Batcat.

Found it here: Steampunk

Had to share.

Just in case the title didn't show up.....A Reblog from LittleMissProcrastination!

A question was asked in the Everything Booklikes group on Goodreads. 

"So Amazon bought Goodreads , site policy changed ? why is this in benefit of authors not readers ? how can this affect my reviews ? as a top Liberian how can this can affect me? "

I answered at length. It isn't just what is happening now, as much as what I think will happen in the near future. I might be wrong, I mightn't have gone far enough!  (That bit is at the end. Search for *** if you want to read only that).

What started it was that Goodreads instead of just hiding negative reviews that were mostly about authors, deleted them without any warning. They also deleted shelves that had names they considered did not fit into their ToS. 21 people were affected. After that they decided they would tell people 2 days before they deleted anything. The only people who know are people who are active members of the Feedback group, although this new policy affects everyone. GR have elected not to tell the entire membership of the site.

Apparently anything negative (they don't mind praise) about an author is just irrelevant to a book review. Even if, as happened to one of the more prominent members of this group in the last week, an author 'requested' that they didn't write a review unless it was 5* gold. 

There have also been threads on a site called Fiverr where people are selling Goodreads reviews, likes, listopia entries etc. some from multiple accounts for $5 per review, some will post the author's own reviews for them! Some of the people selling them are librarians. Goodreads is not doing anything at all about it unless presumably you can prove a review was paid for. In other words, if it helps the author sell books, then its fine. 

So, quite a lot of people don't really like this high-handed approach that it is ok to punish reviewers who are reacting to badly-behaving authors who leave inflammatory comments on reviews they don't like, spam people sometimes for years on end, or complain about them elsewhere on the net. This is very author-centric.


The head of Goodreads is the head of the Kindle division of Amazon. Goodreads is now an integral part of the new Kindle. Amazon does not exist so people can discuss books, it exists only to sell them. Or anything. Authors produce product, you don't damage your manufacturing plant! 

And reviewers, reviewers data is sold, they produce the objective reviews advertising copy and are also the target market for the product. Librarians are a vast unpaid staff that maintain the database and thereby increase Amazon's profits.

***

I think further actions by Amazon will include standardisation of shelf names, dis-allowing curse words and graphically sexual descriptions or gifs, not featuring books with overtly sexual titles (they just deleted a whole load of books from Amazon and the authors are not allowed to reupload them with different ones).

It won't be long before you will be able to sign into Goodreads with an Amazon login, the want-to-read shelf here and wish-list there will be synced and there goes your privacy, they will know by your clicks, that SunnyB on GR is really Jane Doe living at 34 Street Lane, Harbour, Mississippi or wherever. Even more valuable data to sell.

I also think that algorithms that calculate the position of reviews on book pages will be rejigged so that the featured ones will be from the favoured reviewers (ones that participate in Amazon's Vine program, or get a lot of publishers' ARCS or are popular among people who click through to purchase the books) rather than ones voted as popular by GR members. 

The 'recommendations' (read: advertising) of GR authors' books, already everywhere will increase enormously. The algorithm will include older books and classics but will be biased towards any author or publishing company that is also paying for advertising.

In other words GR will become a lot more family-friendly, a lot more anodyne, a lot less about opinions and a lot, lot more about selling books, especially on Kindle. 

And if you haven't got a Kindle, I'm sure there will be special offers for GR members quite soon.

Does anyone remember at the time of the Amazon takeover, not long ago, when Otis said nothing would change?  

I needed to get it out. Here it comes:

Dear STGRB, it's like you took a damn degree in antagonizing. I’m sorry if I behaved in a way that made you feel I should apologize.

I ain’t afraid of nothing except jellyfish which is completely normal. I also want you to know I practice selective deafness to hurtful remarks, so I won't be intimidated. I'd advise you to do the same. You're all taking the world awfully personally. 

I needed to get it out. Here it comes:

Dear STGRB, it's like you took a damn degree in antagonizing. I’m sorry if I behaved in a way that made you feel I should apologize.

I ain’t afraid of nothing except jellyfish which is completely normal. I also want you to know I practice selective deafness to hurtful remarks, so I won't be intimidated. I'd advise you to do the same. You're all taking the world awfully personally. 

Dawid Piaskowski boldly says what no book site CEO has said before.

"We would like also to confirm that BookLikes is independent, doesn't support or is linked in any kind with STGRB community, or any other."

Thank you, Dawid, a million times thank you for this safe place. I will cheerfully follow the Guidelines and help make BookLikes the best positive place for book lovers!

http://sockpoppet.booklikes.com/ 30 September 2013

Mods, my apologies for creating a new thread but thought that the significance of this alert/topic and likelihood of extended discussion warranted its own thread. I only have bare facts and the below is C&P of my post in my group.


ATTN: Erotica authors!! Please note that once again, Amazon KDP is ‘revising’ its content policies.


I'm sure that y'all probably already know this, with the different author resources and fora for info and discussion. But just in case, below is a link to a Sept 27th post on KBoards thread. I haven't read thru it to see how factual/valid the info is or who are most likely to be affected, but it's start for those who haven't heard anything.

Warning: KDP banning old and new erotica titles en masse from self-publishers


It seems that GR's confusing position re: its revised review/shelving policies is being mirrored by Amazon re: its revised content guidelines. To wit:

"Offensive Content

What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect."

FYI, Amazon's KDP Content Guidelines

This list is in no way comprehensive, just a collection of blog-posts talking about Authors Behaving Badly. I did not include amazon- or GR-Reviews because a) there are far too many and b) often comments or whole reviews get deleted and in the end everything looks highly confusing and nobody knows what was actually going on. I simply don't have the time to check all these reviews to see what still makes sense for people who haven't been following them from the beginning.

• John Asht (German)
• James Austen
• Janet Dailey
• Melissa Douhit
• Robin Wyatt Dunn
• Cassie Edwards
• Eftos Epos (German)
• Victoria Foyt
• Emily Giffin
• Alison Gilmore
• Kendall Grey
• Jac D. Hawkins 1 | 2 | 3
• Lauren Howard/Lauren Pippa: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
• Jacqueline Howett
• Mike Kearby
• Victoria Laurie
• Stephen Leather
• Elle Lothlorien
• Deborah Anne MacGillivray
• Jessica Park

Robert Stanek

Jon Stock

Eve Thomas 1 | 2 | 3

Robert Clarke Young 1 | 2

Other Blogs/Blogposts of Interest

Behind the STGRB-Files

Stop the STGRB-Bullies

RaceFail 09

These are just some cases I know about because I followed discussion about this kind of author-behaviour. I'm sure there's more. If you know of any other links you think belong on this list (or think one of those links is inaccurate) drop a comment.

Author Jennifer L. Armentrout has joined the ranks of people unhappy with the changes happening on GR.

TIPS:

notifications:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/424188/not-a-tutorial-just-a-tip-about-notifications-

TUTORIALS:

How to change colour of text on your banner :

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/423482/how-to-change-colour-of-text-on-your-banner

Added pages - I can't read it! My background is dark and font is black! And I want to have a comment section!

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/367393/added-pages-i-can-t-read-it-my-background-is-dark-and-font-is-black-and-i-wan-t-to-have-a-comment-section-

Changing appearance of followers/following counters and repositioning them:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/221446/omg-i-really-want-to-move-change-my-followers-following-counters-because-they-re-on-my-banner-and-that-s-not-pretty-

Changing font colour (text, links, comment section):

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/227311/ffffff-get-it-no-nvm-pun-intended-how-to-change-font-colour-text-links-comment-section-the-whole-shebang-

Background for a search bar (what to do when it's invisible on a dark background):

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/227951/background-for-a-search-bar-what-to-do-when-your-background-is-dark-and-search-bar-in-your-menu-have-dissapeared-

Reading Challenge - how to post it on your site and a few simple customization options:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/250271/-reading-challenge-widget-how-to-make-it-appeare-on-your-site-and-some-crude-customization-options-i-m-not-a-miracle-worker-don-t-judge-me-

I saw this reblogged, but couldn't track down the original. So to whoever posted it on BLs originally, thank you. It looks like fun and I'm going to give it a shot.

Day #2 is a cinch, but I'm going to have to look back at everything I read last year to decide which was the best book.

Some days will be easy, but some (I'm looking at you, Day 12!) are going to require some deep thinking.

Best get started!

Just exploring the possibilities that BookLikes offers.. and what better way to do so then by posting my favorite Nagron vid?:p

By now many of us has seen the screen cap of Dawid (CEO of Booklikes) responding on the STGRB site. It was a quick and friendly reply to answer a question posed in their article (see screen cap of full article here).  So does this mean he supports them?  Of course not, so I think we can all turn down the alarm bells for a moment.

The STGRB wants us to believe Booklikes is on their side, but I refuse to believe it based on one post over there.  Especially when it addresses an email from Rick Carufel, a known troll himself.

<

so pretty!!

This gif from Dawid Piaskowski's blog is fabulous- I don't  know anything about it but I can't stop looking at it...

I'm sure all these goodreads posts are of no use to existing booklikes members.  And I've seen a few postings from them wondering about all these new followers (please don't blames us -- signing up for a booklikes account makes us initially follow 25 members that booklikes assigns us.  We'll eventualy sort it out to only follow others with similar reading tastes or whose posts we enjoy).

Please don't think we all came over here to post offensive, threatening material.  Allegations of bullying, rape threats, etc. sure do make good headlines.  And good headlines go viral.

Some of us never wrote reviews on goodreads.  Or had any shelf names worse than "Western" "Memoir" etc.

We already love booklikes for daily update posts and quick response to comments and email.  It's incredibly soothing compared to our experiences with goodreads.

We are booklovers.  Avid booklovers.  We're the ones who worked tirelessly making goodreads  immense database and membership a takeover target for amazon.  Now that amazon has our data, they don't want us.  Just to market our data to customers buying new kindles and amazon fire.  They killed Shelfari who used to be the kindle integrated book site and now are replacing Shelfari with goodreads.

Some of us are here just to protect our book catalogs, as in we seriously have no idea what will or won't be deleted at goodreads.   Likely very quiet members at that.  

There are quite a few tutorials on how to change the layout of your BookLikes blog. I figured it's good to have them all in one post, and I'd like to thank all who put a lot of work into making them so others can enjoy BookLikes. 

Let's start with the customization blogs posted by BookLikes: 

• Edit Your Design Theme With HTML on BookLikes 
• Your Blog on BookLikes - Custom-Made

Tutorials made by BookLikers for BookLikers: 

• Litchick's Easy Tips for Customization
• Litchick's How to Change Your Followers/Following to Something Fun
• AnHeC's How to Move/change your Followers/Following conters
• Jane's How to Customize your BookLikes Blog using CSS
• Jane's Customizing your BookLikes Blog Pt.2
• ThreeRs' Blog about Fonts
• AnHeC's How to change font colour (text, link, comment section)
• AnHeC's Background for Search Bar
• AnHeC's How to add the Reading Challenge Widget to your sidebar and customize it
• Little Knitter's How to avoid losing the original source of a post you want to reblog

Note: All links open in a new window and take you to the original posts and their creators. Leave comments, likes and reblog the hell out of them so others can see it too :)