Thriller writers claim smear campaign

[Brian G Turner]

Two thriller writers claim that a third is running a smear campaign against them with multiple websites and sock puppet accounts:
A thriller writer has been accused of running an online smear campaign

Stephen Leather, who once occupied all top three positions in the Kindle UK bestseller list, stands accused of running an online smear campaign against fellow authors Jeremy Duns and Steve Mosby.

The prolific Leather is the creator of the popular characters Jack Nightingale (a private eye) and Spider Shepherd (a special services operative turned police officer). But Duns and Mosby claim he also created anonymous websites, and fake social media accounts known as “sockpuppets”, to abuse them.

 

[Hex]

Haven't we heard his name before? Wasn't he one of the writers who responded to reviews on Amazon -- though all a cursory search turns up is him being reasonable when people don't like his book because it wasn't what they expected. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong guy.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I read it the other night. All very unsavoury and where people find the time is beyond me...

 

[althea]

In every walk of life, competition is fierce and dirty tricks abound.
It's shocking but true.
Years ago, my mother and my aunt ran a dancing school. You wouldn't believe how cutthroat that world is! I learned early about dirty tricks and smears.
It's horrible to see how ruthless and devious people can be.

(althea,previously known as Desilu.)

 

[Dan Jones]

I've seen this before - the great fantasy fraudpants Robert Stanek was accused of doing very similar things to promote his execrable books. It boggles the mind: if these people put as much effort into actually writing and promoting properly as they do into creating and managing sock puppets (takes a lot of management, so I'm told!) they probably wouldn't have to do so in the first place!

 

[Nate Hoffelder]

Two thriller writers claim that a third is running a smear campaign against them with multiple websites and sock puppet accounts:
A thriller writer has been accused of running an online smear campaign

Did you know that you are citing an article from January?

The story is probably true. Leather has been caught doing this kind of sh*t for over 4 years now. (I would post links to evidence, but I don't have enough seniority yet.)

 

[Brian G Turner]

Did you know that you are citing an article from January?

Well, the original post and article were written in January.

 

[Nate Hoffelder]

Well, the original post and article were written in January.

Sorry, I thought the date on your post was more recent than that. I must have looked at it wrong.

 

[Nick B]

Pathetic people. Do some authors really believe that it's a competition? As though, by reading one, you wouldn't want to read the others? By the way, you should all read Liberator, instead of ANY OTHER science fiction this year. Okay?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

"Fraudpants"