I Have a Theory

I love a good conspiracy theory. No matter how far-fetched it sounds, I’ll usually believe it. Sometimes I keep my opinion to myself—there’s only so much craziness one’s friends can tolerate from one person. But, in private, I do believe that JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, and other more-recently-deceased famous people could have been murdered by committee. They were inconvenient people, to paraphrase Dominick Dunne. I even have theories about who did them in, but my insurance agent has advised against my theorizing in print; apparently, our homeowner’s insurance has a slander/libel limit.

I also believe that I’ve been a victim of a conspiracy. This is another closely guarded secret, because I wouldn’t want to be called paranoid, or worse, egocentric. One might ask, “Who would conspire against you?” while another might query, “Why do you think you’re so important that someone would want to kill you?” I never said that anyone wanted to kill me, at least not today. But, they might want to conspire against me. Don’t you think it’s odd that my website was recently hacked and eliminated from cyberspace, or from the more trendy “cloud”?

Yes, I’m aware that websites are hacked every day. But the difference is, there is no reason to hack my website, www.spbroundup.com (gratuitous mention), unless you are my competitor and want my site gone. My site was not a repository for credit card information or email addresses, so no identity thief would be interested in it. Only people with similar sites would want to eliminate mine.

I’m not actually aware of any competitors, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. My site is the only website I know of that is dedicated to the promotion of self-published books. Well, in truth, I don’t exactly engage in any actual promotion, per se, but I do offer a place for unknown authors to list their self-published books so that readers can find them. Okay, again, that was my original intent. Actually, it would be a place where unknown authors could list their indie books for others to find, if I dedicated the time necessary to upload their information onto my site. Regardless, I believe that my rivals, who probably exist, are jealous of the potential of my site and had to have it removed.

“Why would they be concerned about a half-baked site when they could offer a fully baked one?” you ask. I don’t know, especially about the baking part. But that’s the great thing about conspiracy theories: one never knows the truth. All one can do is guess, and one guess is as good as another.

(P.S. my site is back now, thanks to some fancy code work performed by a whiz named Larry.)