So, I've just stumbled across a fascinating attempt by an author to astroturf his way into prestige and sales.

It's a GREAT object lesson in Dude, Don't Do This.

First off, he created a handful of sockpuppety accounts of vague but not specific prestige. Like "English professor at X university" kind of stuff. Posted enough on each of them to make them seem like This Is A Real Person Who Likes Books kind of account.

Similarly, created a handful of blogs/websites that talk about books in a solidly professional, serious, This Is A Real Literature Blog sort of way.

NEXT, with those accounts websites, talk about how this just-published novel just won Prestigious Sounding Fantasy Award (that doesn't exist). Mention past winners (that are all-time greats) in conjunction with new book.

Note well: PSFA does not exist anywhere online before three months ago.

This is the beautiful next step:

Use sockpuppets to go to various fantasy discussion sites, mentioning said PSFA, that you WANTED Actual Big Name Book to win, but [YOUR BOOK] must be really good since it won so you're gonna check it out.

Also use said blogs/accounts to talk about The Winner of PSFA has been announced, and it's [YOUR BOOK]. Also create a goodreads list of PSFA winners: eleven all-time best-sellers and [YOUR BOOK].

Also use a blog to create a list of "Great Fantasy Novels of All Time", in a way that "New York Times" is in your URL, which is, again, all all-time best-known fantasy novels, plus [YOUR BOOK].

THE ONLY REASON I am not naming-and-shaming this book and author specifically for this pathetically obvious attempt at astroturfing is I don't want to give an ounce of extra notice to their book.