Sockpuppetry in the Publishing Industry... plus: Totally Unrelated Plagiarism!
Taken from a mousie on wank_report, with some editing by me:

In August, Teresa & Patrick Nielsen Hayden's blog Making Light featured a story about an Australian book retailer whose management (one Charlie Rimmer -- insert Red Dwarf joke here) sent a ridiculously rude and potentially extortionate letter to a small Aussie publisher.

The small Aussie publisher responded with a whup-ass response and displayed both docs in a public forum. As the Nielsen Haydens are editors and a lot of their blog participants are writers, this created a lot of good and informative discussion about the book trade in general and the Rimmer's asshattery.

More than a month later, a "Chris Oliver" shows up in the comments to tl;dr defend and justify Rimmer's Ghengis Khan-style correspondence and management methods. When "Chris Oliver" is called on various asshatteries (sneering at the NH's "double-barrelled" name, for example) as well as his insistence that books are really no different than canned vegetables, he flounces and spawns sockpuppet #1. S1 doesn't fare well either, flounces, and sockpuppet #2 is spawned. By the end of the thread, "Chris Oliver" and sockpuppets are presumed to be Rimmer himself or someone very close to him. (And if he isn't, "Chris Oliver" is a prime example of making a side look more stupid than it did before.)

When Teresa posts an update here, "Chris Oliver" returns for a last pot-shot/flounce. Says Chris: "My cadding days with you are over but I shall possibly keep looking for chinks in some other mean-spirited site and post as TN-H to my heart's content." Oooh, he's going to pretend to be Teresa too! We'll have to keep our eyes open for that.

(I vaguely remember seeing something on the publishing extortion story somewhere on JF, but can't find it in the wank comms or in the lounges. Anyone know where it might be? ETA: found it, sort of. )


ETA: And speaking of Making Light, they've got a new story on a self-publishing plagiarist... only it seems like it's not the author's fault, but that of her scamming agent/ghost writer. More discussion in random_lounge...

ETA2: Good god, the mice on w_r are ridiculously bitchy.