What actually happened?

You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t wondering what actually happened, so I’ll tell you everything about it.

Three years ago I decided that published or self-published writers needed an organisation and a means to promote their own books. Promotion should consist of joint projects to sell books or approach booksellers, an extensive searchable database of resources, books review in magazines, magazine advertising, and a discussion forum. Each member should also get a web presence and an email address.

The editor of Writers’ Forum magazine, the organiser of the Winchester Annual Writers’ Conference and other respectable experts in the book world, encouraged me in this concept and supported the idea in principle - though not financially (and nor would I have asked them to, for reasons I’ll explain).

It would have to be funded out of member’s contributions, a bit like a trade union, and it had to be independent of any organisations, such as self-publishing companies for example, whose services writers might wish to purchase, since it needed to be in a position to criticise them. It would make a loss at first but hopefully, in a few years, it would sustain itself and maybe even make a small profit.

I launched this project – called http://WritersPromote.com – out of my own pocket. Slowly it began to pick up members. It received many complimentary testimonials and positive feedback from the members. Writers are often not natural self-promoters and growth was painfully slow, but it was growing. Then, although I didn't discover the cause for some months, around March time the flow of new members appeared to falter and the infant enterprise went into crisis.

The blogger had put the knife in.

This blogger was of the opinion, (and he claims to be an expert in manipulating the search engines – who am I to argue?), that one particular aspect of my website design would not endear the site to the search engines, though it had been doing quite well up until then. So far, so good – not a big deal – it was something that is easily corrected.

Note, by the way, that search engine positioning is largely irrelevant in our case. One doesn’t search the internet to choose a book to buy (and our objectives is helping members to sell books) – one goes to a specific site to read about a specific author.

Mine is at http://WritersPromote.com/DavidCaldo/.

However, he followed that potentially valuable comment by a vicious personal attack on me, calling me a liar and dishonest and dodgy and a cowboy, and made false allegations about my receiving money from advertising without declaring it to members (all of which was false), and using the site to push my own books (obviously untrue, since none of my books are yet published - though I'm working on that). All of his allegations can be proved to be false, from the audited financial figures and the testimony of witnesses.

What his motivation for attacking me may be I do not know, though his website is full of self-adoring comments and he apparently has high opinions of himself. He is really a plain Mr. Brown, but he seems to want to be taken for a member of the aristocracy, both in the name he adopts, and in the prominent publicity photographs of himself in a morning suit and a top hat. His actual knowledge of the facts of Writers Promote, and (apparently) the law of libel, appear even more uncertain than his atrocious spelling and grammar. None of that would matter, but he has damaged an enterprise that is much valued by its members - and also damaged the reputation of an honest man.

The Writers Promote organisation was dying and I thought I would have to close it down. I even wrote to our several hundred members to tell them so. This was before I knew about the bad-mouthing blog and I assumed that I had been wrong and the enterprise was not, after all, filling a need. I received a flood of emails (you can see some of them here) asking me to continue and even offering to pay more to keep it alive.

Once I knew the true cause of our troubles, of course, that changed everything.

I was determined that a facility that was clearly valued by it's members would not be destroyed by vindictive bad-mouthing from someone obviously ignorant of the facts. Now I know that the members want it.

I have reduced the fees to £12 a year and will continue as long as it takes.

Now -- what shall I do about the damaging source of the infection...?

More next post...

The Horrible Discovery

I have just discovered I've been attacked - in an ill-spelled diatribe, by a self-appointed internet vigilante.

What's it like?

I cannot fully describe my shock and anger – the feeling that I had been personally violated in public. Everything that was said about me was distorted, false, and completely unfair. Anyone who knows me or has done business with me will know that, while I may make my share of mistakes, I am honest, careful and genuine.

I knew I had acted throughout with decency and honesty, and not broken any laws – yet I stood publicly accused of dishonesty, lying and deceit, right there where everybody would be sure to see it. It made me sweat and feel physically sick, and it was two days before I felt able even to tell my wife. I still have not told my children, though I’ll have to soon, before they discover for themselves.

Libel on the Internet is not the same as libel in a newspaper, it’s much, much worse.

That’s the first of the painful things I have discovered.

Even a front page spread in The Times will be bin-liners tomorrow. It hurts, but one can shrug one’s shoulders and try to ignore it. On the Internet the lying words hang around forever, and sit right there, between you and anyone who is interested to find out more about you. New friends, new businesses, new agents – everyone.

Aided by the search engines, the libel pops up on Google whenever someone enters my name. Though I only discovered it last month, (not being one who regularly googles his own name – normally about as exciting as ringing your own telephone number) – this page of false and damaging allegations had already been hanging there for five months, sitting at second position on the first page of the Google search results, and seen by I don’t know how many people who might otherwise have wanted to do business with me but now might not.

This holier-than-thou vigilante, who pretends he is a member of the British aristocracy, though I've discovered that in real life he is plain 'Mr' like you or I, had made sure it was listed under my name, and under my business name and (surely this can only be out of spite) under my pen name as a writer. Just in case anyone should miss it. There isn't anybody who won't see it if they ask about me on Google.

Imagine that someone has printed billboards with a big picture of you, calling you a liar and a cheat, and pasted them up all round your home, your place of work and everywhere else that people might possibly look for you. It is loathsome.

What makes it worse is that, unlike an article in The Times, it is not written by a journalist of reasonable integrity and overseen by an editor with an eye to avoiding unnecessary court damages. Anyone can write a blog, set themselves up as an expert, and smear whomever they like, in the belief that they are immune from any responsibility, retribution or prosecution.

I’m not a celebrity (chance would be a fine thing); I’m a normal honest small businessman trying to become a writer. I had not expected to be a subject for unprovoked and scurrilous attack.

Now what happens?

More next post...

I admire Giles Corey as a stubborn martyr, standing out against the malicious madness of the mob three hundred years ago. These events are happening today --------- Garth Notley