Randall Sullivan's book "Untouchable"

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Great responses ^^ today guys. I am so happy that I lived to see the day when one of the tabloid media have gotten a taste of the same medicine they like to dish out to others. It is all great to write disparaging remarks and lies about someone, write "a source said," and hide behind the amendment & shield law, thereby getting away with a lot of crimes. Now fans use the same freedoms that Sullivan has been abusing all his life, & he goes crying like a baby to journalists so they can start a smear campaign against fans.

When you look at the reviews of the book, many of the 5 ratings try to interest you in the book because it shows Michael/his life as a disaster. What type of buyer, fan, reader will seek out such a book to be thrilled by it? Who will like someone & then run to find out & enjoy a lot of debase, unkind, & negative things about the person when it is not true?

What Grove & Sullivan forgot was who their audience would be. If their audience was not fans then those 1 rating fan reviews would not matter to the buying public. The haters would see those 5 reviews and rush to buy it. People who subscribe to tabloids weekly would rush & buy it. This shows something I have been saying to fans before--when bad books about Michael make it, it is because large numbers of fans buy them. When bad books about Michael tank, it is because fans do not buy them. We have the power to create an environment where the good & accurate books about Michael flourish. If bad written inaccurate books keep tanking, then publishers will seek out more balanced books about Michael that really show who he was as a person & his talents.

Think about it guys, how many of you went to a hater's home and found books about Michael that they bought for their pleasure? Books are mainly bought by casual/moderate/die hard fans. The exception might be people like DD who would hate a man & still carry around a picture of him. The only thing I have come across are people who believe in the allegations, but still buy his music & dance to it. They always say things like, "Don't get me wrong, he is talented," to justify the purchase. But Sullivan did not give us Michael music, but stories from Michael's detractors--haters can't dance to that & are not going to spend money on his heavy book.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

la_cienega said:

Where are all these people coming from? Hmm, I wonder!

Since I posted last night, another 8 people have downvoted these two reviews:

142 of 209 people found the following review helpful
145 of 220 people found the following review helpful

121 of 180 people found the following review helpful
124 of 188 people found the following review helpful


Both haven't been on the front page for most of the day, so where are all the negative reviews coming from? Not from people browsing, it has to be from people directed to downvote every 1 star review.

It's a blatant campaign. And the annoying mindless New York Times readers who came to the book obviously want to provoke the fans by writing more negative degrading reviews just to upset us.

See, Sullivan actually has the possibility of holding "campaigns"; the fans only raise these issues in forums and facebooks and twitters. We do not have the privileges Sullivan does.

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Amen to your statement about "annoying mindless NYTimes readers"!! It is laughable that they come to the defense of poor Sullivan (boohoo) attacked by 'zombi fans' when they are the REAL ZOMBIS!!! They have been brainwashed against Michael, and by the bs of David Streifield, the guy who wrote the NYT article (obviously, like Bill Wyman of the New Yorker, a pal of RS). It is knee jerk reaction to 'defend' 'poor' RS--what a load of garbage. Since tthe NYT piece came out there are a bunch of 5 star reviews posted (1/20 and 1/21) saying things that show they have not read the book (great read, etc). Makes me wanna SCREAM.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

^^So the publisher & Sullivan it appears came up with an idea to flood the site with 5 reviews, unless we are to believe that all of a sudden, on Sunday & Monday several people decided to read that book & write reviews. This is their fair-play in action.

Something interesting too is notice how the media all rally together. It must be difficult for a person who wants to write good ethical work to stick to their principles. You understand more how people like Aphrodite Jones suffered when they did the right thing. This is so important, because readers tend to say if ALL the papers are saying the same thing, then it must be true. They don't know that these journalists copy & paste and have an agenda to portray certain people in specific ways in order to create more stories for them to write about.

I hope Sullivan's ego has taken a big beating since November, and I hope he did not spend all the advance money yet. Hopefully he will come to a Barnes & Noble near me where I can get a copy of his book, stand near his table when he is watching, and systematically & slowly tear out a page one by one, shred each page with my fingers, gather the pieces neatly in a plastic bag & send it off to be recycled. It wouldn't hurt to put the whole think on utube.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Sullivan does all the dirty tricks he accuses fans of and more. He accuses fans of a "campaign" while he mobilizes people through his mainstream media fans. Those people flood Amazon and give 5-star reviews without having read the book - the exact same thing Sullivan and his mainstream media friends accuse fans of.

Sullivan claimed his problem is with reviews by people who haven't read the book. So why are the detailed reviews by people who obviously read the book are the main targets of his team? This comment was for long weeks the highest rated comment on that site:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3AL49Z63O1RZQ/ref=cm_aya_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=080211962X#wasThisHelpful

A couple of days ago Sullivan's people started to attack it and vote it down, so it disappeared from the front page. Today the comment disappeared totally from Amazon for hours! It seemed like Sullivan's people managed to get it delated. Now, it's back, but without the feedback comments it got earlier and the ratings. So guys, please help to upvote it again!

The goal of Sullivan and his publisher obviously seems to be now to flood the site with 5-star reviews until it reaches at least 4-5 stars. I hope they realize that when an unbiased observer goes to the website now he will see a lot of people from BOTH sides giving reviews without reading the book. So Sullivan's fans cannot claim a "campaign" by "crazy, rabid" MJ fans any more than they have their own crazy, rabid campaign.

It's utterly childish though. Even if it has 4-5 stars on Amazon it won't start to sell suddenly. Even if some of those "protest buyers" from the NY Times website buy it, it won't sell more than a couple of hundreds more. Publishers now need to realize that now that the post-death hype has gone the general public is not really interested in MJ books any more. Especially if it's more of the same crap as before. Who needs to read about Michael's plastic surgery, speculations about his sexuality etc. for the gazillionth time?
If you want to sell an MJ book you need fans' support.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Did they delete Katerina's review again? Why is it down to 6 votes, even though the date is November 11th? I have no words.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3AL49...e=UTF8&ASIN=080211962X&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

I posted a call in our local FB group and will post now on Positively Michael. If you are registered on any other fan boards, spread the word! There must be more of MJ fans out there than Grove has employees.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

^ LOL it's been up like 10 minutes and already has 6 downvotes even though it's all the way at the back. Who was waiting around back there waiting for a review to dislike?

See, I knew I had to watch these reviews. I could see what he was doing. Morinen's review is now turfed to the back pages too. The only front page reviews are being spammed with upvotes.

He can't even deny that he's been obsessively watching Amazon.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

morinen said:

Did they delete Katerina's review again? Why is it down to 6 votes, even though the date is November 11th? I have no words.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3AL49...e=UTF8&ASIN=080211962X&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

I posted a call in our local FB group and will post now on Positively Michael. If you are registered on any other fan boards, spread the word! There must be more of MJ fans out there than Grove has employees.

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It's only up again for only a couple of minutes and it already has so many down votes. This is the real campaign! They whine about the supression of free speech and campaigns and everything that THEY do! How utterly hypocritical. The mainstream media makes him out to be a victim and people on those sites buy it. People are so easy to brainwash and to be lead on.

Also it's a bit too convenient for Sullivan to blame the fans for his flopping. Newsflash for him: people do not buy books only on Amazon. How did his book sell through other retailers? Maybe he cannot blame everything on fans' Amazon reviews...

I have never seen a more pathetic attempt to sell something.

From nytimes: Attack reviews are hard to police. It is difficult, if not impossible, to detect the difference between an authentic critical review and an author malevolently trying to bring down a colleague, or organized assaults by fans. Amazon’s extensive rules on reviewing offer little guidance on what is permissible in negative reviews and what is not.

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Well that's rubbish, you need to be exceptionally dim not to work out what is an authentic review for sullivan's book from all those 1 star and 5 star reviews - it's pretty clear who's read the book and who hasn't. My particular fave is the reviewer who sat next to mj at an award ceremony, can confirm that he indeed had no nose, and thinks all mj fans should be flogged in public. I'm guessing this could be classed as an inauthentic review.

It's revealing that the 1 star reviews that are attracting the most downclicks seem to be the most reasoned and effective reviews by those who have clearly read the book, rather than the 2 line reviews saying the book's rubbish and full of tab lies.

Also it's a bit too convenient for Sullivan to blame the fans for his flopping.

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Of course it is. Even discounting the actual content, it was a spectacularly ill-judged book - just massively long, full of incredibly boring facts, jumped around in a completely arbitrary way through the complicated chronology of mj's life and had no index. And there seemed to be no idea who this book was meant to be aimed at - fans? people interested in his music? people wanting a quick sensational read? - failed on all those counts.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Petrarose said:

^^So the publisher & Sullivan it appears came up with an idea to flood the site with 5 reviews, unless we are to believe that all of a sudden, on Sunday & Monday several people decided to read that book & write reviews. This is their fair-play in action.

Something interesting too is notice how the media all rally together. It must be difficult for a person who wants to write good ethical work to stick to their principles. You understand more how people like Aphrodite Jones suffered when they did the right thing. This is so important, because readers tend to say if ALL the papers are saying the same thing, then it must be true. They don't know that these journalists copy & paste and have an agenda to portray certain people in specific ways in order to create more stories for them to write about.

I hope Sullivan's ego has taken a big beating since November, and I hope he did not spend all the advance money yet. Hopefully he will come to a Barnes & Noble near me where I can get a copy of his book, stand near his table when he is watching, and systematically & slowly tear out a page one by one, shred each page with my fingers, gather the pieces neatly in a plastic bag & send it off to be recycled. It wouldn't hurt to put the whole think on utube.

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Petra, that would be so AWESOME! What a great idea. He will not do a book signing, however, b/c he knows things like that would happen, such a freakin' coward and slimeball. He will go on Couric etc where he will not be challenged but if he does a book signing, he will be challenged, and he can't defend his crapola with a knowledgeable MJ advocate. In fact, if the media had any interest in finding the truth, which they don't, they would have a real discussion where Sullivan would confront real advocates and answer real, hard questions, and not softball questions. Now we do know indeed what positive writers on MJ were up against and why Michael did not want to do interviews.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Maybe we should just let the Sullivan zombi squad do their dirty work and then write an article about what they did and submit to the NYT??

Sullivan, hang your head in shame for having your supporters do even worse than what you accuse others of. MJ advocates spent a lot of time reading, researching, crafting their reviews, and your zombi squad just post "a great read"--yeah, sure you read 500 pages in one day and thanks for that detailed review (lol).

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

If Amazon were to do anything (since they don't likely want to look past the "free speech" issue), they should do something about the multitude of "non-reviews" that are popping up about this book that are mainly just jabs at MJ fans and have nothing to do with the book itself.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

^ you can try and report those ones, don't know if they'll get taken down though

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

CaptainEoLove85 said:

If Amazon were to do anything (since they don't likely want to look past the "free speech" issue), they should do something about the multitude of "non-reviews" that are popping up about this book that are mainly just jabs at MJ fans and have nothing to do with the book itself.

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I was just at the site. There have been 38 reviews posted with dates 1/20 and 1/21--needless to say, it's all GREAT READ stuff. I do think there is huge intellectual dishonesty which is way worse than anything fans have done and I think NYT should be ASHAMED of promoting this. How can you say oh, it's so awful what those zombi fans did and then go and do the same thing? Esp. since fans actually READ the frickin book and wrote detailed reviews????? VERY SAD. What to do? Any ideas? Maybe ask Amazon to step in or write to NYT a letter to the Editor?

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

He should've realized when Ian Halperin wrote his waste of paper, books that are full of crap, they aren't going to sell. Not only should fans buy the body language, by these books and put them in the top 10 on Amazon:

Was Michael Jackson Framed? by Mary Fischer
ANY of Joe Vogel's books
For The Record by Chris Cadman by Craig Halstead
Conspiracy by Aphrodite Jones
You Are Not Alone by Jermaine Jackson
The Complete Story Of The King Of Pop by Lisa D Campbell
Before He Was King by Todd Gray

AND DEFINITELY
Dancing The Dream and Moonwalk

buying these books and having them in the top sellers list, thus knocking Sullivan's book off would be a great thing to do

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Jamba I don't think the NYT will accept our article because they are catering to Sullivan. Maybe we could write a letter about the issues, add a detailed review and post it on the internet and on various fan sites & facebook.

By the way guys, after you buy his book do you return it?

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Here is my opinion. Im not sure all will agree But I feel it's sound advise. I dont think we want more media attention for Sullivan. That would help sell more books and bring in more haters. Just as this last articvle did. Just use the tools we have in the fanbase to warn other fans not to buy or support it and to write Intelligent comments based on facts on the aticles already posted . That how we get our side out. Dont bring any more attention from media for this Man. It only futher helps his cause to sell more books. Let's not feed the machine .. That will only backfire and bring the opposite results we are looking for here. (As we just seen with these last articles)

Right now fans are the ones making him relevant in the media. The articles are not about how great his book is they iare about the fans coming against it. Without this battle on Amazon the media wouldn't even be be printing about his flop book. The sooner this dies down and the less attention he recieves from us .. the less books he will sell and the media wont be interested in his sorry ass. The more attention we bring to the situation the more books he will sell. Thats just how it works. Im also sorry to say there are some fans who will use this for attention for themselves rather than for the purpose of thwarting sales of the book. Media attention sells books period wether we publically stand against it or not. We already did the work on Amazon . look how many 1 star reviews .. I think now we should back off for a bit and DONT give the media a story. Just let nature take its course. Let the book fade into obscurity now... Any way just my 2 cents..

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

qbee said:

Let the book fade into obscurity now... Any way just my 2 cents..

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I agree with your post Qbee.
I think this is their last attempt to get free publicity to his book.
No matter how much they try to pump up the hype around this book, I don't think people will buy it as most of the fans knows what is it about, and non fans certainly are not going to give up 20-30 dollars for sake of buying a book full of stories taken from tabloids. It is all written and read before, so nothing new there.

So what if he sells, lets say 1000 more due to this campaign? The numbers are still shockingly low, 4000 is minuscule in book world.


Btw, does anyone have an access to Nielsen to check how many copies it has sold since the article came out. Nielsen's numbers 3000 sold include the books sold in Amazon too, so it will be sold in penny basket soon enough
It was 3 thousand few days ago. I'd like to know if it has sold 3001 already

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

I agree. It's obvious that Sullivan and his publisher now changed strategy and are trying to turn it into some kind of "suppression of free speech" issue, which is ridiculous considering that the very same article talks about all the nation wide media this guy appeared in. Some "suppression of free speech"! Also negative opinions of your work is NOT a "suppression of free speech", grow up, Randall!

Sullivan's team are trying to use fans' negative opinions for PR now in their victim-playing and trying to use controversy to sell it (they have to try something else if it won't sell on merit, LOL). Let's not play into that. For now I think it's the wisest to ignore him and the Amazon page of his book. They can uprate it to 4-5 stars all they want, but that won't make it sell much better.

The funny thing is that now if he goes on TV and brings up this stuff with Amazon, the regular viewer will go on Amazon and check out the page and what will he see? The exact opposite of what Sullivan claims! An army of people leaving two-sentence 5-star reviews obviously without having read the book and instead of addressing the book's content shooting ad hominem attacks towards MJ and his fans. So let them do it, it's a shot in their own foot.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

respect77 said:

The funny thing is that now if he goes on TV and brings up this stuff with Amazon, the regular viewer will go on Amazon and check out the page and what will he see? The exact opposite of what Sullivan claims! An army of people leaving 5-star reviews without obviously reading the book and instead of addressing the book's content shooting ad hominem attacks towards MJ and his fans. So let them do it, it's a shot in their own foot.

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:rollin:
and they see Sullivan's team attacking on fans, name calling and other silly stuff.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

I think fans should still downvote these reviews though. It isn't fair for other objective people to have to come in and see these silly reviews, without understanding why there are legit complaints.

I know I always read Amazon reviews and as an MJ fan - not just with MJ, but thanks to MJ I suspect everything and research everything - am extra cautious about everything I read, I wouldn't want to buy a book only to discover it's a complete waste of time. The front page reviews have people thinking this is a well informed interesting new book. It isn't. Not even people who hate MJ want to read it, it's so tedious and repetitive.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Can we go back to ignoring this book? This whole New York times piece was a marketing ploy, and the Rapid Response Team fell for it. Now Sullivan's garbage goes from #40,000 to 8,000....Who's fault is it?

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

I was reading what is included in Nielsen bookscan, and it certainly doesn't look good for Sullivan

The number sold books mentioned in the article said 3000 sold and this 3000 includes bookshops and Amazon worldwide, too bad (giggling).
Maybe we should start collecting money for Sullivan so he can pay back his advance from publishing house, just kidding


Here is some info about Nielsen
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/12/amazon-gives-nielsen-bookscan-to-authors.html
and here:
http://www.nielsenbookscan.co.uk/uploads/WHAT IS NIELSEN BOOKSCAN.pdf

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

The story was picked up by a few news sources like Yahoo News, which is why the Amazon reviews are now even worse.

Sullivan got what he wanted, media attention and $$$$$.

I'm only mad he found that Facebook group. Otherwise he would have nothing it seems.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

^^^Attention yes. $$$$ I'm not sure. Just because people troll the Amazon website doesn't mean they will buy the book.

ETA: Memefan wrote earlier it was at #8000. Now, #10,000. It's starting to fall back again. It will be a short-lived attention and it still won't make this book be the bestseller Sullivan and his publisher hopes for. Even if he sells another 3000 copies it still will be a flop.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

qbee said:

I think now we should back off for a bit and DONT give the media a story. Just let nature take its course. Let the book fade into obscurity now... Any way just my 2 cents..

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You know I agree with you; it is just that it is hard to see what is happening & do nothing, so I guess we should continue to alert fans about not buying the book & like Lacienza says down vote & up vote. By doing what she suggests we are working behind the scenes & not writing articles as Randall is doing.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

respect77 said:

^^^Attention yes. $$$$ I'm not sure. Just because people troll the Amazon website doesn't mean they will buy the book.

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Well, it's gonna make a little more than it was making before.

It's still lurching around the 10,000ths etc, which is bad, I mean he circled around that for the last 3 months and only sold 3,000 copies.

I just don't like this book being seen as legitimate and Sullivan has played it up. Poor him is being suppressed. Poor little baby. He knows it gives his book something interesting now. That there's any reaction to it at all. It must be good if it's hated by the psycho fans!

Next time we do anything like this we have to keep it off the public groups.

We really need a private group where we can alert each other to these things, and only known fans are in there.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

I have to confess, I had a ball last night laughing at all the bogus 5 star reviews, and I also confess I wrote some comments about them that might have been confrontational and/or contemptuous. Some fans are actually trying to debate with these 'reviewers' and inform them about what's going on. What is really sad to me is how much people read something and believe it 100% and then take action based on it without doing any research. So many statements are being made trashing the fans without even reading their objections that are clearly stated in great detail on the Amazon site. I think these people who leap to poor Sullivan's defense based on a stupid and inaccurate NYT article should be ashamed. And that it happened over the MLK holiday makes it even more appalling to trash a prominent Black American artist on that same holiday.

I agree with the idea to let it die down and I am not going back to Amazon to comment on the bogus reviews as it probably does stir up the hornet's nest of MJ haters and media goons.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

la_cienega said:

Well, it's gonna make a little more than it was making before.

It's still lurching around the 10,000ths etc, which is bad, I mean he circled around that for the last 3 months and only sold 3,000 copies.

I just don't like this book being seen as legitimate and Sullivan has played it up. Poor him is being suppressed. Poor little baby. He knows it gives his book something interesting now. That there's any reaction to it at all. It must be good if it's hated by the psycho fans!

Next time we do anything like this we have to keep it off the public groups.

We really need a private group where we can alert each other to these things, and only known fans are in there.

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LaCienega I agree with you. There is always occasions which call for Fans to Act. I don't like that we do this piece meal or always react haphazardly with our plans. We need to be more structured. This should be a lesson for us, so that something like this does not happen to fans' actions in the future. We need to have some private network where people alert others to act when any seller/manufacturer/promoter wants fans to buy products that are gross misrepresentations of Michael.

We don't want fans spending their money on shoddy products. Right now all Michael's detractors spend their time lurking on our boards & social media. Maybe people's e-mail can be made available in a private area and then teams systematically alert all members worldwide when an action needs to be taken, but something needs to be done in a more organized manner.

Some time in the 90s I was in an office & there was something going on between the Jews in Isreal & Arabs. Do you know that the Jewish people in the office all got letters calling them to action from an organization here in the US. It seems this organization has a list of Jews and their work addresses, or information on how to contact them. I think we should use this as an example of being organized & set up some protocol.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

CaptainEoLove85 said:

If Amazon were to do anything (since they don't likely want to look past the "free speech" issue), they should do something about the multitude of "non-reviews" that are popping up about this book that are mainly just jabs at MJ fans and have nothing to do with the book itself.

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I did report abuse to Amazon about the fake reviews but they are not paying attention to that and letting them stand.

Re: Randall Sullivan's new book "Untouchable"

Petrarose said:

Jamba I don't think the NYT will accept our article because they are catering to Sullivan. Maybe we could write a letter about the issues, add a detailed review and post it on the internet and on various fan sites & facebook.

By the way guys, after you buy his book do you return it?

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This is a great idea to write a detailed letter and post it on all the fan sites etc. What strikes me mainly is the hypocrisy of the fake reviews claiming it is a great book and just regurgitating what the media has spoon fed them. The level of intellectual dishonesty is mind-boggling. What fans did was to investigate the book. These people are just responding to an article. They have no contact with Sullivan's book except for a 2 page article and they go with that. It is really sad and then on that basis they trash not only MJ but his fans--who they think want MJ to be a glorified god (in their language). It is really hate speech. Maybe we should report this to the FBI ? (kidding)