CWA’s Response to Phony Reviews

Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has issued a statement outlining its position on “sock-puppetry,” or the employment of phony online identities for the purpose of deceiving readers.

This move has been provoked, at least in part, by revelations that prominent UK thriller writer R.J. “Roger” Ellory has--under pseudonyms--contributed some deliberately deceptive book reviews to Amazon. He is not the only author to have engaged in such deceptions, nor perhaps the most prolific; but his actions seem finally to have focused public attention on these sorts of abuses.

Here is the updated version of the CWA’s statement:

The Crime Writers’ Association has been supporting crime writers and championing the genre for nearly 60 years now. We are very proud of this record and of our Dagger awards, which are judged with the highest standards of integrity.

Like others in publishing, we became aware recently of the practice of authors assuming fake identities on blogs, Twitter or Amazon to promote their own work, and in some cases, allegedly give bad reviews to that of other writers.

The CWA feels this practice is unfair to authors and also to the readers who are so supportive of the crime genre. It does not fit with our ethos of supporting all published crime authors and promoting 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 CWA has been trying to plot a course of action in an unprecedented situation regarding false and sometimes malicious reviews posted on Amazon. As a constitutional organisation we have to follow our own rules and procedures. We are under a lot of pressure to make knee-jerk decisions and we don’t feel this would be right as a membership organisation without a full investigation of the facts.

However, we are fully aware of the situation and keen to find a course that helps preserve the integrity of crime writing, and the traditional supportiveness of the genre. One of our members, R.J. Ellory, has made a public statement admitting he is one of those to have done this, he has formally apologized to the two authors about whom he wrote a negative review, and has offered to resign. The CWA intends to consult with the Society of Authors and to look at each situation on an individual basis. The only information available to date has been that reported on Twitter and in the newspapers, and we will be investigating this whole issue more broadly.

We’re happy to answer any queries over our position on the matter so do get in touch.

Meanwhile, dozens of crime writers and critics from around the world--including Linwood Barclay, Lee Child, John Connolly, Michael Connelly, Mo Hayder, David Hewson, Laura Lippman, Val McDermid, Peter Robinson, Andrew Taylor, and Laura Wilson--have come together to condemn the abuse of online review fakery and call for its end. Their message, which you can read here, has apparently already been delivered in letter form to Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. It condemns sock puppetry and commits the signatories to “never to use such tactics.” Other authors, readers, agents, and reviewers are invited to add their names to the letter here.

(Hat tip to It’s a Crime! [... or a Mystery])

READ MORE: “The Furor Over ‘Sock Puppet’ Amazon Book Reviews,” by Carolyn Kellogg (Los Angeles Times); “Real Blame for Fake Reviews: Amazon, et al.,” by Seeley James; “Sock Puppetry and Fake Reviews: Publish and Be Damned,” by Alison Flood (The Guardian); “What Does the Sock-puppet Scandal Mean for Online Reviewing?” by Claire Armitstead (The Guardian).

Roger Ellory and His Sock Puppets

As scandals go, revelations that best-selling UK thriller writer R.J. “Roger” Ellory has been “faking his own glowing reviews” (to quote the subhead on a report in The Daily Telegraph) and simultaneously dissing rival wordsmiths online seems like fairly small stuff. He is, after all, only a single abuser of an online-reviewing system that, according to a recent article in The New York Times, has fetched some freelance writers a good deal of dough for their phony critiques and, in the process, brought under suspicion all reader reviews on the Web--whether their subjects are books, restaurants, movies, gardening equipment, cleaning services, or anything else. And he says that his faked or negative reviews are few in number compared to the totality of opinions he’s submitted online.

However, the 47-year-old Ellory has suddenly become the poster boy for the exploitation of a system that contains inadequate safeguards against chicanery of this sort. As The Daily Mail explains:

Novelist R.J. Ellory was forced to make a grovelling apology yesterday after it emerged he had been posting gushing praise of his own work--and attacking others’ novels--under an assumed name on Amazon.

The author, who won the crime novel of the year [award] in 2010, seems to have been using at least two fake identities to rave about his writing on the site.

Posting as ‘Jelly Bean’, he wrote that his novel A Quiet Belief in Angels was ‘one of the most moving books I’ve ever read’.

He continued: ‘It is so beautifully written I felt as though it enabled me to be a part of that era even though that can never actually happen.

'I would highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants to experience a class read.’

He also appears to have been posting as ‘Nicodemus Jones’, who described the same novel as a ‘modern masterpiece’.

Discovery of Ellory’s misbehavior--what’s known in the business as “sock-puppetry,” or the use of an online identity for purposes of deception--was made by Jeremy Duns, a UK spy-fictionist now based in Sweden. Duns, you may recall, was also the person who last year revealed significant plagiarism by Q.R. Markham, author of the debut espionage thriller Assassin of Secrets (which was later removed from store shelves by its publisher). He told the Telegraph that, while he hadn’t been a victim of Ellory’s pseudonymous mischief, he sees sock-puppetry as “pathetic” and worth exposing:

“I have only met Ellory once and this is not a personal attack, but I feel very strongly that fellow authors shouldn’t write reviews about their own ‘magnificent genius’ and slate the work of other hard-working writers without clearly declaring who they are.

“It is not my job to police it, but I think it is important to highlight what is ‘below the belt’ behaviour, which I have no time for.”

The British media say that authors Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride were two prominent targets of Ellory’s online derision. After giving MacBride’s 2010 DS Logan McRae novel, Dark Blood, only one star on the Amazon UK site, Ellory allegedly wrote: “Unfortunately this is another in the seemingly endless parade of same-old-same-old Police procedurals that seem to abound in the UK.”

(Left) J. Kingston Pierce and Roger Ellory in San Francisco for Bouchercon 2010.

Now, let me say that Roger Ellory is a friend of mine, and I’ve long found him to be a talented, insightful author. He has always been very kind and generous to me, and I look forward to many long years of drinking and story-swapping together at crime-fiction conventions around the world. Even if all the charges made against him in the press are true, I shall not abandon him as a friend.

However, these allegations of serial sock-puppetry are certainly troubling. I claim no inside information as to his motives, but I can only guess that a combination of prankishness and arrogance lies behind Ellory’s deeds. It would have been manipulation of a lesser sort had he sought simply to pump up his own writing through bogus reviews; we all understand--even if we don’t approve--that people cheat the system of online reviewing if they can get away with it. When Ellory extended his abuse to knocking other writers, though, that took his acts to a higher and less excusable level.

After being confronted with questions about his transgressions, Ellory issued a statement saying, in part: “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.”

For some, it may be too late for mea culpas. Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black and other popular works, is said to have tweeted: “Once you’re found out reviewing yourself glowingly and dissing others your reputation will never ever recover.”

I’m not sure Hill is correct. As I said before, this small-scale, if deliberate attempt to fool readers and perhaps boost book sales seems like a fairly petty scandal. Significantly worse offenses have been overcome by people who were far more in the public eye than Ellory. Perhaps the best he could do is follow the example of another Brit: actor Hugh Grant. After being caught “in the act” with a Hollywood hooker back in 1995, Grant--who was famous at that time for dating gorgeous model-actress Elizabeth Hurley--proceeded to fess up at every opportunity to the idiocy of his actions. By admitting to his misdeeds, rather than trying to duck negative publicity, he retained the support of his fans and earned sympathy from others. Today, most filmgoers probably don’t even remember Grant’s embarrassing affair.

In all likelihood, Ellory’s readers will eventually forgive him his wrongdoings. Though whether other authors forget quite so easily is another question.

I am very sorry that my friend Roger has to go through the public shaming he’s brought upon himself. But I hope he digests the wrongness of his actions, and that the exposure of his abuse of online reviewing stops others from repeating those same errors. We ought to be able to trust that people who pen online reviews do so out of a wish to voice their honest opinions--not out of a nefarious, ethics-free desire to game a fault-ridden system.

READ MORE: “‘I’m Sorry’: Award-winning Crime Novelist Admits Fake Five-star Reviews of His OWN Books,” by Natalie Evans (The Daily Mirror); “A Quiet Belief in Sockpuppets,” by Jedidiah Ayres (Hard-boiled Wonderland); “Women Writers at War Over Fake Book Reviews on Amazon,” by Nick Fagge (The Daily Mail); “Sock Puppetry: Not Just Fun and Games Anymore,” by Jeri Westerson (Getting Medieval); “Fake Reviews Are Just the Start in the Dodgy Art of Publishing Books,” by Terence Blacker (The Independent).