Pat's Fantasy Hotlist: Quote of the Day

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 | By: Patrick

Quote of the Day

Shame on me for writing such beloved, best-selling books!

- ROBERT STANEK, in a recent blog post.

WTF?????????

In case you're wondering, Robert Stanek is the writer who photoshopped himself in a picture with Brian Jacques. What went wrong? Well, the guy forgot to put his legs in the pic. . .

Stanek defends himself in this blog post. There are two new pictures of him and Brian Jacques, and this time he did remember to photoshop his legs, a coffee, and some random trash in the table in front of him. Funny how Jacques is totally ignoring him. . . Do read his last two posts, as they make for entertaining reading!

And if Stanek is such a bestselling author, how come his Facebook Group only has one member other than himself???

This guy is either fantasy's best-kept secret, or a total dumbass. You decide which. . .

25 commentaires:

Chris said...: Well, not to advertise but he apperently does sell books, according to amazon at least... with 300 reviews?

I really dont get it. Appears to be kids books though?; 2:06 AM
Chris said...: On second thought, I'd say he is some sort of complete weirdo...

quote from amazon:

I enjoy your review (it is one of the few that I suspect wasn't written by Stanek)-- but you are being far too generous towards the book.
/quote
ouch.....; 2:10 AM
Tyson said...: It makes me mad that he is from Washington State and even Angrier that he wears a Mariner's hat in his photos. Guys a D-bag.; 2:11 AM
polishgenius said...: Watch your back, Pat, by publicly backing the vicious and untrustworthy anti-Stanek crusade you've opened yourself up to serious letters from (fake)lawyers and other such honest dealings as the warriors of light (ie Robert Stanek) seek to prevent the spread of false(read: true) information about an author that stands somewhere above Tolkien in the fantasy canon.; 5:24 AM
Cecrow said...: The most disturbing thing about this whole scenario is the sheer earnestness with which he states his position. He really does make his views sound credible, which in itself is rather incredible. He's far more skilled at that than fiction writing. I picked up two of his books at a used booksale for $1 each before I was on to him, and I still felt robbed after reading the first page and cluing in. Then I traded them in at a used bookstore. That was two years ago, and they're still on that bookstore's shelf. He's a hot item, alright - or a well kept secret, as you say.; 9:21 AM
Nobody said...: my first thought when i read this post was "who the hell is Stanek?" he has merit as an interesting weirdo, though....; 9:23 AM
Andrew said...: Almost by any standards he is a self published author success story. This amount of attention (even negative) is probably helping his bottom line in raising people’s curiosity and selling books. Almost all those rave reviews on Amazon are written by Stanek himself (or his friends and family) – however his sales ranking for the 1st book in series does dip down into the 30,000-40,000 range when I bother to check. From what I read, that is pretty good for a self published book.

However, what is making Stanek so angry is that he really believes he wrote a masterpiece. And he probably thinks continuing expose of his unsavory “marketing” practices is hurting his chances that a real publisher is going to pick up his series.

Also – he is an actual publisher writer for Microsoft Press, and he wrote other computer books for O'Reilly and other publisher (using his real name William). And some of the recent discussion on Stanek is making that point. Maybe he is worried that this fracas is going to hurt his real career. And those children in that photograph with Jacques are really his children. And they are all old enough now to be Googling their famous father.; 10:16 AM
Dave said...: "he apperently does sell books, according to amazon at least... with 300 reviews?"

he makes tons of fake amazon accounts to give his own books 5 star ratings and sometimes even gives other authors he doesn't like 1 stars, apparently he did it to pat rothfuss; 10:35 AM
Mike Toot said...: I reject your reality and substitute my own!; 10:47 AM
Mike Toot said...: Oh, and he has lots and lots of girlfriends!; 10:49 AM
machinery said...: well, I admit i'm new to the whole story.
but he appears genuine.
what's the big deal anyway ?
if he is lying and is not an author, exactly what has he gained by lying except sounding wierd ?
btw, I've read his posts, and i'm fairly convinced he is not lying.
I say fairly cause i don't realy give a shit abotu the whole affair.; 11:32 AM
Anonymous said...: The big deal?

Stanek has been committing fraud and misleading consumers into buying his crappy self published books for years on Amazon and the other on-line sites.

And he threatens people who try to expose this. And be bashes other authors out of spite.

And his blog is so full of obvious lies and exaggerations, that is it laugh-out-loud funny.; 2:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Chuck Norris wears Robert Stanek Underoos.; 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: LMAO at the fake legs under the table. They don't match with his upper body, and they don't move a millimeter between pics.

-Winterfella; 4:08 PM
maine character said...: I'm quite good with Photoshop, and I'm sure he was really there at that table - not selling books, but just as a fan. His mistake in the first photo (link below) was to Photoshop out the coffee cup and crap in front of him, which screwed up the table and his arm, and made it look fake.

http://www.themagiclands.com/brianjacques.htm

He did that to put his own book on the table and make it look like he was at a real author signing as an author. But you can tell he was really there by the lighting - flash from front, shadow to left on the kid's shirt (same as Jacques on wall), tungsten fill from the right.

Anyway, I'd never heard of him, but I did a little looking around, and found these posts.

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/lofiversion/index.php/t19941.html

http://www.gamespot.com/users/raven28256/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25748784

Plenty of slamming him there for good reason.; 4:36 PM
maine character said...: Just looked at the photos again, and realized that the reason his legs weren't in that earlier photo is he actually tried to take them out since they show he was crouching behind the table and not actually sitting in a chair.

So it's ironic that he got slammed for not being there when he actually was there and simply tried to make it look like he was an author at the signing.; 4:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Machinery, what do you mean he appears genuine? Let me give you a clue of his falsehood:

"As you probably know, my books are available in many countries all over the world and have been translated into many languages. The latest translations, into Czechoslovakian, will be available soon,"

Czechoslovakian?!?!? There is not such thing a Czechoslovakian language! It's Czech in the Czech Republic and Slovak in Slovakia...

This guy is a pathetic fake.

Goofilin; 4:46 PM
maine character said...: It's a real photo, alright.

What I did is I opened his photo in Photoshop, checked the metadata, and found it was taken on Oct. 22, 2005, at 3:14 pm. Meaning it was taken in 2005, just as Stanek states in that post.

http://www.robertstanek.com/rsblog.htm

Then I found Brian Jacques' book tour of that year (http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Brian_Jacques_on_Tour), and sure enough, on October 22 he was at a Barnes & Noble in Olympia. From 2-4 PM.

So again, the original photos are real - it's when he took out the coffee cup and tried to hide he was crouching by removing his legs that he got that karmic payback in which everyone thinks he Photoshopped himself into the photo.; 11:54 PM
Anonymous said...: EXIF and IPTC information in the metadata of a photo image can be altered. Its not difficult with the right tools, which are freely available around the web.

But... even if the metadata wasn't changed, it doesn't mean that Stanek was in the picture at the time it was taken.

You logic fails maine character... or should I say, Mr. Stanek.; 12:05 PM
maine character said...: Believe me, it's legit. If Stanek did frig with the metadata for proof, he would've certainly pointed that out in his post.

Look at the photos - the faked one has a huge grey blob under the table, masking out his legs. Much easier to do that than put in a person above the table with the same ambient-plus-flash lighting as everyone else.

Plus, Stanek showed he has no Photoshop skills in how, when he tried to clear off the table in front of him, to put his book there in place of Jacques' lunch, the edge of the table's all screwed up with a blue smear and the reflection of the coffee cup is still there.

Before:
http://www.robertstanek.com/rsblog.htm

After:
http://www.themagiclands.com/brianjacques.htm

Also, if he did want to put himself into a photo with Jacques, he'd have chosen a much better photo, like shaking hands with Jacques, or sitting out back of his mansion, sharing drinks, with Stephen King added in to boot, instead of some bookstore signing where any schmuck can get photographed with their favorite author.

What happened is Stanek got the fan shot and looked at it on his computer and thought, "Maybe someday I'll be sitting at the table with him just like that. Hey... I bet I can make it look like that if I take out that coffee cup... but my legs, they show I'm crouched on my sneakers. Well, I'll just grey them out."

And hence he was screwed.

The guy's a shameless self-promoter, no doubt about that. But instead of repeating old falsehoods, the way Stanek himself does, we should nail him for what he actually did.; 12:37 PM
Tonya said...: This is so weird. I have never heard of this guy but I'm suddenly fascinated. How did all this come up and how does everyone know about this weirdo?; 12:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Looks like Brian Jacques left him about 6 inches of table room at the end. he's almost got more room on his other side than he gave Stanek (assuming the tool was even really there).

Stanek is a tool. Take a look at the reviewers who gave him good marks on amazon... interesting that most of them have reviewed only Stanek's books.; 8:12 PM
Anonymous said...: I struggle to see how an international best-selling author would use "their" instead of "they're," as shown in the sentence "why in the world would any rational person claim their fakes?".; 12:35 AM
Anonymous said...: He writes under another name:
http://www.williamstanek.com/author/

and is listed at the LOC with 59 books.; 3:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Is it a fluke that many of the reviewers who gave raves for two of William R. Stanek’s newest Microsoft windows books, also have left positive reviews for his self published fantasy series (written under the name of Robert Stanek)?

10 out of 20 to be exact. And don’t believe Amazon “real name” badges – you can enter any name you want after you provide a valid credit card number on your account:

http://www.amazon.com/Windows%C2%AE-7-Administrators-Pocket-Consultant/dp/0735626995/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Definitive-Essential-Resource-Professionals/dp/0596800975/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259861342&sr=1-5; 12:54 PM