Ask not What RWA and The Romance Community Can Do for You…

…but ask what YOU can do for the RWA and the Romance Community

We’ve been covering the #GETLOUD and the #tiffanygate/bookstuffing issues for a week now. So far, we’re sorry to report that Chance Carter’s Mister Diamond is still available for sale in all formats, but we’ll keep you updated on that as we go. However, we have had people become more aware of the corruption that seems to be running through the Amazon store with the bookstuffers and “writers.” We have a passionate base of people on twitter who are reporting what they see and working to help take poorly formatted, over-stuffed books down. We’ve also seen support on Facebook and from author’s on Youtube. We really appreciate all the outpouring of support and please check our Twitter for updates as we try and share all the sources we find that are talking about #GETLOUD.

Also, we’d like to sincerely thank the Sell More Books Show for being the first podcast to cover this. It’s sincerely appreciated, and we mean that from the bottom of our hearts. We were the #2 and #1 stories this week because this all really affects all writers at Amazon, and we’re glad that SMBS took it seriously.

However, there is always an undercurrent of backlash. Some people think that Amazon will never change, and after years of the “writers” and their stuffed books running rampant, we can understand the hopelessness. Some think that we’re acting as a mob and trying to just shame whoever we can. We are working hard to find the actual scammers, working together on organized reporting plans, and also are NEVER EVER DOXXING ANYONE. That’s our number 1 rule. We just want the books that are erratically formatted, stuffed with literally 2000 extra pages, and the authors caught being misogynistic or those cheating the system with FTC-violating contests to be held accountable.

Without Bianca Sommerland and Jenny Trout, whogot loud and used their voices, no one would be aware on a large scale about #Cockygate and the mess surrounding Faleena Hopkins. This was a huge victory for writers everywhere. The legal proceedings are still ongoing and it could take over a year for Kevin Kneupper to get the “cocky” trademark canceled, which he hopefully will though that is far from guaranteed. However, if no one had spoken up, then we might be facing a free speech nightmare where titles were being limited and, like the mafia, writers were muscling others out of whole categories of stories and keywords and titles because of trademark abuse.

It was obviously serious enough for the RWA to pay for Tara Crescent’s legal representation (or help pay toward it) and for the Author’s Guild to get involved. It mattered.

These bookstuffer issues and “writers” matter too, and they all eat into the bottom line of everyone from indies to small presses to the big five. It also forces smaller presses to close, like Crimson Publishing, and for larger houses to get more conservative in romance while marginalized writers are pushed further and further away from visibility and publishing opportunities.

All while some formerly big erotic romance names are actually men posing as women of color to make more money than they would as just white men.

This matters.

But the people who have worked tirelessly to speak up for us are being hurt. We’re not trying to be the writers’ world’s mothers. We wouldn’t want to, but it sucks to see people talk nastily about some of the whistle blowers behind their backs. It sucks to see people driven into silence about things because of cruel social media comments.

I’ve seen people ask us as well as other people involved in #getloud, “Where were you earlier?”

David Gaughran has been in this for over a year. He had to write his main post about the scammers back in October as a parody/satire so he could avoid getting sued and was still threatened. Heather C. Leigh came out with the best explanation of stuffing I’ve seen in January, but was mocked on Facebook and threatened with four separate lawsuits. One author we know of tried to expose fraudulent use of celebrity pictures in Facebook ads and was threatened with a suit. One of our staff tried to talk about this in December and was threatened with a lawsuit. We talked generally about scammers in April and that same staffer had her livelihood at Upwork almost revoked and we had to edit the post or lose our Medium account we’d had for four years.

Do you see a pattern?

This breed of “writers” are ruthless, want to preserve the hundreds of thousands or millions they are making, and they have threatened litigation over and over again (just like a certain Ms. Hopkins as they all probably did learned it from the same types of groups).

People felt safer to speak out en masse after #cockygate mobilized the community. Alone, we were easier to pick off and be scared into silence. We were vulnerable.

Together, we are strong.

So, instead of asking “Where were you,” please start thinking about how you can help this effort. It’s going to be along marathon both for #cockygate and for #getloud and against the book scammers. We need to work together. So here are some action steps:

1. The Romance Writers of America/RWA is working hard. They have had a lot of initiatives they are trying to do. First, they are trying to increase diversity and amplify marginalized voices in romance. Second, they have been working tirelessly on #cockygate, and now they are trying to gather information for talking with Amazon about stuffers. So if you know anything or have proof, please send it to Carol Ritter at the RWA — carol.ritter@rwa.org
2. This book on sale, Cocktales, is earning money toward the authors affected by #cockygate and is providing funds to the RWA’s advocacy fund. If you are so inclined, buy it!
3. If you need to keep abreast, want the latest legal developments in the #cockygate case, keep up with lawyer Kevin Kneupper’s twitter as he’s the one who is challenging the trademark.
4. STAY AWARE: a) follow the latest potential trademark issues with Cockybot on Twitter and b) the stuffers being reported here.
5. Certain authors are working hard on #getloud news so follow David Gaughran, Heather C. Leigh, Bianca Sommerland, and Suzan Tisdale for updates.
6. Please do not tag or alert Jenny Trout. She’s stepping back and explains why here. Do respect that as she has done more than enough for this community. However, if you do want to support her, you can buy her latest release here!

That’s it! So go forward and help out and especially report to carol.ritter@rwa.org — as the RWA is here and they are LISTENING.