Has anyone ever heard of this guy? Robert Stanek is a self-published fantasy author whose entire business model is one giant bluff - rather than actually having fans, he just tricks people into buying his books by spreading the illusion that he's a very successful and popular author. To this end, he's created hundreds of sockpuppet accounts on Amazon to give his own books endless five-star reviews while trashing his competitors with a flood of one-star reviews. He's also re-published and marketed some of his books as being something new while changing nothing but the cover, made legal threats against websites that call him out while pretending to be a lawyer, and poorly Photoshopped a picture of himself with author Brian Jacques to make himself look more important. That last instance is actually my personal favorite:
Some people on the Internet accused him of simply inserting himself into the picture when he wasn't there in real life, but it's actually a bit more subtle than that. What he did was remove some of the trash that was in front of him on the table so it would look like he and Jacques were on a booksigning tour together, rather than him just being a guy who showed up and posed for a picture with Jacques. Anyway, I can't recommend
this website enough if you want to learn more about this fascinating man. Imagine if Stanek spent this much time and effort on actually trying to improve as an author instead of this elaborate hoax.