View Full Version : Saturday night
Are you doing anything on saturdau night? No? Then pop along to MacKays hotel. RJ Ellory to give a talk at 7.00. He is an internationally known writer and very entertaining speaker - and its all free.
Are you doing anything on saturdau night? No? Then pop along to MacKays hotel. RJ Ellory to give a talk at 7.00. He is an internationally known writer and very entertaining speaker - and its all free.
On what subject is he going to speak?
On what subject is he going to speak?
Himself! Haha.
I'd rather poke my eyes out....
rogermellie
08-Feb-13, 01:00
He is an internationally known writer and very entertaining speaker
sounds like the sort of stuff he would say about himself (are you sure you're you Katarina?)
AWE come on! We need to support those events else we can't have them anymore. If you're doing nothing else, or going on elsewhere later - can't hurt - can it?
AWE come on! We need to support those events else we can't have them anymore. If you're doing nothing else, or going on elsewhere later - can't hurt - can it?
Not unless I know what he is going to talk about as it could be a Subject I am not interested in.
but Kodiak, you only live in Thurso and as its only a wee 42 mile round trip for you im sure you would be more than willing to trudge along and have a listen to the geezer...oh and come to think of it, why not come into Wick a few hours earlier then you can have your car washed up at Durrands Garage....all in the name of charity too! [lol]
P.S. hmmm..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9515593/RJ-Ellory-detected-crime-writer-who-faked-his-own-glowing-reviews.html
secrets in symmetry
08-Feb-13, 23:21
Roger Ellory was caught using a pseudonym to write good reviews of his own books on Amazon, whilst at the same time writing bad reviews of his competitors. Go and ask him about this!
Shock, horror, imagine being caught using a pseudonym, how shameful. :eek:
If I was free tomorrow night, Katarina, I'd give it a whirl.
All best for a good night.
Roger Ellory was caught using a pseudonym to write good reviews of his own books on Amazon, whilst at the same time writing bad reviews of his competitors.
Good heckling material.
secrets in symmetry
08-Feb-13, 23:58
Good heckling material.Lol! Go for it!
Here's some more information.
RJ Ellory admits posting fake book reviews over past 10 years
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9521564/RJ-Ellory-admits-posting-fake-book-reviews-over-past-10-years.html)
RJ Ellory, the bestselling British crime writer exposed for writing fake online reviews lauding himself while criticising rivals, has engaged in the practice for the past decade, he admitted today.
Amid a growing worldwide backlash against the "underhand tactics, the 47 year-old disclosed that he had written at least a dozen posts on the internet using pseudonyms.
In a series of messages to fans and rivals on social networking sites, he repeatedly apologised for his actions on websites such as Amazon and vowed he would not “avoid responsibility”.
The author, who is based in Birmingham and whose 10 novels have sold more than a million copies, also admitted his attacks on his rivals including Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride were unwarranted.
RJ Ellory's secret Amazon reviews anger rivals (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/03/rj-ellory-secret-amazon-reviews)
Crime bestseller caught using sock puppets to trash colleagues and hymn his own 'magnificent' work.
Bestselling authors including Lee Child, Ian Rankin and Joanne Harris are queuing up to condemn the posting of reviews under false identities after it emerged this weekend that the award-winning crime writer RJ Ellory had been criticising his rivals and praising his own work under pseudonyms on Amazon.
Ellory, who won the Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel of the year prize in 2010 for his novel A Simple Act of Violence, was exposed by the crime writer Jeremy Duns on Twitter for posting reviews on Amazon under various identities. Under the pseudonym "Nicodemus Jones", Ellory called his own novel A Quiet Belief in Angels a "modern masterpiece" and said that readers should "just buy it, read it and make up your own mind", because "whatever else it might do, it will touch your soul". "All I will say is that there are paragraphs and chapters that just stopped me dead in my tracks," he wrote. "Some of it was chilling, some of it raced along, some of it was poetic and langorous and had to be read twice and three times to really appreciate the depth of the prose … it really is a magnificent book."
secrets in symmetry
09-Feb-13, 00:23
Shock, horror, imagine being caught using a pseudonym, how shameful. :eek:
If I was free tomorrow night, Katarina, I'd give it a whirl.
All best for a good night.There's nothing wrong with using a pseudonym, but getting caught using it to deify your own works whilst criticising those of your competitors is not cool!
secrets in symmetry
09-Feb-13, 14:57
Here's how he was caught (courtesy of The Guardian again). Roger Ellory had a sock puppet called Nicodemus Jones:
But "Nicodemus Jones" was less positive about some of his fellow novelists: Stuart MacBride was dismissed for his novel Dark Blood with one star, with the book described as "another in the seemingly endless parade of same-old-same-old police procedurals that seem to abound in the UK". Duns spotted that Ellory wrote the MacBride review under the pseudonym Nicodemus Jones, but later in the conversation began posting as RJ Ellory, in a continuation of the discussion. "Nicodemus Jones" also repeatedly signs himself as "Roger" in another discussion, in which he writes that "I won the Nouvel Observateur prize last year for AQBIA [A Quiet Belief in Angels]".
I catch a lot of sock puppets on my forum using this method.
Indeed, a well-known (and well-respected) member of this forum made the same mistake a couple of years ago. He tried to cover it up, and I suspect he (mostly) got away with it!
To add some balance, Roger Ellory made a public apology (once again from The Guardian):
Ellory has admitted posting the reviews on Amazon, and apologised for his actions, issuing a statement in which he said: "The recent reviews – both positive and negative – that have been posted on my Amazon accounts are my responsibility and my responsibility alone. I wholeheartedly regret the lapse of judgment that allowed personal opinions to be disseminated in this way and I would like to apologise to my readers and the writing community."
I'm bouncing this thread back to the top - I encourage people to go and hear Roger tonight. Now you know more about him you can ask him more questions. :cool:
Please support events in your local community!
Here's how he was caught (courtesy of The Guardian again). Roger Ellory had a sock puppet called Nicodemus Jones:
I catch a lot of sock puppets on my forum using this method.
Indeed, a well-known (and well-respected) member of this forum made the same mistake a couple of years ago. He tried to cover it up, and I suspect he (mostly) got away with it!
To add some balance, Roger Ellory made a public apology (once again from The Guardian):
I'm bouncing this thread back to the top - I encourage people to go and hear Roger tonight. Now you know more about him you can ask him more questions. :cool:
Please support events in your local community!
That's amazing secrets in symmetry, thanks for sharing. I'm sure Bill & Niall Fernie will be picking up on the methods you use.
You forgot to provide a link to your forum. I'd like to have a look at it before committing myself. Thanks.
Sad, how one has to get the limelight.
MerlinScot
09-Feb-13, 23:08
Sad story and not cool! Btw I have never read one of his books, so not interested at all, sorry....
Sad, how one has to get the limelight.
I agree. I wonder what secrets in symmetry does on a "normal" day. ;)
would be interesting ha ha was he in the Norseman as a work colleague who happened to be dining there said he could not believe the noisy writers that were there full of themselves
I agree. I wonder what secrets in symmetry does on a "normal" day. ;)
secrets in symmetry
11-Feb-13, 01:24
Did anyone go to this?
Katarina?
It was very well attended. He was very interesting indeed. he did give an explaination of the bad press he recieved without being asked. sounds like, as usual, the press bumped it up. 12 fake reviews over ten years - Woweee. A hanging offence for sure. He also admitted giving bad reviews to TWO of his rivals, but only because they had a personal history and they had given him scathing reviews of his books because of it. He said he admitted it as he did not want to drag his wife and other members of his family into it. All that's by the by. He made a mistake. Who hasn't? I enjoy his books and found him to be a charming and helpful man. And I do hope he'll come back again.
P.S. Do you really think all the good reviews of anything - hotels, holidays etc. Are genuine? Sock puppets are two a penny. There are worse crimes. And no, we were not anywhere near the Norseman Hotel.
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