underscore the overriding sentiment, yes it is really sad that a few heartless, conscienceless people can do so much harm and there’s no rational reason why other people would believe such nonsense. The Internet makes it easy for anyone to say any hateful, untrue thing they want. And when a small group of people with agendas do this for nearly a decade, I can see why otherwise smart people might start to believe the nonsense.
Clearly the originators, and perpetuators, of all this nonsense are enormous fans of George RR Martin. Going back to the beginning of this nonsense, back to 2002, they are the ones who started spreading the lies.
[...]
Why have the books endured despite wide-spread smear campaigns led by fans/friends of other authors? Simple, they’re good and beloved by people of all ages.
Why don’t these haters want anything positive to be written online, or otherwise, about the books? Simple, they’ve invested a huge amount of time and money to ruin my reputation while pumping up the reputation of those other guys/gals.
[...]
Must be terrible books indeed when so many professionals and regular-joe readers enjoy them. Do me a favor next time you see the hatemongers spreading lies: set the record straight. The books are pretty good, thousands of readers have said so and dozens of professionals have said so as well.
- ROBERT STANEK, in a recent blog post
Wow, after the Goodkind crew, now Stanek is blaming the nice folks hanging out at Westeros for his shortcomings. . . Yeah, everyone knows that all of us get up in the morning thinking about how we can invest our time and money to ruin Stanek's reputation!
Creating I don't know how many alts to write glowing reviews of your own novels on Amazon doesn't fly too high in the face of credibility, Mr. Stanek. Nor does being published by a vanity press which you own. Not to mention photoshopping yourself in pictures we legitimate authors. Get an agent, get a true book deal, get real fans, and then we'll see.
Set the record straight, you say??? I've never met someone who has read, let alone loved, any Robert Stanek book. And I'd like to think that I've been around.
Of course, being a bestselling author in literary powerhouse countries such as Vietnam, Burkina Faso, and Chad could explain why. . .
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22 commentaires:
pat i hate to be rude but i dont think anyone really cares. theres loads of crazy people on the internet i dont need updates about them
I think this guy needs to realize his writing is shitty in every aspect.
I agree. Best ignore and forget about him, more interesting things out there
I disagree...
Someone who created maybe hundreds of fake accounts so he basically fucked up the entire Amazon recommendation program shouldn't be left off the hook.
Jim
True. The guy's completely demented and he's really HURT a lot of people with his ridiculous Amazon review schemes. I don't think he should just be ignored.
I'm entertained by the Stanek phenomena. Although there's certainly some tipping point of coverage beyond which you'll earn your site a visit from him. Then the real nuisance would start.
What I'd like to see is someone catching him doing something illegal, and getting him busted.
Barring that, I agree he shouldn't be left alone. The guy is a plague on the online book world, and should be treated as such. What needs to happen is one of the big news corps, should plaster his mug on TV and spill this story into the North American public.....that ought to sink him.
Or raise his sales. Or both...
Oh, those evil GRRM fans - there they go again, ruining lives.
It's hard work being this evil, you know?
I don't really see the point either.
In fact, given the lack of context it took me a while (and a trip to his blog) to remember that Pat had posted about him before.
This is generating a lot of traffic for that yahoo's blog, lol. I hadn't even heard of him until I saw him mentioned in Pat's blog...
Unfortunately I have. I come from one of the few countries "happy" enough to have his books translated there... I guess it comes down to combination of a vocal enough fan (just one in our case) and a dumb enough publisher.
Still, it was only one book, and since bookstores refused to stock it by virtue of it being IRREDEEMABLY retarded, the sequels were never translated.
Never heard of him except on this blog - you're giving him some serious publicity Pat, I'm tempted to buy one of his books just to check it out.
Luckily they're abominably expensive so you most likely won't...
Stanek definitely deserves to be criticized as much and widely as possible. There is no other author who has as many Amazon fake reviews and lists/guides/tags as Stanek. He so thoroughly spammed Amazon that is quite easily to accidently buy one of his books without realizing that he is self published.
And Amazon is just the tip of the iceberg of his relentless internet self promotion. The other day I stumbled across a teacher’s discussion board with someone recommending his books as classroom learning tools -- upon checking this “teacher’s” previous posts it was no surprise that they all were just about Stanek.
This recent article by the author David Langford goes more detail about Stanek’s escapades (Bob Direhack is Robert Stanek):
http://ansible.co.uk/sfx/sfx187.html
One hopes that such continual exposure will lead to Amazon finally taking action. How hard can it be to check to see if one person has hundreds of different accounts to write reviews of their own books?
Of course people may now buy his books out of curiosity. However I suggest they read a complete (and very funny) summary of the first book in his “best selling series” here:
http://conjugalfelicity.wikispaces.com/robertstanek
Or just read the first chapter through Amazon’s “look inside” feature – that should turn off most people from even buying a cheap used copy of any book by Stanek.
You guys are giving him exactly what he wants just by discussing him here.
Not if he gets banned by Amazon, Audible, BN and other online sites where he peddles his books. At the very least I'll be happy if they remove all those fake reviews and don't allow him to post anymore.
I'm amazed at all the comments that seem to suggest that discussing Stanek's fraudulent marketing practices somehow plays right into Stanek's hands. Do you people honestly believe that this discussion has made a single person excited about the prospect of reading one of Stanek's books? This discussion, and others like it, serves to warn unwitting consumers away from Stanek, and to counteract the shady self-promotion that Stanek practices. Contrary to that old adage, there is indeed such a thing as bad publicity, and it can and does have a negative impact on products.
The idea here is to spread awareness, so at least everyone knows there's a debate going on about him before they decide to buy. That way, one supposes, they won't feel quite so had, or at least not scratching their heads over all the wonderful publicity that led to the purchase they now regret. If someone wants to buy his books go ahead, I for one won't tell anybody how to spend their $. I can still enjoy this discussion, though.
Stanek has recently added an Addendum to this blog post:
“Several readers have told me about discussions of my books on Pat’s list, wert, and best f books. Generally, there’s no point in responding to such nonsense, and I never have. There’s not much point. I will say this, however. The people at the sites are likely the same ones who thought it was funny to stalk and harass readers of my books who voiced opinions online. They knew most of my readers are children, and also knew most of the readers they stalked and harassed online were children. They did not care. They did it because they think they can do or say anything online without repercussions. Well, someone someday will give them what they deserve, I'm certain. In prison, people like them usually get shanked.”
Isn’t it rather funny that after Stanek mentions that most of his readers are children he then goes on to fantasize about his critics getting stabbed in prison?
I had the unfortunate experience to read one of his books, which was just poorly written and dull. His blog posts, fake reviews and fake discussion board are much more entertaining to read.
JHS
Is it a fluke that many of the reviewers who gave raves for two of William R. Stanek’s newest Microsoft windows books, also have left positive reviews for his self published fantasy series (written under the name of Robert Stanek)?
10 out of 20 to be exact. And don’t believe Amazon “real name” badges – you can enter any name you want after you provide a valid credit card number on your account:
http://www.amazon.com/Windows%C2%AE-7-Administrators-Pocket-Consultant/dp/0735626995/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Definitive-Essential-Resource-Professionals/dp/0596800975/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259861342&sr=1-5
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