The Book Nerd

Just saw this posting on Twitter and followed the link back to the article.

I hope that Goodreads fixes this today or comes back to the thread and tells us why they are not.

I feel really bad that I had to unfollow so many authors I considered friends on Goodreads last week. If I haven't read your works I think it's wrong to claim I am a fan of your work. And I also don't like that when I go through my home page now I can see my other friends who are fans of an author with a huge button to also follow/become a fan of that author. 

UPDATED:

So yeah. That's it. For all authors that I used to follow on Goodreads I am sorry but I am not following anyone that is an author anymore. Please don't send me any friend requests either. I am totally fine with discussing books here on BookLikes and please follow me here and let's discuss books :-). 

Posted 2 hours and 23 minutes ago: 

So from the Author Group message Patrick actively wants to discourage authors being friends with members and having the ability to message each other. He wants authors to accept Followers only. Why would he want to encourage such a separation? Is it because with friends we would only get the updates we choose and with being a Follower we would get everything the author posts plus it would automatically go into our feed for our friends to see?

In other words Patrick thinks friendship is irrelevant to authors, his agenda is promotion all the way - you don't need friends, you want a target market!

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions everyone. It’s clear that there’s some fine-tuning needed here so we’ve decided to change a few things up based on your feedback:

* We have made Friends and Following two separate actions. The authors you were friends with will now just remain your friends, and you'll only be shown as a friend and not a follower on their profiles. If you want to see their blog and get updates about new releases from them, you can then choose to follow them as well. Any Followings that were created based on people being Friends with an author will now be rolled-back. You don’t have to take any action for this to happen. 

* We're going to merge the people you follow and authors you follow list into one list on your profile page. You still have a way to see just the authors you follow through a link, but it won't be shown separately on your profile page. You will also be able to do this just for the readers you follow. 

* If you are friends with an author or if an author is following you, you will be able to see this when you are looking at that author’s profile.

Hopefully this works better for everyone . I’m really sorry for the inconvenience of this. We have definitely learned a lot and will take extra care when releasing a new feature like this in the future.

Maybe goodreads would at least consider making "favorite" readily visible on the author pages again.

(Boy, I'd really love to know what survey question led to hiding something like that.

For readers, it was already there so was either used or not—don't see why they'd want it hidden now.  

For authors, I really cannot imagine why they would object to becoming someone's "favorite author." -- even the most out there BBA shouldn't mind unless they convinced themselves it was sarcastically meant so was another way to "bully" a book.

I really think for the next survey goodreads should use a different group or even random people in the street ... or put up a poll right there on goodreads to really survey active members even knowing would get spammed by author socks like the listopias.)

Exact comment made is at:  https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2260989?page=5#comment_116446570 

Changes in how following/friend/favorite an author works.  See thread at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2260989 .

Hiw excited are we that goodreads is making such site updates?  Aren't they responsive to our requests?  

How great they are following  through on their recent (frequently reiterated) policy of going to do everything possible to make it easier for authors to interact with their readers?  Isn't that what we all look for when choosing our book communities:  more author communication?

Karlyn has posted this update from Jenny's twitter: 

Karlyn - Taxidermy for the Ladies says:

This is such a great article by author Jason Sanford. He is concerned how 'Stop The GR Bullies' and Anne Rice are hurting the relationships between authors and readers. 

Full Article: Stop the literary vampires from sucking the lifeblood out of readers

Also, a great related blog on Goodreads: When good authors go to the dark side

Update...

ETA: Thanks 'Anon' for posting the link on the STGRB web site. Appreciate the help. :-)

Sorry JBG, it's not all about fear. That is your game, and what you try to spread to your cult following.  Your site feeds on hate, fear, and attacking others. Simply put, a good person wouldn't want to associate with that. 

(Edited to fix link to Jason's article. He re-launched his new website and the link path changed)

If you have been following the latest drama of Anne Rice, STGRB and their menancing pet troll Kevin Weinnberg, you know that Jenny Trout was recently targetted by Kevin for a) expressing her opinion of a book's content,  and b) expressing her wish that it be pulled from circulation.

The story posted on STGRB (where opposing comments are most often not allowed) used selective screen shots provided by Kevin, and which painted Jenny Trout as an 'author attacker'. (Irony, right?) The article was immediately then heralded on Anne Rice's Facebook page for her 1 million+ followers to peruse and persucute, and where many opposing comments were also not welcomed and therefor deleted. (more deleted & deleted)

If you followed along like I did, you too felt a game was at play. A sick game where players behind the curtain were manipulating facts for the purpose of targeting a person Anne Rice has had issues with in the past. Yes, it felt VERY personal and completely ingenious. And given Kevin Weinberg's proven history of manupilating tween-age kids into creating fake accounts to troll along side with him, including his recent attack of people on an Amazon thread who were simply opposed to Anne Rice's support of STGRB.

Proof Kevin Weinberg is manipulating troll influencing young tweens

Sadly, as a result of this calculated attack, several people complained to Jenny's publisher. The publisher heard one side of the story and felt they needed to cancel an upcoming anthology of 12 authors. Not only was Jenny hurt in the mix, but so were 11 other authors.

Today Jenny released her novella as a stand alone, so if you would like to support her you can find the new book on Amazon or Smashwords.

The digest version, I think:

Jenny Trout speaks her mind about a racist/rapist book.  Jenny Trout encourages readers to let booksellers know how vile the book is and encourage them not to sell it.

Anne Rice puts pressure on Excessica, who is apparently (I didn't do any real research; it's late and I'm tired) a publisher, not to publish Jenny Trout's book in a boxed set, Bad Boy Next Door.

Excessica caves to Anne Rice's bullying and pulls Jenny Trout's book from the boxed set.

Jenny Trout's fellow authors stand up to Anne Rice's bullying and pull their own books from the boxed set.

I don't know who or what Excessica is, but I don't like them and I won't support them.

They're spineless worms.

It's Friday the 13th! Again! It's perfect time to remind you good luck black cats :)

Whether you believe in Friday 13th bad luck or not, we wish you all the best and all the luck. Btw, we think the superstition about the bad luck black cats was made up by the white cats' gang. Just look at those pics!

Stamp your feet via Lenore on BookLikes 

Reading lesson via Lenore on BookLikes 

The Sleepyhead via Tina Sandevska on BookLikes

Smart one via

Just sitting via 

and sitting via

and still sitting via

Come, sit by via

Mark Twain’s vintage cat Bambino via

Lucky 13 via

Comma cat via Tina Sandevska on BookLikes 

And if you wish to read some cat books have a look at the collection of several reads featuring cats found by Kagama -The Literaturevixen.

Happy Friday the 13th and good luck! ;-)

P.S. Watch out! Zombie kittens are waiting. 

furry zombies via Musings of NerdyNatasha on BookLikes 

Originally posted on BookLikes Blog: December 13, 2013, updated June 13, 2014. 

When you choose the hill you are going to die on, don't let it be this:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jeffersons-Mistress-Werewolf-Vampire-ebook/dp/B00RY5J54G/ref=cm_rdp_product

You would have to be living under a rock to not be aware that Anne Rice is in a pitched battle with a few people in the amazon forums, as well as all reviewers who don't hand out 5-star reviews like they are candy, and, not coincidentally, Jenny Trout, who got on her bad side (again) by pointing out how offensive this book is.

Let's just take it apart for a small moment. Some self-published author with a stupid pseudonym (in this case, Fionna Free Men) slaps together a bunch of crappy erotica and equally crappy covers, and then puts them on amazon for sale. So far, nothing to see here, right?

Except one of those pieces of erotica is a "master-slave BDSM fic" about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Sally Hemings is a real historical personage. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's dead wife and Jefferson's slave, and, while there is dispute amongst historians, there is significant historical evidence to demonstrate that Jefferson raped her for the first time when she was between 14 and 15 years old, and continued raping her indefinitely, fathering six children with her. 

Let me not mince words. I use the word "rape" intentionally because Sally Hemings was an enslaved person and was unable to consent to a relationship with Jefferson. One can only consent if one can refuse consent. A slave is not an owner of her body, she has no agency. She cannot say no, and therefore, she cannot say yes. So the idea that Hemings "consented" to a relationship with Jefferson in any fashion whatsoever is bullshit.

But that isn't the point of this post. The point of this post is that Anne Rice - and honestly, I still expected better of her, which I guess makes me nuts - has chosen to defend that book because she hates Jenny Trout more than she hates racist rape apologia. Which even I didn't expect of her. 

Here is her original facebook post, screenshotted:

And here's her response to another person who is going to go buy the book to "support free speech":

For completeness, let's get the original offending post linked as well:

http://jennytrout.com/?p=8823

Now, let's get a couple things straight. 

First off, this has nothing to do with free speech. Fionna Free Men, wherever the fuck she is, has a right to write all of the racist, disgusting and despicable rape apologia that she wants. She is free to speak. What she doesn't have a right to, actually, is a platform. The government is prohibited from interfering with her free speech. Neither amazon nor Jenny Trout are the government. So the next person who mentions "free speech" in the discussion should be sent back to high school and forced to attend civics class until they can pass the section on the Bill of Rights.

Second, Jenny Trout did not tell people to pirate the book. She told them neither to buy nor to read it. But if they, for whatever reason, couldn't stand the thought of not firsthand experiencing 19 pages of glorified racism and rape, then by all means, they should pirate it rather than giving the author one thin dime off of the pile of shit that is this book.

And that, my friends, is the hill that Anne Rice has chosen to die on. She hates Jenny Trout so much that she will support that crap over Jenny. And she hates the "bullies" so much than anything that they think is bad, she must go on record as calling good. Even if that thing that is "good" is a disgusting rape fic about a 14-year-old black enslaved person who was raped by her 44 year old white owner for decades.

When this fight started, did she imagine that it would end with her defending the glorification of child abuse and racism? Somehow, I think not.

Beloved fantasy author Terry Pratchett has died at the age of 66. He will be very much missed but not forgotten. Have a look at some of Terry Pratchett's most inspirational quotes - fill up your mind with writer's words and your shelves with his incredible books. 

Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was fifteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, in 1983... more

 

See article here.

He was and always will be...

1931-2015

Well, for sometime I have been wondering why my dashboard here is quite empty and felt it is a damn shame if people have abandoned this site.

But I actually just noticed that someone I, de facto, followed a long time ago,  I ain't following anymore.

The thing is, I haven't unfollowed that person. Not in purpose, not accidentally.

I am now making this a BIG DEAL (and hope Booklikes haven't gone all Twitter on me with unfollowing randomly behalf of me) and kindly ask that if you as a blogger have gotten used to getting my likes in daily basis (yes, I always press the like button in every goddamn post there is!), and are not getting them anymore, please inform me in the comments so I can follow you back second time.

I am sorry about the FUSS but that is basically only way of me knowing if I am missing updates from someone I should not.'