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Month: December 2017

Trout Nation 2017 In Review

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Every year, I make a post where I highlight what I believe to be my very best posts from the year. But this year, I’m not sure I had that many truly “good” posts. Yet so many of you continue to visit and support this site. I’m blessed by your continued presence and participation, but I’ve obviously lost my drive and focus, not just here, but in my fiction writing, too. So, with that in mind, I’m going to try to enter 2018 with new drive.

That said, here is the Trout Nation year in review:

January

I re-released Surrender, a book of my heart that I poured massive research into only to see the publisher crash and burn a few short years later.

I ranked every song in Galavant, a stunning work of epic silliness that you should definitely watch if you haven’t already.

Chronic pain patients were thoroughly insulted by Veronica Roth’s Carve The Mark, a New York Times bestseller filled to the brim with racism and ableism.

February

I offered some helpful tips to the jackass journalists gleefully using Fifty Shades Darker as a vehicle for their desire to demean women.

And I offered some helpful terminology to enhance your Mario Karting experience.

Have a writing question? This is when The Big Damn Writer Question Box debuted.

March

People with enough time on their hands to obsess over wanting to break up an actor’s marriage decided I was a terrible person. Captain Kirk was on my side, though.

Say Goodbye To Hollywood, a somewhat-inspired by Fifty Shades Of Grey novel, released.

I hated Beauty And The Beast so much that I loved it.

Abortion was a big theme in March, with my stance on cis male allies and a review of a fantastic HBO documentary posting within days of each other.

April

I got plagiarized. Again. This has got to stop happening. Luckily, you all had my back.

I showed you how to make a waffle, via a weird video.

May

My mental health took a crash.

And I absolutely had it with MAGA and their fake concern for the LGBTQA+ community.

Why even are male writers? And other tips for incorporating bear-death into your writing career.

June

Wonder Woman was, despite popular criticism, really darn queer.

Did you know that panhandlers make more than minimum wage workers do?

July

Twitter continued to protect Nazis.

My daughter’s reaction to Jodie Whittaker’s casting as the Thirteenth Doctor went viral. I even got interviewed about Doctor Who on BBC Radio, so basically that was a dream come true.

My husband had a problem with my proposed career change, and we made another waffle!

August

Neil and Sophie returned in The Sister. Sadly, it didn’t become a legitimate New York Times bestseller like Handbook For Mortals did.

September

We finished our re-watch of Buffy season three and started season four. Which seemed like a perfect time to come clean about some weird shit I keep in my office.

October

I got the opportunity to review Una, one of my favorite films of 2017.

We dove into a parallel rewatch of Angel. I’m pretty sure I messed up the title on that recap.

November

I started an ongoing series about the worst person I’ve ever met.

December

Bronwyn Green Leslie Knope-d the absolute fuck out of Christmas, but even her beautiful gift was nothing compared to the blessed visit from our favorite con artist, Zade Sarem.

So, here we go, into 2018 and a brave new world of however this plays out. Thanks as always for going on this incredibly weird journey with me.

An In-Depth And Formal Reply To An Actual Vegas Performer

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Yesterday, someone left a comment on one of my Handbook For Mortals recaps.

Actually, I work in a Vegas show on the strip and yes this kind of stuff does happen. Automation is a fairly new thing (last 15 years) and doesn’t work properly all the time. Also, performers in Cirque and Cirque type shows get injured all the time. If you think an investigation of that kind would happen every time there was a serious injury well we would be doing that every day. That is why we get paid well. Most of us are athletes, a lot of us Olympic athletes and we know what we signed up for. Injuries happen during the shows all the time. We are doing crazy stuff and it’s dangerous that’s why people pay a lot of money to see it. People get injured during the show and you don’t even know and we keep going. We don’t stop the show. The one and only time someone fell to their death was actually during KA. DURING A ACTUAL PERFORMANCE IN FRONT OF A AUDIENCE. They witnessed it even…I think the show was back in a day or so. Accidents that happen during rehearsal that only leads to injury an injury like this, wouldn’t even stop the show that night. The show must go one is a real thing in our world.

I have also fallen asleep in my theater before the doors. I find it odd that you tear apart something that you don’t know. You have never worked at a Vegas show (you admit that when you talk about the falling asleep in the theatre scene) yet you INSIST that’s not how this works.

Catwalks lead to platforms in these types of theaters. Perhaps, she should have described it better since most of you wouldn’t know this, but I understood exactly what she’s talking about.

If I remember reading somewhere, she lives in Vegas and works in entertainment. They say write what you know. Maybe the things she wrote are more rooted in reality than you know.

I have also run into Carrot Top (not with Wayne Newton though) in that very mall.

I don’t think this book is the greatest book of all time and I don’t think I’ve ever heard Lani compare her book to THUG. I think the story is overall fun and while if you want to run a fine tooth comb over it, you will find mistakes. You can do that with almost anything. Huge budget movies that cost over 100 million dollars have some errors. There are websites dedicated to finding them. Though those websites are more like a scavenger hunt fun type of find the error. Not a tear someone apart, the way you have engaged in here. All of you really. I bet most of you who are commenting and putting her and the book down have never even put out a book. I wonder what we could all say about your own book. Some of what Jenny says is funny but if you were actually being objective here you would point out the good stuff too. There is lots of it, but your whole point is to bring someone and their art down as much as possible. And you are criticizing her for being some kind of bad person?
You should really try checking your own moral compass here.

I knew from the moment I read, “I have also run into Carrot Top” that this Lani Sarem’s sock puppet account. First of all, the authorial voice is the same with which she wrote Handbook For Mortals. Secondly, who the fuck brags about running into Carrot Top or knowing Carrot Top or just basically talks about Carrot Top as much as she does? But Tez, our awesome Trout Nation comment moderator checked out the domain behind the commenter’s email address, readervillage, and found that it’s registered to…
A DNS look up listing Lani Sarem as admin and billing contact
I’ve redacted some info because we don’t dox around these here parts.
Isn’t it super weird that someone who has an email address registered to a domain owned by Lani Sarem just so happened to stumble across my posts about Handbook For Mortals and decided they needed to defend the book? What makes it even more super weird is that readervillage isn’t even a website. They do have a Twitter account, though, and in the bio they explain that they’re just here to help you find a good book:
If you need to a place to turn for accurate helpful advice. It takes a Village. Reader Village.  coming soon.
Now, I’m not sure how soon readervillage.com is coming, considering if you click that link it’s going to take you to a page where GoDaddy informs you that the domain has expired. But I’m glad that a service exists to give me “accurate helpful advice” about what book to buy. Judging by the fact that every single tweet on the account seems to be shilling Lani Sarem’s appearances, the book must be some kind of huge phenomenon!
What I’m saying here is that it might be a total coincidence that a commenter with an email address from an expired domain for some kind of shady backdoor PR machine that only promotes Handbook For Mortals  and which is owned by Lani Sarem just happened to show up to call me and everyone in the comments section a bad person and defend the books. Oh, no, sorry. What I meant to say is that this is absolutely one hundred percent Lani Sarem.
I originally made a glib remark to this “anonymous commenter”, but knowing now that I’m dealing with a totally legit New York Times bestselling author, I better put on my Sunday britches and give this a real response.
Actually, I work in a Vegas show on the strip and yes this kind of stuff does happen. Automation is a fairly new thing (last 15 years) and doesn’t work properly all the time.
False. The show that Zade’s diving act is inspired by, Cirque Du Soleil’s O, opened in 1998 with state-of-the-art automation. Earlier than that, EFX opened in 1995, featuring, you guessed it, fully automated set pieces and animatronics. Cirque Du Soleil’s Mystére opened in 1993 and featured a revolving stage and automated lifts. These are just shows in Las Vegas. By the early 1980s, Broadway shows like Cats and Les Miserables already featured automated stage pieces. Automation isn’t new to theatre, in Vegas or anywhere else. And while nothing works all the time, no one in the comments or the recap suggested that it did, or that accidents didn’t happen because of it.
Also, performers in Cirque and Cirque type shows get injured all the time. If you think an investigation of that kind would happen every time there was a serious injury well we would be doing that every day. That is why we get paid well. Most of us are athletes, a lot of us Olympic athletes and we know what we signed up for. Injuries happen during the shows all the time. We are doing crazy stuff and it’s dangerous that’s why people pay a lot of money to see it.
This is the part where it really becomes embarrassing for you, Lani. Please do not come to my blog pretending to be an Olympic athlete. All I’m going to do is cackle my way straight to hell. And while yes, performers in Cirque-esque shows do get injured frequently, that doesn’t mean they’re not investigated by OSHA. They are required by law to report serious injuries. That’s how there are statistics that back up your “all the time” assertion. There are also OSHA inspections of major Las Vegas shows and investigations when something goes seriously wrong. Your anecdotes don’t invalidate government regulation and facts that anyone can just google for free. Of course, nothing matches the real-life experiences of a make-believe Olympian.
People get injured during the show and you don’t even know and we keep going. We don’t stop the show.
Except for when they do. Like in 2007 when two acrobats performing in Zumanity fell during an aerial act and the show had to be stopped to remove them on stretchers. While the show did later resume in front of the audience, it did stop, to the point that tickets were refunded to over a thousand audience members because of the delay.
The one and only time someone fell to their death was actually during KA. DURING A ACTUAL PERFORMANCE IN FRONT OF A AUDIENCE. They witnessed it even…I think the show was back in a day or so.
You think wrong. Sarah Guillot-Guyard died in that accident on June 29, and Ka was closed indefinitely pending investigation. You know, those things that don’t happen because the performance is so important that it overrides state and federal law? Yeah, one of those imaginary things that we non-Vegas plebs foolishly believe exist shut down Ka until July 16th, and the show didn’t return to a full schedule until July 23, almost a month after the initial accident. And that investigation? It didn’t close until November.
I find it odd that you tear apart something that you don’t know. You have never worked at a Vegas show (you admit that when you talk about the falling asleep in the theatre scene) yet you INSIST that’s not how this works.
I find it odd that you wrote a book and INSIST that everyone in the industry bend to you because you think you know better than those of us who’ve worked in it for decades. Gosh, I can’t even imagine your frustration, with people talking about stuff they don’t know!
Except every criticism I make in one of these recaps is something I actually research. Which was how I knew about Ka and Zumanity and how OSHA conducts their investigations of stage shows, specifically in Nevada. Because I do my homework before I jump into something. You probably should have done that before you tried to pull your stunt. Or create an untraceable sock puppet.
Catwalks lead to platforms in these types of theaters. Perhaps, she should have described it better since most of you wouldn’t know this, but I understood exactly what she’s talking about.
I don’t recall having an issue with catwalks leading to platforms, but I’d guess that you knew what she was talking about because you are she.
If I remember reading somewhere, she lives in Vegas and works in entertainment. They say write what you know. Maybe the things she wrote are more rooted in reality than you know.
The fact that you took so many pains to try and cover the fact that you are Lani Sarem talking about yourself in the third person makes this so much more cringey than it would have been otherwise.

I have also run into Carrot Top (not with Wayne Newton though) in that very mall.

This is how I knew it was you, by the way. You’ve name dropped Carrot Top in more than one interview. We get it. You know Carrot Top. But the point wasn’t whether or not he’d be there. The point was whether or not Carrot Top and Wayne Newton would be strolling around a mall together after a publicized appearance. And I still call all the bullshit on that one.

I don’t think this book is the greatest book of all time and I don’t think I’ve ever heard Lani compare her book to THUG.

We’re in agreement on that. But while you didn’t compare your book to The Hate U Give, you have mouthed off about its author more than once, telling readers at a signing that it’s “not my fault Angie is black,” and accusing her of jealousy in a Facebook post that God and everybody saw.

I thought it was a particularly nice touch that you asked to friend someone who said that The Hate U Give is only popular because it’s anti-white people.

 I think the story is overall fun and while if you want to run a fine tooth comb over it, you will find mistakes.

You do not need a fine-toothed comb to catch your mistakes. You could run a yard rake over this book and find the mistakes. You could run a combine harvester over this thing and find mistakes, and that’s because you thought you were smarter than anyone else in the industry, that you were going to be able to easily scam readers, retailers, publishers, and Hollywood to get the movie deal you dreamed of.

Huge budget movies that cost over 100 million dollars have some errors. There are websites dedicated to finding them. Though those websites are more like a scavenger hunt fun type of find the error. Not a tear someone apart, the way you have engaged in here.

The “tear someone apart” aspect you’re seeing here is because I don’t like con artists. I don’t like scammers, I don’t like people trying to cheat their way to the top of an industry that they don’t know anything about and frankly don’t belong in because they couldn’t be bothered to pay their dues and learn just like the rest of us. I’m tearing you apart, Lani, because I don’t respect con-artists who aren’t good at conning people.

I bet most of you who are commenting and putting her and the book down have never even put out a book.

This is an author’s blog. And many of the regular commenters are authors, themselves. You would be surprised at how many people here and elsewhere on the internet are critical of you and your book because we’ve written one ourselves.

I wonder what we could all say about your own book.

I wonder, too. Why don’t you head on over to Amazon and pick up my free book, The Boss? I mean, there are already 601 reviews for it and 60% of those are five stars, leaving it with an overall rating of four-and-a-half stars. In fact, most of my books are highly rated there, but I’m sure you could find all sorts of things wrong with it. Go ahead and leave the link to your review in the comments, I would love to get some tips from a real-life bestselling author.

Some of what Jenny says is funny but if you were actually being objective here you would point out the good stuff too. There is lots of it, but your whole point is to bring someone and their art down as much as possible.

First of all, everything I say is funny, because I’m fucking hilarious. And if I were being objective, I would still struggle to find anything good to point out about your book. It was clearly written as quickly as possible by someone who was more interested in grabbing fame than actually giving readers a decent story for the ludicrous price you were charging for it. I notice you’ve changed the price on Amazon, but when I bought the ebook, it was $9.99. You’ve admitted in interviews to selling the hardcover for $35.00 at conventions. And as for bringing down someone’s art, you published a book with a cover that literally steals another artist’s art.

And you are criticizing her for being some kind of bad person?

Yes. I am absolutely criticizing you for being a bad person. Because you are. Bad people tell endless lies to paint themselves as the victim of situations they caused through their own shadiness. Which is what you do. You scammed your way onto the bestseller list. You lied repeatedly about it. You changed your lies multiple times when you got caught. You wrote an op-ed for Rolling Stone and were the subject of a lengthy feature on Vulture yet you continue to tell people that you haven’t been given a chance to tell your story. You intentionally miscategorized your book as YA when it’s clearly not, simply to take advantage of a popular genre. You talked shit about the book industry, my industry, because your scheme unraveled, but somehow that’s our fault because we don’t understand how to run things as well as you do. When none of that turned in your favor, you blamed another author for your downfall, an author who did the work and got something she deserved. And now you’re here, lying yet again because you just can’t help yourself. Lies, lies, lies, upon lies and lies and lies. You are a liar.

You are an outsider who barged in and not only wanted instant glory but a complete overhaul of publishing to suit your goals. Are there issues in the industry? Yes. Were you the scam-artist savior we needed? No, and nobody fucking asked you for your opinion or your overpriced, under-edited dreck that you insist deserves a place beside legitimate books and legitimate authors.

The worst part about all of this? You think we’re dumb enough to believe you. You think we’re dumb enough not to see through your ineptitude.

You insult authors.

You insult readers.

You insult the entire publishing industry.

That’s why people don’t like you. You’re an egotistical, delusional liar who can’t even pull off a convincing sock puppet on the internet.

You should really try checking your own moral compass here.

Just checked. It’s pointing directly to the magnetic pole of fuck you and the pseudo-famous friends whose coattails you rode in on. You and your technicolor dream hair can stay the entire fuck away from my blog from now on.

PS. When you’re trying to stage a fake picture of your book in a bookstore, Sarem doesn’t fall alphabetically between Lowry and Lieu.

It’s A Snow Day!

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I slept in beautifully, gloriously, and now my work day is all sideways. Hence, no advice post today. But guess what I do have.

A portrait of myself as a goddess crushing the patriarchy.

A drawing in comic style of me as a goddess, bedecked in a tunic with the colors of the bisexual flag, a crown of stars and golden marijuana, holding my American Girl doll Samantha in one hand and a guillotine in the other as I stand atop a pile of screaming white men in business suits.

Bronwyn Green commissioned this masterpiece from Jared Pechacek. Look at the detail! I’m still absolutely blown away by this, every time I look at it. The little pin on the shoulder of my toga actually says “Gallifrey” in circular Gallifreyan. That’s how freaking spot on this is. Look how haunted my American Girl doll is!

If you’d like to own a piece of Jared’s work, visit his online shop or visit his twitter for prices on commissions.

The Big Damn Angel Rewatch S01E02, “Lonely Hearts”

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In every generation, there is a chosen one. No, shit. Wrong show. What am I supposed to do, now? I guess I’ll just have to recap every episode Angel with an eye to the following themes:

  1. Angel is still a dick.
  2. Cordelia is smarter than everyone.
  3. Sex is still evil.
  4. Sunlight isn’t nearly as dangerous as it was in Sunnydale…
  5. …but its danger is certainly inconsistent.
  6. Vampire/demon rules aren’t consistent with the Buffyverse.
  7. Xenophobia and cultural stereotypes abound.
  8. Women are disposable and unrealistic.
  9. Vampires still @#$%ing breathe.
  10. Some of this stuff is still homophobic as fuck
  11. Blondes, blondes everywhere

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Just like with the Buffy recaps, I’ve seen (most) of this series already, so I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So a blanket spoiler warning is in effect.

Jealous Hater Book Club: Handbook For Mortals chapter 10, The Hanged Man or “Internalized Misogyny, Rinse, Repeat”

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Another week, another installment of “Lani Sarem shows her entire ass.” In her now infamous Facebook thread, she added further proof of her racism to the mix, asking to send a friend request to a writer who insisted The Hate U Give was only defended by readers because it contains hatred of white people (Thanks to Cheryl Z for bringing attention to that in the comments). It’s only a matter of time before Sarem openly attributes her failures to reverse racism.

Some people have noticed that Sarem has copy/pasted the same question in several different Facebook writing groups. It’s pretty clear that she’s not doing it just to drum up vocal support; nearly every time she tells her sob story about nobody listening to her and everyone being against her, some indie author with a bug up their ass about how persecuted they’ve been by the “gatekeepers” swears they’ll buy a copy of her book. Her new marketing plan is at least less convoluted than the original one.

And away we go.

The Worst Person I’ve Ever Met (Part 3) or “The Bachelorette Implosion”

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Need to catch up? Part One, Part Two.

This section will begin to delve into the spiritual abuse I mentioned in the introduction of part one. We here at Trout Nation come from many different backgrounds and belief systems. I have been locked in a spiritual struggle for almost ten years now, but I have returned to practicing witchcraft. If your beliefs don’t match mine, that’s absolutely cool, but it’s a part of this story and the damage this person did to my life. I’m not asking you to believe, but I am asking that everyone is respectful of everyone else in the comments. Which you probably would do anyway, because you’re awesome.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 9, Temperance, or “I’m sorry that people are jealous of me…but I can’t help it that I’m popular.”

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We begin this week with Lani Sarem making some bold accusations against Angie Thomas, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give.

It started in a Facebook group called Indie Author Support, where Sarem made this post:

A screenshot of a FB post. The text will be included below.

For those who can’t read the image:

Okay so here it goes…My name is Lani Sarem. You may have heard of me. I wrote a book called Handbook for Mortals. It premiered #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list and then I subsequently became the only person (and the book became the only book) to ever get kicked off the list. Mostly it was due to a lot of people misunderstanding about what actually happened. I was pre-selling the book at comic cons and doing well. I had some help, my friend who is a famous actor is helping turn it into a movie and he was helping promote it at the comic cons. These cons get 40,000-120,000 people each over a weekend and a lot of the people come to meet the celebrities that are there. While meeting with the celebrities they alway ask…So you got anything new coming out? My friend Thomas (he starred in all the American Pie movies and Rookie of the Year) etc would point to our project and we would offer to sell them the book. It actually made it pretty easy to sell the book. I wanted to make my sales count though cause sales that happen outside of a bookstore (and some that happen in a bookstore that doesn’t report) don’t count. It’s hard enough to get sales…they should all count. At least that’s my opinion. Anyway, I got accused of a lot of things that aren’t true and as an indie author really got pushed around cause I didn’t have a big publisher or agent to fight for me. I was wondering in a group like this…Does it frustrate you that your sales don’t count everywhere? The music industry has way to count them no matter where they happen. I’m also happy to answer any other questions you may have as to what happened to me so ask away…Sorry for the long-winded post as well.

As you can see, she continues to beat a horse that died back in August. The story still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Her “famous actor” friend isn’t famous. Booksellers have stated it would be unlikely for established, mega-famous authors like Neil Gaiman or George R.R. Martin to sell twenty-thousand copies at a single convention. She’s still lying, but now the lie is, “Yes, I scammed, but I scammed for justice!” and she’s trying to rally other authors in her defense.

Unfortunately, at least a few people took the bait:

A text post screen shot. Text below.

The first comment in this thread, from Jesse James Durdel, sounds like the kind of leading question someone would plant:

For one, most of us here have only heard one side of the story, and it’s not your side at all. Do you suspect someone got jealous and started calling attention to the con sales as a way to besmirch your name in the media?

The key phrase is the “one side of the story” here. I have no proof that JJD knows Lani personally, but I’m a blogger, not a journalist, so I can make whatever wild leaps I’d like, right? I’m going to say that JJD probably is one of Lani’s friends and planted this question to give her the opportunity for this answer:

I can tell you the person that started it was friends with the author and the agent of the book that moved to second on the list and when I was removed the agent took out the two people that started it and toasted about it [winking smiley]

Record scratch. Here we have Lani Sarem accusing Angie Thomas and her agent of deliberately sinking Handbook For Mortals in a fit of jealous panic. After all, doesn’t Angie Thomas, whose book was #1 on the NYT list for most of 2017, has been nominated for multiple awards, was named one of Oprah’s “Favorite Things”, has been adapted for a wildly anticipated film by an acclaimed director, and who has met President Obama, have a reason to feel threatened by Lani Sarem’s successes? I mean, Lani is friends with the guy who jizzed in a beer in American Pie. Who wouldn’t envy that?

Thomas, who until now hasn’t addressed the controversy directly, had this to say in response:

I highly recommend the entire thread, because after having been accused of jealousy toward Sarem more than once, Thomas has earned the right to hold Sarem accountable for her words. But Sarem will never allow herself to be held accountable:

 

Her “I never said your name…” is tantamount to “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!” between siblings in the back of their parents’ car.

There was no need to check the Twitter feed, however, as Brooks Sherman is completely uninvested in pretending to give a shit about Lani Sarem:

 

Having had her ass severely handed to her on Twitter, Sarem stepped out of the conversation. I guess she will never get the chance to tell her side of the story. You know, apart from the op-eds she wrote for Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post. Or the feature Vulture did on her. Or at the many Q and A’s she’s done at conventions and book signings. If only there were some way for this plucky young literary star of tomorrow, who’s been so unfairly maligned by the press, readers and evil, jealous, actually successful authors and their mean-spirited, hard-drinking agents, to tell her side of the story…

For example, a “How I Navigated The NYT Bestseller List” seminar that’ll run you $75.

The book industry is a mess. I didn’t realize how much until I put out my first novel and officially became the only person to ever get kicked off the New York Times bestseller list. Feel free to read the 769 articles that were written about me in the 9 days after I got kicked off. Not one reporter wrote what really happened, but I’ll tell you in person. I can help you navigate the book industry and the pitfalls and make sure you give making it your best shot.

Lani. Lani, Lani, Lani. The book industry is not a mess. Well, it is a mess, but not because of the way you were treated in the wake of your ham-fisted con falling through. You, my non-friend, are the mess. And now you want people to pay seventy-five bucks to hear “what really happened” and learn how to…what? Scam the list and get caught?

Successful, knowledgeable people should teach others how to do things. You’re not successful or knowledgeable. You’re an unlikeable, unwelcome hack who is only succeeding at slamming doors in your own face. Nobody wants to learn how to do that. If anything, you should be peddling yourself as a cautionary tale.

But of course, there’s always going to be someone in your corner, as evidenced by the last screenshot, where Richard Morgan said:

Dig into the articles and you’ll see there was a whole campaign against her and without anyone having read the damned book.

Well, Dick, I suppose that might be somewhat relevant if the entire “campaign” against her wasn’t based on her actions alone and not the quality of the book, but we agree on one thing: Handbook For Mortals is certainly damned.

On to the recap!