Doc Byron, aka “Iron Dave” just can’t seem to stay out of hot water. Though I’ve only been following his antics for a few weeks out of idle curiosity, he sounds like either bad news, or maybe one heck of a joke. Maybe both.
A few weeks ago, some blogger republished a letter he’d received from a guy who’d been ripped off, not only of nearly $500 for copies of the book in which his work allegedly appears that he never received, but also his story that Iron Dave allegedly published. The letter was meant to be a warning. It’s linked elsewhere on this blog, but I don’t remember where. The ripped-off author also published it somewhere at one of those writers’ sites like AuthorsDen or WritersCafe. The gist, IIRC, is that Iron Dave insisted the guy reduce his order for books to an amount less than the $500 that sets off red flags at PayPal. Not only did the guy lose his money, but also Iron Dave allegedly stole the story and made it available on Amazon under one of his pseudonyms. Iron Dave, under gentle prodding from said writer, had his brother reply, claiming that Dave had a stroke, yada yada yada.
I also clicked on a link to a forum that came across via an alert from Google. The alert was for Pacione, but there was a comment on the discussion thread from Kody that mentioned Iron Dave/Doc Byron ripping off aspiring teenage authors. Doc was starting to sound like the stuff of legend.
Cut to the recent correspondence that Cuss received from Iron Dave. She’d received a previous one, as well, but it didn’t blatantly ask for money to be wired to him in a foreign country. There are a number of things wrong with his latest sob story, as I pointed out in the comments.
To top it off, Doc mostly gets ignored at Shocklines, but this one’s a doozy. He’s soliciting submissions for a brand new fanfic magazine he wants to start. You can guess how well that went over with the crowd. I’m taking screen grabs in case the thread goes up in a puff of smoke.
I’ve never seen such chutzpah. Either the guy’s dumber than Dagstine, or he’s sociopathic. Previously failed publishing venture? Check. Fake medical crises? Check. Use of alts/pseudonyms? Check. Threats of legal action? Check. I seem to recall the latter being implied in the first correspondence that Cuss received from him. Add to that Iron Dave’s serial scam artistry, and you’ve got a whole mess of DO NOT WANT.
This is an elaborate reverse-trolling thing, right? I mean, this guy isn’t serious is he?
According to the top of the board, docbyron is on SL right now, probably reading
http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/14014
wonder what’s next?
Byron is trying to make his money by using people and the creations of other people.
In his books of interviews, like the one he invited me to participate in, he offered me nothing in exchange for the interview. They were all going to be free gifts to him.
For something like this, it was traditional in the hollywood scene to offer each of the people interviewed a copy of the book the interview appeared in.
He offered nothing. So he was going to put together a book of interviews relating to famous people, take all the money and run off with it. The people being interviewed would be doing his work for him.
Which is why I refused to participate. He got all the names (of the people he chose to ask for those interviews) from the guest book that Forrey used to keep near the front door on a little table.
Dave is now trying to claim that his account was hacked and that he did not send those out.
However, it strikes me as odd that he would claim this during a time when the headline news includes the hacking of the google accounts of many Chinese activists by the Chinese government.
It’s too pat.
Plus the fact, Cuss, that all the typos, misspellings and general phrasing of the email match everything else Doc has ever sent out.
Wow. This almost flew past me: Doc Byron is in Pacione’s Ethereal Gazette, Issue Six.
Link: http://www.lulu.com/content/1715777
This guy has all the brains and subtlety of Dagstine. I wonder how much longer it’ll be, before he shows up here to plead his innocence . . . or something.
Well, if he arrives with guns blazing we blast him to pieces. If he comes here hat in hand, I intend to laugh at him.
He strikes me as being “challenged” if you know what I mean. His fantic venture on Shocklines seem to show someone who is really young or “special”. Honestly, the cost of getting your own website name and a hosting company can be CHEAP nowadays. My old company (before they went with a company that tied in their stock directly to the site live) eventually got a host site with rates so cheap I actually called and spoke to someone to verify it was that low. So no one is going to take his freeweb bullshit seriously especially now that CJB pointed out he was stupid enough to get mixed in with Nicky.
If he’s a scammer, then I imagine he’d be the type of bank robber that would waste valuable getaway time pushing on the doors marked “PULL” and his getaway vehicle would be not as long as a standard school bus…if you catch my drift.
Kinda OT here, but Daggy left this on Jerrod’s Internet Argument Techniques thread on SL:
Someone really should comment about it being okay to envy Daggy’s hubris and editing techniques . . .
His post makes no sense. How is envy an argument technique? Or hubris for that matter?
One could argue about hubris and envy, but only Daggy would think that’s the same as them actually being techniques for (rather than topics of) argument. He’s been a few fries short of a Happy Meal for ages.
That’s Dagstine for you. He knows damn well he’s used those techniques before, so instead of keeping his mouth shut, he chimes in with something illogical. He does the same thing whenever he gets called out for something he says, and to him Jerrod’s post is no different than that.
I predict that if somebody says that what Larry spewed makes no sense, his next response will be to put up a picture that has no context regarding the thread whatsoever.
That would be a typical Daggy response. When he does that, it evokes a WTF? from the uninitiated, and a groan from everyone else.
The next question is: How many of these apply to Daggy?
This sure looks like Iron Dave is selling ARCs.
I don’t know much about BearManor Media, but the owner self-published a book before he decided he liked publishing better than writing.
Iron Dave owns BearManor I think.
And I just looked at that list. I think that is just more proof that he is hurting for money and makes that email more suspicious than ever.
I cannot STAND message board posters who ONLY POST THEIR SHILL and nothing else. Look at Doc’s post history there: Never ever contributes to ANY discussion whatsoever, even when it’s about something he posted, and only returns to just shill more. Seriously he got lambasted on his submissions thread and doesn’t even try to offer any explanation or defend himself.
I’ve seen it before on other boards and it’s annoying as hell. I think admins should have some sort of “participation policy” wherein a member has to actually contribute to one discussion for every two shill posts they make or something.
Hell’s bells even Nicky would take part in discussions there from time to time (if only to promote himself or discuss HP or Poe, which would always then lead to promoting himself again lol) and if someone goofed on a shill post he made he’d respond, even if it was full of hate and fail…
BearManor is owned by a guy in OK named Ben Ohmart, according to the website. It’s not hosted by webs.com (formerly freewebs.com), like Doc Byron’s multiple sites, but for all I know, bizland.com may also be a free host. At the very least, his website is a subdomain there.
Daggy’s got a new free story out to help tide us over until we can see the review of Nicky’s newest masterpiece.
http://therandomeye.atspace.com/thegirlwhodreamtportals.html
And he fails at basic research again…
Since most everyone else here is involved in writing in some form or another, can someone answer me a few questions from Lewis’ link?
1) The first paragraph… should there be a comma between “beds” and “up”?
2) Second paragraph: Shouldn’t the first sentence end after “home”? And shouldn’t the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” bit be in quotations?
1) Nope…
2) Yep…
Does Daggy realize that “Prissy” is a nickname for Priscilla? And isn’t it a bit overdone to name this particular girl Prissy?