Except that the amazon rules state that advertising and promotional material is not allowed in review. There is nothing in the rules to say you have to have read the book. The reviews (unlike the content of the book) are factually accurate. The buyer can then make their own mind up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deal
One of my big beefs with Mezrich's book is the sub-title "Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire--and How It All Came Crashing Down"
Of course it is not a true story.
In the UK version of the book, the publishers are little more reserved. The book is just called "Straight Flush". The sub-title is "The College Kids Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire--and How It All Came Crashing Down" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Straight-Flu...straight+flush
No mention of a True Story!
Haley, have you ever heard of Jason Colavito? Basically he is a skeptic who debunks all of the ancient alien astronaut and other claims made by people. The reason I bring him up is that he writes books (as well as blog posts) similar to what you are considering. I also know he has faced some lawsuits, so he might be a good person to contact before you take on something as big as Random House and Ben Mezrich. The website is JasonColavito.com, based on his back-and-forth on his site I'm sure he'd take the time to talk to you and explain how to avoid any "legal" entanglementsQuote:
Originally Posted by haleylh
Interesting stuff. I looked at a few of his pages; he reminds me of an Amazing Randi with even more of a scientific bent.
I saw a couple of the lawsuits (and threatened lawsuits) you referred to, and I'm not worried by those. One was threatened by one of the conspiracy theorist types who wanted to sue Colavito for reviewing this guy's book "without permission". LOL that.
I've been threatened with legal action several times already, and it's never slowed me down. People who accuse me of being exceptionally pissy on Absolute Poker matters neglect to consider that Scott Tom threatened libel actions against me twice, 18 months apart, and both of those were well before I finally obtained the evidence that proved it was really him behind the cheating after all. Since he couldn't shut me up, he finally threw a bunch of advertising money to Tony G at PokerNews and induced them into getting rid of me. I've never told that story in full, but it happened. Look up the fraudulent AP-sponsored Sports Celebrity Challenge, which was a part of it.
In addition to those two threats, Annie Duke and Mark Teltscher have also threatened to sue me directly, to the extent of having lawyers send me cartoony threats, and I can think of other cases where lawyers have contacted sites I've written for and demanded retractions. One hilarious episode came from a lawyer for an online payment processor demanding I apologize and retract a news brief at PPN that named his company; my response was to refer him to the Wall Street Journal piece where his company's involvement was first published. He, ummm, was never heard from again.
I'm not at all scared of Mezrich or Harper-Collins / William Morrow Books (and not Random House) if it comes to that. He and they both know Mezrich is a fraud, and dollars to donuts they don't want any sort of publicity that rocks that boat. Mezrich is a rather different beast than some tinfoil-hat true believer's tomes on ancient aliens; Mezrich is a phony and he knows it.
here is a new 5 star review by "Candy"
"This book is amazing, it is so sad what happened to those men who build up a business and had it crash because of stupid and unfair circumstances. I feel like all the negative reviews must have been paid for by the government themselves to hide the terrible things they put these men through."
Fucking Moron! grrrr ........I hope they get hit by a car
Now eight +ve reviews on amazon, five of which end with an exclamation mark in the review title.
Looking a little deeper three reviews by "A J Wolfson", "Travis" and "glutenfreeisgreat" all use a curious double-dash "--" in the review, which is very rarely used, except in the sub-title of the book!
Then there's some style similarities:
"Sniff" - This story is fascinating....
"Candy" - This book is amazing....
"Michael" - This is a great book ....
I've been doing a little digging this morning. I think that the tack Aaron took against Mezrich was interesting, but I think a consumer-fraud action against Mezrich and Harper-Collins would be more likely to succeed, so I'm going to look around for a proper attorney for that.
If you find one, please let me know. It's a perfect Massachusetts Chapter 93A (https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Gener...eXV/Chapter93a) class action case in my opinion, but I'm not an attorney. I would like to be involved, however, and my prior case should have laid a lot of the groundwork.Quote:
Originally Posted by haleylh
A similar case to pay attention to is Pfau et al v. Mortenson et al, which is now pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. See http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716059.
Haley, what is this about Matthew Parvis being on tap to interview Ben Mezrich for Pokernews?
Is this true, or just being batted around in theory?
Laughably true:
http://www.pokernews.com/poker-forum/topic9998/
While you were you recounting your final table, Parvis and I were having a Twitter spat. I admit to initiating it, Tweeting:
Re @MatthewParvis interviewing @benmezrich: I have faith in Parvis's "Lederer Files"-shown ability to not follow up on any hard questions.
That pissed him off, despite it being true. If a competent amateur such as Lederer handled Parvis that easily, a practiced pro like Mezrich will eat him up, and by the end of the interview they'll be all palsy-walsy and Scott Tom will be anointed for sainthood.
Parvis made several Tweets attacking me as a person without addressing the issue I brought up. Meanwhile, I brought up the fact that PN climbed back in bed with Absolute Poker to advertise that Sports Legends Challenge in 2009, and that TonyG / Noah / Jordy / Robbie hated me covering the AP scandal in the first place, and did everything they could to shut me down (eventually getting rid of me) in terms of reporting on it. And now PN wants to do SEO whoring, just like they did with the awful Lederer Files.
Then Parvis tried to remind me that he wasn't part of PN back when the AP scandal broke, which also misses two key points: All the stories at PN on it (over a dozen) were done by me personally, often against those others' wishes, and the Parvis/Morris/BLUFF record of reporting on the scandals was pathetic.
I felt most of the questions Parvis asked Lederer were good, but he was terrible at following up. A robot could have done Parvis' job, as he seemed to just ask questions and accept the answers.
Wasn't quite as bad as Chris Costigan's laughable Gambling 911 piece on Lock, but still missed a golden opportunity to confront Howard back when he gave "I remember one time... at a party...." types of answers.
I have a feeling that Parvis will probably do the same thing here -- present good questions to Mezrich, but then just sit there with a confused look on his face when Mezrich shoots back carefully-rehearsed answers.
Haley would be the best for the Mezrich interview, but we all know that Mezrich would never agree to such a thing.
Exactly. But by the time all that stuff was done, Lederer felt quite comfortably in giving Diamond Flush the freezeout, and that was the damage that PN and Parvis caused by going in there and whoring for web hits. The Mezrich interview will be a repeat. It won't be quite as bad as that fawning Liggiero interview of Mezrich at CalvinAyre.com, but it's not going to be newsworthy in any way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Speaking of bogus reviews and Twitter pimping, it appears that @LuxeTiffany and @JBDowd are a husband-and-wife couple doing a lot of Mezrich pimping. She runs a small social-media promotion thingy called Luxe Media, and he knows who appears to be Mezrich's book agent, Dana Brunetti. Here's Dowd and Brunetti, who appear to be friends (original link here):
Update: According to Brunetti's Wiki, he's the film-producer/agent/connection guy from Mezrich to Kevin Spacey, in addition to being a social-media guy himself.
Who are @LuxeTiffany and @JBDowd?
I am confused here.
Luxe Tiffany and JB Dowd are a wife-and-husband couple, friends of Ben's, who seem to keep on pimping Ben's book on Twitter and elsewhere. It turns out Luxe runs a little social-media business called Luxe Media. There's a reasonable chance she's responsible for the 5-star "sweetpea" reviews on Amazon, if that's not Tonya Mezrich's herself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Speaking of Amazon, there's been a surge in 5-star reviews in recent days, many of which are done by those same first-time reviewers, and at least one of which comes from Boston.
Curious to know how you think sales for this book to date are doing?
Perhaps compared to other Mezrich books or some other measure.
Wow, that's nothing I have any area of concern over. It could be selling a thousand copies or a million copies and it wouldn't make a difference. The book's a fraud no matter how many copies it's sold. I think Mezrich Tweeted something early on that it had made the top ten of some bestseller list (NY Times??) for a week but I don't have enough interest in stuff like that to look it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sanlmar
"Jonathan Soroff" 5 star review today almost certainly from Boston (google his name)
"The cupcake Queen" 5 star review almost certainly from Boston (other review mentions Boston)
"E. McDonagh" 5 star review; what other books has "E." reviewed - well that would be The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich!
In fairness the other 5 star reviews look a lot more legit.
I think it's a friends-and-family effort. Using Mezrich's own style:Quote:
Originally Posted by Belly Buster
The phone rang in a small Cape Cod bungalow, where a retired couple admired a morning flock of seagulls seeking a fresh meal. "Mom!" cried Mezrich's nasal voice over the connection. "Those online poker players are being mean to me on Amazon! You've got to help!"
Soroff doesn't Tweet much any more, but he's for sure a personal friend:
Jonathan Soroff @Jonathan_Soroff 7 Jul 11
is off to Ben Mezrich's launch party for "Sex on the Moon."
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