The Sad Case of Carroll Bryant

We really hate living in the past. We like to deal with things, talk about them, and move on. Unfortunately for us, Carroll Bryant has a one-track mind and and an even slimmer memory. His latest blog post is all old news. Unfortunately for him, he got a few things wrong. This will be our ONLY post about the original incidents that led us to where we are right now. Dozens of other bloggers have covered what happened in its entirety and some things don't exist anymore. Back when everything began, Carroll would post something up only to remove it a few days or sometimes hours later.

It all began with this post on Goodreads which is no longer available:

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2732511-independent-authors-beware-bad-blogs-and-bloggers

Here is a screenshot of what it said:

This was done on day one. This is what started the entire fiasco. This is something that was done unprofessionally on a public site where anyone could read it and reply. And reply everyone did. It had hundreds of comments, mostly of disgust and anger. People pleaded with Carroll to rethink his actions before things escalated and before he posted his List. He didn't listen and posted his list anyway which you can see in the next screenshot. The List was posted on his original blog:

Now, in his latest blog post Carroll writes the following:

In his own words, Carroll Bryant states that the only reason he ever posted The List was to get back at Jude. We aren't going to speculate what kind of relationship Carroll and Jude had, whether it was romantic or friendship. The story has changed a few times over the past 8 months or so. Frankly, it doesn't matter. What matters is that he tried to name and shame bloggers who didn't know who he was and who claimed they never agreed to do anything for him. In The List screenshot above, you can see one of the bloggers he named, who shut down her blog shortly after all of this happened, state that she had no idea who he was. To this day, Carroll has never been able to provide proof that any of the bloggers he named on The List actually contacted him and requested an interview or a free book. We gave him the chance to do this, and he declined.

Here's the thing that Carroll STILL doesn't understand. When an ADULT has a problem with another ADULT, the two ADULTS work together to sort things out. They don't write ranting posts and take revenge on OTHER PEOPLE, to get back at each other. It was childish and unprofessional what Carroll did and that is why people became so angry and irate with him. As for The List, that was something he could have done in private if he was so worried about other independent authors being ripped off. He could have quietly passed along a list of names to his friends and colleagues, which we are sure the big name publishers do in private. But that wasn't his goal. Carroll's goal was to hurt Jude and this was his way of doing it. Completely illogical, right? We think so, too.

There was also the question on whether or not Carroll Bryant was involved with STGRB, a site that is still operating and has doc-dropped on several people in the past. Carroll now claims that he was never a part of STGRB, even though he admits it here (his name is deleted because he was kicked off of Goodreads shortly after):

http://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/16034194?page=1#comment_54570359

He had written:

"I used to be a part of that website and left because I am not against "bad reviews". And I do not endorse going to people's blog and telling them how to run their blog. This is not what this is all about. It's about a select few who came to me, made me an offer then after getting what they asked me for, backed out for whatever reason. (The reason isn't even relevant really) It's just the point of your word. You get something in exchange for something then deliver that something you promised and move on. " 

Isn't that a huge contradiction to what he now wrote in his latest post? Later, this comment was left at this blogger's website, yet another contradiction:

Take what you want from that. Personally, we don't believe that Carroll misread anything. We think he either got heat from Melissa at STGRB for outing himself or that he was simply trying to backpedal on his own words.

At the end of the day the book blogging community is pretty tight-knit. When something bad or crazy happens, word gets spread like an uncontrollable wildfire. Dozens and dozens of blog posts were made about this whole incident and many opinions were shared. Carroll had written other posts pertaining to this whole incident, some of which are now deleted and some that still stand on his original blog. Since the original incident, Carroll has been an active commenter at STGRB, routinely stalks other bloggers who dare to post about what happened last year, and went so far as to create four hate blogs, three of which he has deleted because of their obscene material, among other things.

*Thank you to the person who emailed us with some of this information. It was very helpful in creating this post!