The Bad Reviews

The Bad Reviews

It's really sad that I have to announce this where all of my fans can see it, but I guess at this point I have no other choice.

All four bad reviews that The Dark Priesthood received stemmed from a classmate of mine on my college forum leaving commentary on a discussion post I made that was rude.

I did what our college requests, and removed the comment, went about my business, and forgot about the issue.

A few days later I received a message telling me that deleting the comment did not change the facts. I sent a reply message explaining the standard of professionalism our school expects, and asked not to be contacted again. A few days later I received a long inbox detailing the student's opinion of a vanity publisher that had offered me a contract. Instead of replying I ignored the message.

Fastforward into the future three weeks. I have just published this novella debut. The novella is doing well, and I post a discussion about it on my college forum once more.

What transpired next was the same student who had messaged me came here, and referred three of her friends (each which is on her friend list here on Goodreads) to my book so they could all trash review it out of spite.

For the past two days I have been stalked, and downrated by this person, and her friends. This is internet harassment, stalking, and trolling. The reviews were not given in honesty, and are very misleading about the story.

I am writing this blog post now because I want people to know the truth, and see that while I can handle a bad review there is a clear difference between harassment, and vicious revenge.

This is what has happened here. I will not name the student who started this. I will only say that I cannot remove the bad reviews, I can't make it where this is not a matter of public record. I cannot get any person to pick up my book just because of what I say.

What I will say, however, is some of my favorite authors: Laurell K. Hamilton, Anne Rice, Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer, Charlaine Harris, Christine Feehan, and Sherrilyn Kenyon had their work ripped apart at times too. It's to be expected, but I'm an author against author bullying. This is what has happened here.

I will be the bigger person, and continue to believe in myself, my art, and my passions. I'm only saddened to see that someone who is an underclassman from my university has taken such steps to annihilate my story.

This isn't what colleagues do to each other. This isn't a good representation of the type of GPS (global professional standard) that Full Sail University is known for.

I'm sorry to the public who have witnessed one of our students behaving so irrationally. I never realized that someone would go this far in an act of revenge against me simply for not wanting to continue argumentative postings with them.

As an author to another author..that being the woman who enlisted her friends to do this, and did it herself I would like to say this:

You know that other authors will see this. It will definitely not bode well for how you look in a professional light. I hope that when karma comes around you don't experience the same thing that you dished out to others.

As for your friends you enlisted to do this I have this to say:

Thank you for taking the precious time out of your day, and life to read my story, and to post a review. Also thank you for continuing to take the time out of your day to keep posting things about it. I really do appreciate that. I know life is hectic. I know that it is difficult to time manage, and taking the time to review, post, and continue talking about the Sanguine story is greatly appreciated.

Many Blessings to all of you.

Love,

Sai Marie