But how it can be more rewarding than spending an equivalent amount of time actually writing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9515593/RJ-Ellory-detected-crime-writer-who-faked-his-own-glowing-reviews.html

http://stuartneville.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/naming-sock-puppet-names-sam-millar.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/23/historian-orlando-figes-amazon-reviews-rivals

But how it can be more rewarding than spending an equivalent amount of time actually writing?

Financially?
Plus, you save on heating bills from the cleansing fires of hell, perhaps.

It's all so unimaginative too. Can't help feeling that if Jonathan Swift was alive today he'd be using fake names to praise his rivals and rubbish his own books.

I'm going to reveal my lack of tech savvy here, but how can anyone sign on to Amazon with more than one name anyway? Do you have to open up loads of fake email addresses? But can't Amazon detect when they come from the same source/server/PC?

I hadn't realised he'd been caught out by a guy who writes spy thrillers! Yet another level of irony.

What's nuts about this is that I don't believe that authors in the same genre are competitors. I think they're adverts for the genre you're in and boost your own sales.

Readers like to read within their favourite genres but it can be hard to find enough good books. In the thriller genre, I discovered Harlan Coben a few years ago, quickly read all his books (about 20), then found Jeffrey Deaver via a link to Coben, read a dozen of his, then found Lee Child off the back of Deaver, read all 20 of his, he mentioned the brilliant John Sandford in an interview, I've read 20 of his, etc. etc. I'm looking around now for more authors in the same genre to become additional - not replacement - favourites for a guaranteed good read.

I think RJ Ellory misunderstands the market.

I can't remember which Famous American Writer of the late 19th century used to write approving reviews of his own work (possibly Emerson?), but it's surely as old as the hills.

The difference, I guess is that, as with so many other things, the net means it feels easier to do and more rewarding because it can spread so quickly - only of course nothing is actually anonymous (presumably Amazon don't actually check IP addresses, in okaying reviewers). But you need someone dogged and willing to track it down.

I do think that trashing someone's scholarship - sockpuppeting to do down your academic rivals - is much worse than doing the same for fiction, though. Scholarship hast to builds on existing scholarship, and saying a book is bad scholarship damages the person you're trashing much more seriously. It also actual weakens the fabric of the whole discipline

Talking of Harlan Coben, someone Tweeted this, quoting him, which seems very apposite:

No one has to fail so I can succeed

I don't suppose it'll do Ellory's sales any harm in the long term. This kind of thing doesn't touch the ordinary readers.

<Added>

Just checked, and it was Whitman who gave himself favourable (anonymous) reviews. "An American Bard at Last".

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/ww0018s.jpg

Well, you could argue that Whitman was right about himself ... or at least that posterity has judged him so.

But somehow I don't think that will turn out to be the case with Ellory & Co.

They just mentioned this on the Wright Stuff on TV - it's all over the place, suddenly.

Of course I guess we're still in the Silly Season, journalistically speaking, so it's good - or bad if you're the authors accused - timing for a fuss like this.

I'm convinced that the whole exam-results thing wouldn't be so visible, and therefore so politically loaded, if it didn't happen in August.

Never heard of this word, what is the definition of this latest craze?

A sockpuppet is a fake online ID, which someone uses to to say things without owning up to them. Usually it's to stir up trouble, I guess.

It's basically trolling, and in these cases (there's another one here: http://vossandedwards.com/2012/07/31/everyones-a-critic-the-pleasure-and-pain-of-amazon-reviews/ )

it's allegedly specifically aimed at bigging up the authors' own work, and dissing what they see as their competitors.

Intersting to see that the CWA has been dragged into it. The status of professional associations - and capacity to speak on behalf of members - is complex.

The more this practice is publicised, the more it will occur, because there will be new and more dedicated sockpuppets who will seek and achieve greater levels of anonymity. How motivated are Amazon to pursue / stop them? Ellory was outed by his own carelessness, and basic detective work (commendable, at that). He was an amateur at play.
But to state a proverb, every cloud has a s/l, so it may encourage readers to sample before buying, rather than relying on reviews which may be genuine, but may in fact be written with the sole purpose of wrecking the reputation and sales of the author. This can only be a good thing, IMO.
As one who as yet has to plunge into the murky pool of self-publishing, it seems to me that a corollary of this affair, is that the receipt of invective-laden reviews can mean one of two things: either you are genuinely bad, or you are considered a threat to someone, which is, of course, a compliment.
When and if I do self-publish, I will look at reviews with a jaundiced eye.

Nice bit of sanity from author Claire McGowan in her private capacity, although she's also chair of the CWA...

http://clairemcgowan.net/2012/09/03/authors-behaving-badly/

Emma

John Connolly and Mark Billingham were being entertainingly scathing about the "apology" on twitter earlier.

I gather it's been picked up more widely by the big media than I'd have expected - Radio 5Live, Grauniad as well as Torygraph, etc. etc...

I'll also be interested to see if the online sellers such as Amazon do actually feel they should do anything to try to bolster the authenticity of the reviews on there.

I read the Claire McGowan link - or part of it - but clicked the link to the Book Goggles feature on Emily Giffin. Oh My Goodness!

An interesting blog post on this by thriller writer Barry Eisler, in which he asks whether there's a difference between sock-puppetting and getting blurbs as "favours":

http://barryeisler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/and-why-beholdest-thou-mote-in-thy.html