Vanity Author Rampages Again

Good grief, this author needs to be stopped. Forgive me if I sound a little paranoid, but 'Vanity's' style of writing and MO is so very reminiscent of the individual/s behind STGRB. Ugh!

"The prob­lem is that one blog post does not an open iden­tity make." Oh okay Shakespeare. Oh my god. You think you're cool kat but you're really, um, not. Jan's right. You could get your asses sued for this post.

I cannot believe the actions of authors I've noticed lately. What "Vanity" has done is disgusting. If only she and others I've read about had the ability to see themselves from other's vantage points...although I cannot look away. It's the curiosity and wonder of watching someone self destruct.

Yes, Wendy's identity is not hard to find. You want to know why it's probably not hard to find? Because she probably thought she would never have to deal with this sort of terrible, cruel and petty bull shit. I have my real information on the inter webs too because I NEVER in a MILLION YEARS thought and author would want to attack a review to such an extent. This is so disturbing on so many levels that I find it unfortunate that Wendy can't take legal actions. Vanity is a sick, sick human being. I wish I had never known she existed.

You should be careful what you say about people on your blog, Cuddlebuggery. You could get sued for slander. If I was this author, I would.

WOW. I am absolutely flabbergasted that there would actually be such awful people who do things like this! I mean, 27 accounts?! Leaking people's personal information on the internet?! That is just crossing all sorts of lines! My heart goes out to Wendy!

She's not STFU. One of the author's friends (or it might be a sock puppet, who knows at this point) is at it in Amazon. I truly feel very sorry for Wendy. What a horrible thing.

I found Vanity's blog. She's one psych bitch. Here's how Wendy, the sweetest, calmest person on Goodreads puts the situation: January 13, 2012:  My review of The Selection went live on this blog and on GoodReads. Within hours, the first trollish comment appears on GoodReads, followed by repeated negative comments by "Anonymous" on this blog. Later that day, I discover that the author's agent, Elana Roth, called me a bitch on Twitter. She and the author then publicly discuss trying to game the system by burying my review and upvoting positive ones instead. I published my status update (screenshots linked above) to the GR feed along with a few subsequent comments, and the whole thing exploded. Numerous people tweet the author and her agent to express their disgust. January 14, 2012: Kiera Cass sends me an private message via GoodReads to say she feels someone should apologize, so she's sorry. She proceeds to explain why she and her agent wanted to vote up reviews in the hopes of people seeing good ones when they visited the page. I did not respond. January 17, 2012: Karen Stringen from Publishers Weekly contacts me about the YA author controversy. I speak with her via telephone the following day. January 18, 2012: Elana Roth sends me an email to formally apologize. I formally accept. January 19, 2012: Publishers Weekly publishes the story Should Authors and Agents Weigh in on Citizen Reviews?  January - May Numerous blogs write about the situation. (I'll come back and add links later.) Trolls come and go every week on the reviews. Fellow bloggers and GoodReaders go on the attack weighing in on my reviewing policies and a supposed "hive mentality" when it comes to these meltdowns. The author's friends leap to her defense, and one person writes that blaming her for her employee's actions (and her failure to stop them, I might add) is equivalent to "blaming ever(y) Muslim for 9/11 or every American for the bombing of Hiroshima." Authors, friends, and complete strangers write to me with messages of support, both publicly and privately. Kiera Cass and Elana Roth tweet about how the author shouldn't be blamed for the agent's actions and imply that they hope the book won't be affected. An entire blog is created to mock GoodReads reviewers, including me. Countless new GoodReads account pop up with an interesting amount of activity devoted to this book, and countless 5 star Amazon reviews are posted where it is the reviewer's sole contribution. HERE'S HOW VANITY TWISTS IT: So … what happened?  Well, author Kiera Cass wrote a book called The Selection.  Her publisher sent out pre-pub review copies.  A reviewer named Wendy Darling reviewed the book on Goodreads.  Fans of the book left comments on Wendy’s review and it blew up into a heated discussion of the book with name calling going back and forth.  Then, because the author had encouraged a couple fans to vote on some of the reviews of her book, she got blamed for the whole thing.  She got blamed for several things over which she had no control.  Afterwards, Wendy got her friends at Publisher’s Weekly to write up an article on it, basically, just to get all of her Goodreads friends and readers of the article to hate Kiera.  After it happened, this author was stalked, bullied, and harassed to no end, even after she had expressed regret over the whole thing to Wendy. I can't even respond. Like, what the hell? This woman needs to stfu.

Wow, this behavior is not ok. Wendy is handling it gracefully but it must be horribly upsetting. Like Archer, it takes a lot to scare me but this did. I think I'm going to have nightmares about a crazed author showing up at my door now. I'll have to get a rottweiler because I'm going to keep writing them when the book warrants it.

Ever since I found out about this last night, I've just been . . . stupefied. I just do not understand how anyone, in any situation, could ever think this is okay. I've seen shitty author behavior. We all have. But Douthit has gone so far beyond acceptable that it's hard to even wrap my mind around it. Researching someone and posting their personal information on your blog? Not ever, ever okay. I keep praying that something someone says will get through to her, but as of yet, no luck.

FYI: for your own sanity, Do NOT visit Vanity's blog.

This is above and beyond "bad author behaviour." This is straight up harassment. I hope that Wendy has some form of legal recourse-is there an online equivalent of a restraining order? Has there been any update on Vanity? has she taken down the post, or done anything?

Wow, that's...really jerky. I hope that she doesn't get a spike in sales out of this, even though if I were to guess, I'd say that was probably at least partially responsible for all this dickish behavior. This: First off, I want to say that I think it is beyond cowardly to hide behind a pseudo name and a generic picture, especially when you are stalking and harassing someone, or getting your friends to stalk and harass them, which is what she does. Secondly, it is then hypocritical to accuse other people of being sock puppets when you, yourself are hiding behind a sock puppet alias. I have two words for this: cowardly and hypocritical. I'm assuming she's using this as an excuse for shoehorning Wendy's info into her post. That's just laughable. I mean seriously, does she not understand the concept of "avatars" or "screen names"? Does she not understand that they exist to prevent this exact sort of thing, and that not everyone wants to parade their personal information out on the net? She calls it "hypocritical" and "cowardly", when I think most rational people - and I'm sure, especially parents with children who use the internet - would call it "common sense". But then, I'm taking that statement at face value, when it was probably just a thin excuse to invite harassment for Wendy.

Holy cow. Thanks for reporting this; it's rather horrifying, but people need to know that this author is doing this. How can she talk about bullying after posting all this personal information online WITHOUT THE CONSENT of the other person? That's really unnerving and creepy. Seriously. I have no idea what this woman's written, but I hope to God people start letting her know that this kind of behavior is not acceptable. Writing is a product like any other and if people don't like your product, the last thing you want to do is throw a hissy fit and harass your customers. It's just sheer bad business practice, not to mention these actions say a lot about this author as a human being- none of it good.

This is beyond disgusting. And yes, there are legal remedies that could be taken (public disclosure of private facts). I seriously, don't get why people won't leave well enough alone. The review that Wendy posted was hardly offensive. I honestly think Vanity published her little review to get some press and hence get some readers or author friends...rolls eyes. Like bullying someone's going to do that.

my jaw is dropped at this bad author behaving badly. That is wrong on so many levels.

yes, this is disgusting and sad. She certainly crossed a line. Wendy didn't deserve to have all her info exposed. I am sure she has dug a deep hole for herself. Thanks for calling out attention to this matter. We all need to rally behind Wendy and assist her with whatever she needs.

Just have to love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. How can she accuse a group of people of being trolls and STALKERS when she posts such private information like that!! It's ridiculous. Authors like this just need to grow the hell up! And poor Wendy. I feel terrible for her, what an invasion of privacy. I hope she doesn't suffer because of this "author's" post.

My thoughts are with Wendy and her family. I hope they are - and remain - safe. This isn't just a writer suffering a case of butthurt; this is someone who has a history of stalking (more than one person), harassing reviewers on book sites and author groups, creating fake identities to leave inappropriate reviews (positive for herself, abusive/negative for others). She needs professional help and intervention.

looks like her blog post is now password protected...

This makes me angry and sick at heart for Wendy. This kind of behavior is NOT ok. Wendy is the victim, not the delusional, psycho Vanity. I (and many others) have reported her wp blog, and flagged the new reviews on Amazon last night - hopefully they pull both soon.

Giant hugs to Wendy. Real friends trump sock puppets, always.

This is just so sad. Sigh.

What REALLY pisses me off about this (among a multitude of other things), is the absolute hypocrisy of her behaviour - she accuses a reviewer of bringing in her friends to support, what I believe to be a fair and well-rounded review, and then spends what must have been hours digging around for information, making assumptions without any kind of evidence and writing a nasty, manic post about the whole thing. What in the hell does she think this will achieve?

Wasn't this same reviewer attacked by another author in another incident as well? The name sounds vaguely familiar. That being said, this is not the first time I see an author do this exact same thing to a reviewer. The first time I read about something like this, it was, I believe, an incident taking place in Amazon. Amazon reviews is another place where this sort of disgusting behavior seems to take place.

Poor Wendy! Am I the only one who feels sick?

People are going after Wendy AGAIN? Oh my goodness I'm ready to kick some season ass. And if you know me I spend most of my time gardening and making tea so that's not my normal state of existence. WHAT THE HECK!?!?! It's too early in the morning for me to fully process but GRRRR

Wow as if the fake accounts and retaliatory reviews weren't enough (and she calls other people trolls? Did she pass a mirror perhaps?) but to post someone's real life details is beyond the pale. Some people despertaely need internet anonymity, they have stalkers, they have people who dislike them, they may have, under the cover of net anonymity, revealed more about themselves than they are comfortable - or safe - with people around them knowing. To say nothing of risking harassment from this woman's fans. Beyond disgusting

Seriously?! What sort of person does that? If you can't take criticism you shouldn't be writing! Not everyone is going to like it and it is beyond low that you would publish personal information about a reviewer online where any number of people can see!! This author needs to grow up. She's a bully, plain and simple. It's people like this that make me think about giving up reviewing...what a horrible human being.

OMG O_O Getting so sick of this crap about negative reviews and the whole BE NICE shit.

Posting a reviewer's personal information down to their husband's name, picture and even their pets is disgusting! Authors need to grow up! Reviewers are bullies? Give me a break. How old are we?

This "author" came onto an amazon thread about Badly Behaving Reviewers to sew seeds of hate and discontent about how the bullies were being mean to her after she support JM, KC and others...and then tried to pick fights with established people on the thread...someone there just linked us to this...wow, just wow...

This saddens me far more than I can express in words. My heart really goes out to Wendy.

I cannot believe this. This is beyond professionalism and into the territory of libel. Thank you for reporting the news, CuddleBuggery blog.

She really went over the top this time--not only as an author, but as a blogger. This only makes her look like a bully. There were no personal attacks in Wendy's review or any of that sort, and I don't think there has ever been a time there was any. The funny thing is that Vanity supports an anti-bullying group in her blog . . . *facepalms*

In a week where a man was shot after eating another man's face, this Vanity person has managed to up the crazy.

What a bitch! I literally gasped when I saw this. I don't know how anyone can sink so low. I have no idea who this author is but I hope that I never read one of her books by accident.

Wow. Just... wow. I'm restraining myself from commenting on the author's blog because it would just perpetuate the cycle (and also, there's probably something to be said for not poking the crazy person), but I am sending really, REALLY bad thoughts her way. I hope Wendy takes legal action.

Wow. I'm not sure I can even form a coherent response to this. I'd have to second what Sarah said above though. This is totally awful, and Wendy is SUCH a nice person. I don't care if she chooses to remain behind a pseudonym or not. She's a total sweetie and an asset to the book blogging community.

I am so so SO sad, dissapointed, and upset about this. And Wendy, of all people? Seriously, named after a Disney character or not, the name is apt: Wendy is a darling. Of ALL the people to be attacked this way, I just can't understand... she's never unkind, unfair, or abrasive... in her negative reviews. She's honest, and in fact, I've read books after lackluster reviews from her, because she's very clear and thoughtful, and... Thanks for posting this, Kat... and seriously, "Pub­lish­ing per­sonal infor­ma­tion about a reviewer, whether or not you agree with them, is above and beyond behav­iour that any­one could find acceptable." is so so SO true, but, I mean, really: "Pub­lish­ing per­sonal infor­ma­tion about anyone, ever, whether or not you agree with them, is above and beyond behav­iour that any­one could find acceptable." I can't believe we're having to have this conversation. Are we not adults? I expect more of people than this pathetic, small playground bullshit.

Holy shit. This is beyond not okay.

This is probably the most horrible thing I've seen on goodreads. It makes me sick and I'm seriously considering leaving for a while. I can still get all the reviews I want from my favorite bloggers' sites. Sad to say, but I don't need goodreads when I have them. I would rather avoid that crap. (not that I am personally involved or anything, it just sucks what she and people like her turn goodreads into)