Sock-puppet reviews condemned by authors everywhere

Last Thursday, on our Facebook page, we posted a link from GalleyCat explaining fake Amazon review charts and how to spot them.

The whole debate began when the New York Times wrote an article on August 25th this year exposing the ‘book reviewers for hire’ industry. How do authors get away this? Essentially, “The Federal Trade Commission has issued guidelines stating that all online endorsements need to make clear when there is a financial relationship, but enforcement has been minimal and there has been a lot of confusion in the blogosphere over how this affects traditional book reviews.”

Just two days ago, the Bookseller reported that writers including crime writer RJ Ellory, John Locke and Stephen Leather all admitted to giving their own work 5-star reviews and slamming rival authors on Amazon — a practice damningly referred to as ‘sock puppetry’. The Guardian reported the practice in more detail.

The entire controversy was heightened after Ellory was exposed by rival penman Jeremy Duns on Twitter. Ellory’s publisher, Orion, declined to comment.

On its website, the Crime Writers Association states: “The CWA feels [sock puppetry] is unfair to authors and also to the readers who are so supportive of the crime genre. […] At present we don’t know how widespread the practice is. However we will be taking steps to set up a membership code of ethics, and considering if other steps may be necessary from us as an authors’ organisation.”

The Guardian and The Bookseller described the denunciation of sock-puppetry from other authors, of which a large group (see below) have signed up to a group statement condemning the practice.

The group statement from the authors states:

“These days more and more books are bought, sold, and recommended on-line, and the health of this exciting new ecosystem depends entirely on free and honest conversation among readers. But some writers are misusing these new channels in ways that are fraudulent and damaging to publishing at large. […] Your honest and heartfelt reviews, good or bad, enthusiastic or disapproving,  can drown out the phoney voices, and the underhanded tactics will be marginalized to the point of irrelevance. No single author,  however devious,  can compete with the whole community. Will you use your voice to help us clean up this mess?”

The signatories are: Linwood Barclay, Tom Bale, Mark Billingham, Declan Burke, Ramsey Campbell, Tania Carver, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, N J Cooper, David Corbett, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Stella Duffy, Jeremy Duns, Mark Edwards, Chris Ewan, Helen FitzGerald, Meg Gardiner, Adèle Geras, Joanne Harris, Mo Hayder, David Hewson, Charlie Higson, Peter James, Graham Joyce, Laura Lippman, Stuart MacBride, Val McDermid, Roger McGough, Denise Mina, Steve Mosby, Stuart Neville, Jo Nesbo, Ayo Onatade, S J Parris, Tony Parsons, Sarah Pinborough, Ian Rankin, Shoo Rayner, John Rickards, Stav Sherez, Karin Slaughter, Andrew Taylor, Luca Veste, Louise Voss, Martyn Waites, Neil White and Laura Wilson.

These authors warn that Ellory, Stephen Leather and John Locke have all made use of “sock-puppet” or paid for reviews. They state: “These are just three cases of abuse we know about. Few in publishing believe they are unique. It is likely that other authors are pursuing these underhand tactics as well. We the undersigned unreservedly condemn this behaviour, and commit never to use such tactics.”

A Farewell to Arms & its 20+ Endings

Today the Bookseller reported a new edition of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms including all twenty-nine alternate endings, which will be published in the US in October this year. According to the Telegraph the final number is forty-seven — the reason for this discrepancy seems to arise out of the sheer volume of rewrites (ranging from total overhauls to tiny adjustments); Hemingway himself claimed that he went through thirty-nine variants before he was satisfied.  When he was asked by Paris Review interviewer George Plimpton what had been the reason for so many endings, Hemingway replied: “Getting the words right”.

The final line Hemingway decided on, which has concluded every edition of the novel since its original publication, reads: “After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”

The Guardian wrote that Hemingway’s US publisher Scribner — an imprint of Simon & Schuster — has managed to come up with forty-seven alternate endings, which range from the grumpily nihilistic (“That is all there is to the story. Catherine died and you will die and I will die and that is all I can promise you”) to one suggested by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in which Hemingway wrote that the world “breaks everyone,” and those “it does not break it kills. It kills the very good and very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

The endings, including that suggested by F. Scott Fitzgerald, will be in an appendix in the new 330-page edition, whose cover bears the novel’s original artwork, an illustration of topless lovers:

The Huffington Post reports that the new edition will also include “details of the alternative titles Hemingway had for A Farewell To Arms, including: The Enchantment, Love In War, Every Night And All, Of Wounds and Other Causes.”

According to the Daily Mail, one ending has (the protagonist) Henry’s son live, though its mother still dies: “He does not belong in this story. He starts a new one. It is not fair to start a new story at the end of an old one but that is the way it happens. There is no end except death and birth is the only beginning.”

Another waxes so romantic it is nearly saccharine: “Finally I slept; I must have slept because I woke. When I woke the sun was coming in the open window and I smelled the spring morning after the rain and saw the sun on the trees in the courtyard and for that moment it was all the way it had been.”

Hemingway tries being uncharacteristically spiritual, as well, writing: “The thing is that there is nothing you can do about it. It is all right if you believe in God and love God.”

However, it’s the ending that the writer finally landed on that still feels the most appropriate, the publishing house’s head says. “Ultimately, I think we have to be glad that he went with the ending that he went with,” Susan Moldow, of Scribner, told the New York Times.