Will My Publisher Let Me Self Publish Too?

Prepare for a rant:

Hello, its me again, drinking coffee, reading my morning emails.  And look what new gem of wisdom I found, an article from Rachelle Gardner, an Agent who "partners with authors to bring worthwhile books to publication."  Rachelle asks the burning question:

 Will My Publisher Let Me Self Publish Too?

Rachelle very eloquently expresses the issues traditional publishers (TPs) have in allowing authors to self-publish simultaneously along with their traditional publishing business/contract.  She's very succinct in making all these important points for consideration.  Only an agent who caters to TPs and makes a living siphoning off an author's revenues would have the audacity to come out and say this publicly.

You see, Agents and TPs don't necessarily like the idea of their contracted authors going hybrid, and experimenting with self-publishing. Go figure.

Here's the list of issues Rachelle has with her contracted authors attempting to self-publish:

1. Branding issues.  TPs don't want your self-published works to mess up the author and/or series brand they have painstakingly created.  But it is your name, your novels, and your series that's been branded--right? Not. TP's probably have some fine print somewhere that you didn't even know you signed, that gives them some slimy toehold over your own name as BRAND. And who are you to go out in social media and use your own name without permission?  Silly author.

2. Quality issues.  TPs spend so much time, money and effort creating quality literature.  All those poor unguided fools in self-publishing could never produce the same quality without them. And of course, your inferior quality self-published works might adversely affect your good name and reputation and BRAND, which they perceive to own.

3. Time issues. TPs want your time commitment.  They want you to work for them.  Not for yourself.  Silly author, you thought you owned your own time!  They have your name, your BRAND, they control your quality, and your time.  Silly authors shouldn't be using their precious time to self-publish.

4. Promotional issues. TPs "don’t want your promotional efforts on your self-published books to eclipse their promotions on your contracted books. If they allow you to self-publish, they may lose their right to set boundaries on what you’re allowed to do promotionally, and this can be disastrous."

Oh the horror of it all! Heaven forbid you should compete promotionally with your contracted books, that's not fair.  You might outsell them.  You might make more money selling your self-published books than they pay you from your contracted books.

You might learn how to effectively promote and publish and sell your own books.  And then what would you need them for?

This entire article is sickening. 

Its about an agent who is losing books from contracted authors who are starting to realize they may not need to sign anymore of those shitty contracts with Traditional Publishers in order to publish their books.  Obviously, some of Rachelle's authors are contemplating self-publishing.  Better do your best to talk them out of it Rachelle, either that or start looking for ways to help them self-publish.

Maybe you could find a way to help your authors maintain quality.  Maybe you could find a way to help your authors publish, promote, and sell their self-published works.  But there wouldn't be any money in that.  OOPS.

NOTE: I found this article, through Joanna Penn, who blogged about it, and sent out emails to all her subscribers (me too):

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/05/09/permission/

Joanna Penn is a wonderful woman who has successfully navigated the labyrinth of self-publishing and has published a wonderful series of novels.  She regularly blogs on the publishing business, and ways and means of self-publishing successfully.

So, lets have it.  Comments, complaints, rants, hate mail, nods of agreement.  What do you have to say about this?

The Author Exploitation Business (Reblog)

Reblogged from: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/the-author-exploitation-business/

The Author Exploitation Business

Posted on May 4, 2013 by davidgaughran

 

Writing is a glamorous occupation – at least from the outside. Popular depictions of our profession tend to leave out all the other stuff that comes with the territory: carpal tunnel syndrome, liver failure, penury, and madness.

Okay, okay, I jest. I love being a writer. Sharing stories with the world and getting paid for it is bloody brilliant. It’s a dream job, and like any profession with a horde of neophytes seeking to break in, there are plenty of sharks waiting to chew them to bits.

Publishing is a screwed up business. The often labyrinthine path to success makes it much easier for those with nefarious intentions to scam the unsuspecting. But it doesn’t help that so many organizations who claim to help writers, to respect them, to assist them along the path to publication are actually screwing them over.

Before the digital revolution made self-publishing viable on a wide scale, the dividing lines were easier to spot. Traditional publishers paid you if they wanted to buy the rights to your novel. Self-publishers were people who filled their garages with books and tried to hawk them at events. And vanity presses were the scammers, luring the unsuspecting with false promises and roundly condemned by self-publishers and traditional publishers alike.

Today it’s very different. The scammy vanity presses are owned by traditional publishers who are marketing them as the “easy” way to self-publish – when it’s nothing more than a horrifically expensive and terribly ineffective way to publish your work, guaranteed to kill your book’s chance of success stone dead, while emptying your bank account in the process.

Some of you might think: hey, it’s just business. Caveat emptor and all that. And don’t these people know how to use Google?

That’s easy to say from our position of experience. Do you remember how naive you were at the start? Do you remember just how badly you wanted to get published? Do you remember the crushing grind of the query-go-round?

I’m not surprised people get scammed. When you want something so badly, and you can’t seem to make progress towards that goal – no matter how hard you work – you start to go crazy. You get desperate.

And it’s much harder to tell the scammers from the legitimate organizations when they are owned by the same people.

Take Penguin-owned Author Solutions, one of the worst vanity presses out there. Here’s how they hoodwink inexperienced writers into using their horribly expensive service.

If you Google a term like “find a publisher” the results are littered with sites like FindYourPublisher.com (which I’m not going to link to because that will help their SEO, but you can cut-and-paste that address).

The website purports to be an independent resource, helping to pair you with the most suitable publishing company. Or as they put it:

dedicated to helping both first-time and experienced authors identify the most suitable indie book publishing company for their book. With the information you provide about your book and goals, FYP makes a recommendation as to which indie book publisher has the best publishing package to help you reach your publishing objectives.

Below this message is an online questionnaire asking you about your book. When you have completed that and handed over your phone number, the site makes a recommendation based on your answers. 

Except the only companies recommended are Trafford, AuthorHouse, Xlibris, and iUniverse – all of which are scammy vanity presses, all owned by Author Solutions. And, fitting with the rest of the pattern, FindYourPublisher.com is just one of many (many!) such sites owned and operated by Author Solutions, purporting to make independent recommendations, but only recommending Author Solutions companies.

I have sympathy for those hoodwinked by awful companies like Author Solutions. The dividing lines aren’t as obvious as they were. And inexperienced writers naively assume that a company like Penguin has their best interests at heart. Maybe it’s the cuddly logo.

Newsflash: Penguin doesn’t care about writers

When Penguin bought the world’s biggest vanity press for $116m last July, many people in the publishing business gave them a pass. They claimed that Penguin would clean up the cesspool. But instead Author Solutions CEO Kevin Weiss was given a seat on the Penguin board.

A seat on the board!

Emily Suess wrote an excellent guest post here back in February, detailing how the slick Author Solutions scam hadn’t changed one bit since the Penguin takeover.

It’s now almost a year since Penguin bought the company (instead of buying, say, Goodreads, but I digress). It should be clear to everyone now that Penguin has no intention of changing Author Solutions’ scammy approach. In fact, Penguin just announced plans to take the scam global.

Penguin has been looking under the Author Solutions hood for 10 months now. Its conclusion was this: we can make this bigger. We can take this scam on the road and start exploiting writers all over the planet.

And Penguin is still getting a pass for this crap.

The Penguin Omerta

The Publishers Weekly piece on Penguin’s aggressive expansion plans for Author Solutions makes no mention of the company being a universally reviled vanity press that has cheated 150,000 writers out of their savings.

This is something I’ve been noticing for a while, and Publishers Weekly isn’t alone. The pieces in The Bookseller, GalleyCat, and Digital Book World also make no mention of the widespread criticism that Author Solutions has attracted, nor do they mention that the company is currently the subject of a class action suit for their deceptive practices.

More disturbingly, my comment pointing this out appears to have been scrubbed from The Bookseller, is stuck in the moderation queue on Digital Book World’s piece (despite explicitly stating that they had posted it).

The reaction at the London Book Fair was similar. No-one from traditional publishing wanted to talk about Penguin’s ownership of Author Solutions. No-one wants to talk about how a supposedly legitimate publisher now owns the most successful author scamming organization on the planet.

These guys are probably taking their cue from the New York Times, who won’t mention anything remotely critical about Author Solutions, but are happy to spend lots of time showing them in a positive light (like here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Writer Beware

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has done sterling work over the years warning writers away from people like Author Solutions both on their own site, and through their industry watchdog Writer Beware.

However, I would love to see them go one step further.

Remember those awful Random House digital-first imprints? Public pressure forced Random House to change the horribly one-sided terms it was offering writers. That result was achieved after Writer Beware blogged about it, SFWA president John Scalzi followed up, and SFWA itself threatened to de-list Random House as a qualifying market.

What Author Solutions is doing to writers is far, far worse.

Isn’t it time to do something about this? Isn’t it time to threaten to de-list Penguin as a qualifying market if they don’t clean up Author Solutions?

Hands Up If You Don’t Own A Vanity Press

There’s only one problem with this approach. Where do you stop? Because you would have to threaten to do the same with all these guys too:

1. Simon & Schuster hired Author Solutions to run their own scammy vanity press – Archway Publishing. If that wasn’t enough, they then offered a bounty to bloggers to lie about the company.

2. Harper Collins-owned Thomas Nelson have their own crappy vanity operation called West Bow Press – also “powered” by Author Solutions.

3. Harlequin, never afraid to turn down a penny, jumped in the game a few years ago. Author Solutions provided the white-label vanity operation for them.

4. Showing that it’s not just the larger publishers, Hay House contracted Author Solutions to set up Balboa Press – another scammy, crappy, overpriced vanity press.

If it was down to me, I would threaten to de-list all these guys until they cleaned house, but Penguin would be a good start, given they (a) it all comes back to Author Solutions, (b) Penguin owns Author Solutions, (c) Penguin has shown no interest in addressing concerns, and (d) Penguin is planning a massive expansion of the Author Solutions scam.

Writers Digest & Lulu

I’m sure Digital Book World’s reluctance to mention the problems with Author Solutions has nothing to do with the fact that they are owned by F+W Media, which also owns yet another crappy vanity press – Abbot Press (which has some of the worst prices out there).

In a refreshing change of pace, this crappy vanity press is not actually powered by Author Solutions. Abbot Press is a division of Writers Digest. Yes, that Writers Digest.

If that catches you by surprise, I’m sorry to say that Writers Digest went over to the dark side a few years back, and now spam their subscribers with crap like this.

I’m sure Author Solutions was disappointed to miss out on that deal but at least they can console themselves with the new partnership they struck with  Lulu last month to provide premium (i.e. overpriced and ineffective) marketing services to Lulu customers.

That’s right. Lulu made a deal with the devil.

How Can We Fight Back?

Penguin think they can continue to ride out the storm, ignoring the criticism and collecting their ill-gotten gains, but if we make enough noise, they will have to respond. That starts with sharing this post, or, even better, blogging about it yourself.

But it also means reaching out to inexperienced writers and trying to steer them away from these crooks. We need to get the message out that self-publishing is not the impossible task it’s painted as. Sarah Woodbury has a helpful post on the basics here, and I have another here. Feel free to point newbies to them, or write your own.

Each time you see an article talking about Author Solutions and not mentioning all the issues, comment underneath and call them on it. Even if the media don’t change their one-eyed approach, readers will see the comments.

If you’re a member of a writers organization like SFWA, RWA, or MWA, ask what they are doing about Penguin. Ask them why they haven’t threatened to de-list Penguin. And keep pressing them! The SFWA (and the RWA) were really strong in response to Random House. We need the same from them again.

150,000 writers have been screwed over already. I think that’s enough. Don’t you?

CORRECTION: Abbott Press (the Writers Digest vanity press) shares the same address as Author Solutions so I think it’s safe to assume it’s being run by them. The packages are all quite similar, as is the marketing. Indeed, Emily Suess names Abbot Press as being powered by Author Solutions (scroll down to bottom). More profit for Penguin! Hooray!

* * *

Reblogged from: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/the-author-exploitation-business/ 

Iniquitous Solace: THE AFTERMATH

We last visited with Penelope Jones, a.k.a. "Bad Penny" and her friend Max, for the pending release of their coauthored poetry compilation titled Iniquitous Solace.  We had Bad Penny all tied up, played with some power tools, and had loads of wicked BDSM fun.

But as these things sometimes go, life happened, shit happened, and Bad Penny emerged solitary, with a newly inspired poetry compilation. Come walk a mile in Penny's shoes (or striped socks) and experience her life, love, erotic bliss, and the aftermath:

INIQUITOUS SOLACE:

THE AFTERMATH

We all want to fall in love and for it to last a lifetime. But life and wishes rarely coincide, so what happens when love dies and you're the only one still holding onto broken dreams?

In Iniquitous Solace - The Aftermath, we get a glimpse into the world of one such lovelorn poetess. Come laugh and love with Penelope as she shares her very soul through her heartfelt words and poetic verse. With this girl you get it all; come walk in her shoes, wear her stripy knee-socks, or even her collar that locks! Though battered and bruised, you will love the spirit that defies disappointment. Penelope Jones picks herself up, dusts herself off and stares life straight back in the eye.

Iniquitous Solace - The Aftermath. For a different kind of love.

"Iniquitous Solace: The Aftermath" includes romantic, erotic, angry relationship poetry intended for mature/adult audiences.

*Approximately 8,200 words

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Smashwords

You can find Penelope Jones…

 

Email:  LittleMissNotoriety@Gmail.com

Blog: http://thepenelopejones.wordpress.com

Twitter: @Penelope_Prose https://twitter.com/Penelope_Prose

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/ThePenelopeJones

Facebook personal: https://www.facebook.com/penelope.jones.564

Fetlife: TheVeryBadPenny  https://fetlife.com/users/2142473

★THE NIGHTLIFE PARIS★ Official Release!!

Official Release & GIVEAWAY 

★THE NIGHTLIFE PARIS★

Vampire master Michelle, and her slave, Aaron Pilan, flee to Paris, leaving behind the slaughter in Las Vegas. Aaron made the costly mistake of taking a bloodslave, and then married her. The tragedy of his wife's death has driven a rift between them and Michelle is desperate to heal the breach.

Struggling with his predatory alter ego, Aaron is fractious, rebelling against his master. He desires another bloodslave, and that Michelle cannot allow. She opens her heart and soul to Aaron and he relives, through her memories, her dark, gritty tale of survival in the savagery of WWII Paris under the German occupation. Michelle's staggering revelations are deeply disturbing. The confrontation of master versus slave comes full circle as the couple faces death and separation.

And they are not alone in Paris. An investigator has followed them from Vegas seeking the unique gifts of Michelle’s blood. He’s watching and waiting for the opportunity to make his move against them.

Find out what happens in the third novel of the Nightlife Series.

Purchase The Nightlife Paris here:

AMAZON US

 
AMAZON UK

SMASHWORDS

Enter Giveaway for The Nightlife Paris here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Cover Reveal ★FIRST I LOVE YOU★

About the Book:

If Mario Puzo and Jane Austen crossed the time-space continuum and mated, FIRST, I LOVE YOU would be their literary baby.

Imagine being a detective with a mobster for a father, or a mobster with a straight arrow, good cop for a son. This is a relationship that is tricky on its best day. Add in some well-meaning meddling from a mob princess sister, an arrogant DEA agent, and gangsters running a human trafficking ring and you have a recipe for a book that refuses to follow the rules. Told from the perspective and point of view of each the six main characters this is the first novel in a trilogy about love, loyalty, revenge and redemption.

Omaha Detective Tommy Gates has kept his gangster father at arm’s length his whole life. Mickey Downey has spent the better part of the last two decades trying to find ways to get back the son he lost through Witness Protection. Now Tommy has taken an opportunity to work on a Federal Human Trafficking Joint Task Force in Chicago where his father lives. Tommy’s sister Kiki and his mother Mary see this as an opportunity to build a relationship between the two. Tommy’s new DEA partner James Hoffman sees it as an opportunity to gain leverage over Mickey Downey. Tommy’s other partner, FBI Agent Ginny Sommers wants to keep Tommy’s family as far from the case as possible. When Kiki and James join forces, sparks fly and it sets fire to a maelstrom of unexpected consequences for everyone involved.

One part Godfather, two parts Emma and a dash of Casablanca mixed together, FIRST, I LOVE YOU isn’t a detective novel, a gangster novel, a mystery, a romance or a family saga. It’s a little of all of the above.

FIRST, I LOVE YOU is available in print and digital format at all major eBook retailers.

>>AMAZON<<
>>AMAZON UK<<

     EXCERPT:

“You don’t have much respect for me do you?” Kiki asked.

“On the contrary, if I ever need to know which shoes to wear to match my tie, you’d be the first person I call. If I had your number,” James said, trying to temper the sarcasm with a charming smile.

“I’m sure you already have it, along with all the other boring background check facts you recited earlier,” she rejoined, still making no move to retreat.

James admired her nerve. Maybe this princess had a bit of her father’s steel in her after all.

“That would defeat the purpose of you giving it to me,” he said.

“What purpose would that be? And you still haven’t answered my question,” she retorted.

“How about you answer one of mine first?” James asked then chuckled as she raised an eyebrow in a pretty good impression of her father. “Why would you invite your father’s old mistress to your party when she is not related to you, was no doubt the source of great pain and embarrassment for your own mother, and her presence, you had to know, would be unwelcome with at least a few of your guests?”

“I already explained my reasons to my brother. And his opinion is the only one I care about; certainly not a rude, presumptuous, party crashing boar like yourself. You don’t know a damn thing about me,” she answered, dark eyes glittering with anger.

“What I know is there’s a lot of big important grown up things going on and the last thing Tommy needs is his spoiled little sister playing games with his family, and distracting him from this case,” he said with perhaps a bit more heat than he meant but the smell of her hair and the glittering of her lip-gloss with the hall lights was distracting him and he was trying to keep his mind on the task at hand.

“How dare you? You’re the outsider here! It’s you who should butt the hell out of my family’s private issues! And you’ve the nerve to say we can be of use to each other? Why the fuck should I help you with anything?” Kiki ground out.

“Tisk, tisk, such language, little girl,” James said with a smirk. By God, she was beautiful, he couldn’t help but think. “How about we go back to your place and discuss this like rational adults,” he finished in a playful yet suggestive tone.

She let out a huff, clearly nonplussed by his forwardness. Then something flashed in her eyes, a sort of calculating, cynical and predatory look that had him feeling momentarily nonplussed himself.

“Alright. Let me say good bye to my guests. You obviously already know where I live. I’ll meet you there in a half hour,” Kiki said, cool and collected once more.

It was more like an hour when she arrived at her door, but who was counting? They said nothing to each other as she let him inside. James looked around her one bedroom apartment and thought it was nothing like he’d expected. He’d expected lots of pink or maybe something trendy with splashy colors. It was all cool metals, finished wood, and retro 50’s style furniture. Frank Lloyd Wright stills peppered the room and books lined the entirety of one wall. Her windows were left uncovered and the city lights cast interesting reflections in the room. She threw her shawl and little clutch purse on the butterfly chair by the bookshelves. Then she walked up to him and grabbed his holster. He stopped her hand.

“What are you doing?” James asked, his discomfort at having underestimated her twice in one evening making him irrationally angry.

“You should make yourself more comfortable,” Kiki said seductively.

“I thought we came here to talk?” he prevaricated, as he took his jacket, gun and badge off.

He could tell she was playing some sort of game and it spiked his irritation up a notch. His mood was all over the place, actually. There was frustration at the blocked opportunities by his partners and Downey to further the case tonight, mixed with his desire for her, the self-disgust that that brought, the irritation with her childish interference, the discomfort of knowing she was right that it wasn’t his business what went on between her and her family.

But now she had decided to take his sexual sparring and call his bluff. Except he wasn’t bluffing. Did she think he would be scared off from her family this way? Maybe that would work with her usual limp wristed boy toys or the gumbahs who were probably too afraid of her Daddy to actually make a move, but not with him.

James hooked an arm behind her back and yanked her towards him. She gasped and put her free hand on his chest, but she didn’t push him away. She kept looking at him, eyes still full of challenge and no fear. It was like something snapped in his brain and all he wanted was to wipe that look from her eyes, to make her realize lives weren’t to be played with, manipulated. To give her a taste of her own medicine.

He gripped the back of her neck with his other hand and crushed his mouth to hers. She met his kisses with equal fervor, pressing up against him. He let go of her waist and neck and began a rough exploration of her body, not bothering to be gentle. She sunk her hands into his hair and gripped painfully. Whether to give as good as she got or from passion he didn’t know. All he knew was his body was on fire for her and all he could think about was sinking into her.

>>AMAZON<<
>>AMAZON UK<<

Author Bio:

Genevieve Dewey is the author of The Downey Trilogy (First, I Love You & Second of All) and the short stories Bird Day Battalion & V-Day Aversion. She is a wife, mother, sister, friend and Anthropologist. She was raised mostly in Nebraska, partly in Arizona. She has a Master’s in Anthropology and worked as an Applied Anthropologist for years (even ran her own research company for a while) before deciding to be a stay at home mom. She loves passionate (rational) debates, reading, and libraries… oh, and Chicago and high-heels and chocolate and target practice and gangster flicks and anything with the FBI in it and run-on sentences. She lives in Nebraska with her three brilliantly diabolical children and one incredibly funny husband.

You can find Gen online at:

www.GenevieveDewey.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/GenevieveDewey

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GenevieveDewey

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6441991.Genevieve_Dewey

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Genevieve-Dewey/e/B00936QL2S/

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/genevievedewey/

GIVEAWAY►► The Nightlife Las Vegas

ITS GIVEAWAY TIME!

 In honor of the wonderful ladies of EROTIC ENCHANTS at Goodreads, I am offering:
  
The Nightlife Las Vegas 
FREE Giveaway
April 24th through May 2nd

VAMPIRES, MURDER, MAYHEM, SEX, CARTEL, 
AND JELL-O WRESTING

ALL APPLICANTS MUST JOIN 

EROTIC ENCHANTS

Leave a comment below to verify you have joined the group!
 

 Vampires, Aaron Pilan and his master Michelle, live by one rule -- no bloodslaves. EVER. Aaron breaks that rule when he meets Anastasia. All Anastasia wants is to be loved and cherished, but the predatory men she’s attracted to bring her only pain and abuse. Escaping one train-wreck relationship for another, she finds happiness with Aaron and Michelle as a bloodslave, a 'pet'. When Aaron uses his telepathy to win thousands at the gambling tables, he attracts the deadly attention of the Colombian Cartel and Aaron and Michelle are 'disappeared'. Addicted to the bite of her vampire lovers, Ana is desperate to find them. But, Las Vegas isn't ready for vampires mixing heroin, sex and vengeance. Ana is trapped in the spiraling chaos.

SIGN UP FOR RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY HERE:


a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Don't forget to leave a comment below to verify you have joined EROTIC ENCHANTS!

Amazon & Goodreads: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I have been following this issue very closely since it was first announced. 

There are many stances on it from many different angles.

Lets talk about a few of them here.

The latest posting from Digital Book World brings some interesting points to light:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/the-future-of-goodreads-under-amazon-ownership/?et_mid=610276&rid=234558344

Amazon's systems are consumer-focused.  This has many potential ramifications for Goodreads.  If that consumer focus bleeds over into Goodreads, how will that change the system for authors?

And a good part of Goodreads is built to cater to Authors in social media, events, group discussions, giveaways.  If Amazon no longer cares to devote resources to this kind of activity, will we see the Author-centric aspects of Goodreads drop off in favor of the reader/consumer focus?

http://bestsellerlabs.com/amazon-buys-goodreads-the-impact-on-authors/

Jonathan Gunson has found something positive about this merger, Kindle libraries will find integration with Goodreads "shelves".  This is wonderful for authors, because all of a sudden, a whole ton of "read" or "owned" or "want to read" shelving will register for all these books.  That kind of activity is a major big deal, adds a lot of popularity to a book in Goodreads.

But there are also a great deal of concerns about privacy.  Many a reader who buys on Kindle, using their real identity, yet keeping their Kindle collection private in this neat little device, is willing to write reviews on Goodreads under a pseudonym.  Goodreads allows this privacy.  People also discuss books in group conversations under their pseudonym. 

If Kindle starts connecting the dots between the device/purchaser, and the Goodreads pseudonym, privacy is out the window.  This has far reaching implications for readers of the more risque erotica material.  Privacy has enabled readers to buy and enjoy these books on their kindle devices.  One might say that ereader privacy has contributed to the explosion of the erotica ebook market.

If that aspect of privacy is lost due to Amazon-Goodreads integration of Kindle libraries and Goodreads "shelves", will there be a drop-off in purchases of the more risque-controversial reading material? 

Not everyone wants their entire Kindle library broadcast to the world.

http://thenightlifeseries.blogspot.com/2013/03/amazon-goodreads-holy-shit.html

And finally, there is another issue for consideration, Amazon's monopolistic control of book sales, discovery, and the discussion forums for talking about books.  In addition to Amazon's own Kindle forums, unbeknownst to many, Amazon is also a major shareholder/partner in Librarything, a Goodreads competitor.  AND obviously, Amazon runs Shelfari, the other major Goodreads competitor.

We, the world of book readers and authors, have very little places left to go, to talk about books, where Amazon does not own/control the discussion format and have full access to all that data.

The megagiant bookseller is positioning themselves to control all the platforms where people go to find and talk about books.  Control of discovery, control of word-of-mouth, control of reviews and ratings.

That's just plain creepy, and it screams of a monopoly.



Additionally, Amazon is infamous for censorship of certain kinds of novels.  They will simply remove a book from their system, as if it had never existed.  That removal reaches straight into Kindle libraries.  Kindle ebooks you have purchased that Amazon deems unworthy will disappear without warning.


Traditionally, Goodreads is a place where everyone is free to discuss every kind of book, to rate and review those books.  There are books discussed, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads, that are not sold on Amazon, have been banned by Amazon.  Will Amazon bring their brand of intolerance and arbitrary book removal to Goodreads?

Comments anyone?