Case Study #1 Teresa Nielsen Hayden Baits A Naive Editor
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| Teresa Nielsen-Hayden in Her Element |
The new guy to the Absolute Write boards never saw it coming. And that's exactly how
they like it at AW. An Australian editor joined AW and at first, began having
friendly conversations with his fellow writers.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden got wind of his
editor status and the hackles went up. With Teresa, remember, it's all
about ego. Anytime she encounters an editor or an agent on her turf, she
sniffs her or him out, analyzing whether or not credentials and writing
skills on the boards are up to her own standards (which is funny considering she is neither an editor or a fiction writer). Her words:
Me
personally? I have decades of experience in newspapers, magazines, and
reference and trade book publishing. That's as opposed to working for a toy
distributor that took a fling at printing books. /
Source
So, what does she
do?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden spends an inordinate amount of
time (as if she's some kind of legitimate journalist) and "researches" the
Australian by doxing him. She cherry
picks what she wants to find out about him online to build her thesis on
why he should be be discredited in front of the whole world by one of her self-righteous diatribes. She didn't contact him by
phone to get a fair and balanced interview, because a faux
journalist is not interested in being fair and balanced.
Here's how this ongoing saga started with the Australian and Hapisofi (Teresa's psuedo):
After doxing him, she defines for the AW community what her perceptions of his qualifications are: (her words in italics)
As for you? I went from notes like
* doesn't know a query letter from a cover letter
* hasn't seen much slush
* has a shaky notion of what book editors do, and a shakier notion of what agents do
to
* hasn't worked in the editorial department of a general-interest trade book publisher
* hasn't worked in sales and distribution
* has no in-depth acquisition experience in adult trade nonfiction
* in adult trade publishing, period
* hasn't done marketing or promotion for a mainstream publisher
* is emphatically not a professional proofreader or copy editor.
HapiSofi said I had not worked at a trade publisher. She didn't ask me.
She didn't read where I mentioned Pearson in the thread (although I
admit it was small and in passing). She didn't try to verify anything at all. She blurted out that I hadn't worked for a trade publisher. She did this because she assumed. She assumed that every single person I've worked for is listed on my About page. She was wrong. And what is really frustrating is that no one bothers to point it out to her.
This
Australian editor was gobsmacked that
Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Melodi "Macillster Stone" Sherman would take a
swing at him. What he didn't understand (as most newbies to AW do not)
that this brand of trashing and insult is an established pattern of the AW mods.
A little back
story: Many of the AW mods and cronies have acted as "publishing
industry watchdogs" for years. During the old Jenna Glatzner days they worked
together to expose agents and bigger publishers for defrauding hopeful authors. But over the years, their successes have turned to
an ugly form of self-congratulatory, shoot-from-the-hip vigilantism.
Their
modus operandi is to assume most people they don't personally know
who come to the AW boards and claim to be part of the publishing
industry are frauds unless proven innocent....and this is where it gets
interesting. Because when you are up against them, you cannot be proven innocent. And what's worse? Google ranks their rantings so high in search results that within days your friends, customers, business associates, and so forth, are reading pages of vehement and ill-informed attacks made by AW posters who behave as it they are authorities.
In the Australian's
case, watching him publicly try to prove his legitimacy over and over is
exactly the game they so love to play.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden sets the stage by taking a
swing. The unsuspecting newbie defends himself. The rest of AW mods lay
in wait to peck, peck peck, trolling the newbie to continue to lay out
more evidence. The AW suckups want to join the game. "Let me in coach,
let me in." The real dogpile begin.
If you don't have
the time it takes to wade through hundreds of posts on this thread to
see how this all turned out, we'll summarize it for you.
The Australian has his professional
reputation trashed. The more he fights back, the more they pounce.
Meanwhile, search engines aggregate everything and the Australian has
learned a very important lesson.
Do not go onto the AW
boards if you are expecting a civilized, fair and balanced community.
And do engage when getting dogpiled online.
Teresa's response post
#106
I think you need to read the Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.
Seriously. It's all about what life is like in the vicinity of authors.
If you want the short version of that description, it's only
occasionally like spending a week getting roasted on AW, but it's a lot
more like that than any kind of "normal life." It's a terrible thing to
say, but we really are a representative sample.
In other words:
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
A little bullying builds character.
It's a terrible thing to
say, but we really are a representative sample.
Below is the hoster for Absolute Write. We are encouraging a write-in campaign on the part of everyone who believes they have been libeled, smeared, or unfairly humiliated by the owners of Absolute Write and their moderators, or members, including but not limited to James D. Macdonald (aka Congenial Sage or Uncle Jim), Debra Doyle (aka Old Hack), Teresa Nielsen Hayden (aka Hapisofi), Melodi Sherman (aka Macallister Stone), Lisa Spangenberg (aka Medievalist), and Stacia Kane.
