**UPDATE 5/4: I'm pleased to note that the blog has been completely removed from Goodreads. I leave this entry up as a warning to others.**
Yes, Mark Valentine and I were very distressed today to learn that Goodreads has usurped this blog and posted it at their own site, renaming it "Mark Valentine's Blog" even though this blog is multi-authored. Neither Mark nor I gave any such permission for this action, nor did we know it had happened until today.
In my view, this moves Goodreads (owned by Amazon.com) into the top of the Corporate Scum Pile. We have sent requests for it to be completely removed, but this is something we should never have had to do, if the corporate raiders would leave other people's stuff alone.
See it for yourself. Here is the URL for the stolen blog:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/33552.Mark_Valentine/blog
***Update. Thanks to Ryan (see comments), this now appears in snippet form, but it's still misnamed as Mark's blog when it isn't.***
I hope this link goes dead soon. Real soon. And any inclination I might ever have had to join Goodreads is now gone.
The sad thing, too, is that both Mark and I now feel less inclined to post anything other than snippets of news here. All thanks to the unconscionable theft by Goodreads.
I understand your reaction COMPLETELY, but please keep posting here! We all get reminded now and again that none of us have the slightest real control over any of these platforms that our Corporate Masters so kindly let us use, but that understood, we can still employ them, with necessary caution, to some worthy ends. Undoubtedly we have to pick and choose - I'm not on Twitter at all, and barely use Facebook, much preferring the now seemingly old-hat blog format, both for sending my own writing out into the world and for receiving information from others. I get lots of valuable information from Wormwoodiana, and would sorely miss it.
ReplyDeleteI'd be sorry to see you go, though I'd sympathise. Why do Amazon/Goodread do this sort of thing anyway? It seems a singularly pointless exercise which only annoys people. Pure egotistic aggrandisement, I suppose. I know that when I first used the web Amazon kept advertising books from small publishers that they were unable to supply even when it was obvious they couldn't supply them..
ReplyDeleteMy Valancourt account on Goodreads is able to make edits so I removed the link for you. I believe these are usually added manually so someone may have submitted it. Either way, it should be gone now.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ryan. It's down to a snippet from what was there, but it's still not "Mark Valentine's Blog" and not at "Mark Valentine's Website". It's the multi-authored Wormwoodiana Blog, and its name shouldn't be changed from that.
DeleteThis is only one of the reasons I rarely use any social media, but I agree with the earlier comments: don't let the grinders bastard you down.
ReplyDeleteHow can goodreads do that?
ReplyDeleteI am complaining to Goodreads - where I am a member. Please keep up the excellent work here at Wormwoodiana!
ReplyDeleteIt says "Mark Valentine's Website" and "Mark Valentine's Blog" because it's set up that way in Good Reads' author page template. Not much you can do about that predetermined HTML in the Good Reads design unless you're adept at hacking. I checked five other authors selected at random and each of their Good Reads author page is set up exactly the same way. If the blog is titled (as Martin Edwards is) the title does not appear, but instead it says "Martin Edwards' Blog". By the way, this problem of your blog being "stolen" is all related to RSS feed which you can control in Blogger in your Account Settings.
ReplyDeleteYou can completely turn off the RSS feed or you can add a footer that will tell readers that the material originally comes from your blog. You can type whatever info you want into the footer including copyright info and other legalese to protect your writing. I did this when my posts from Pretty Sinister Books we're being pulled by other RSS feed sites. I like the extra publicity via RSS feeds though some of them are utterly bogus. But you can't be selective. Either you turn it on and are subject to *all* RSS feeds or you turn it off.
You can find the RSS data in Settings/Other when you're in the Blogger Design section of your account.
Thanks, John. The problem with them stealing the whole blog, lock stock and barrel, is that people who see it only on Goodreads won't bother to go to the blog directly. And there is also the question of an author controlling his/her own work. We very much want to exercise our own control, and letting another site lift our entire content is not acceptable in our view. Goodreads has now removed the whole blog, so for now, this appears to be fixed.
DeleteIt appears to have filtered out now. I'll check back in a week and make sure it hasn't returned. If you notice it pop back up, let me know.
ReplyDeleteFYI - Not sure why the reply button is not going to my email.
I had never heard of Goodreads until today. I check this blog every day for updates and have purchased every new release mentioned from the small publishers who print them. Some ghastly corporation may have reposted your content, but I am sure I am not the only reader of this blog who is appreciative for all of the bookish insight you provide and more than happy to fork over the cash to purchase your wonderful books.
ReplyDeleteI'm a goodreads moderator of a group called "Literary Horror." I've been in a love/hate relationship with badreads as I call it ever since Amazon acquired it. All of us that rated and reviewed on it over the years were distressed when Amazon acquired it and as we feared 1) started censoring content we had submitted to the old goodreads, and 2) began using our content, old and new, to market both books and e-book readers. Neither of these things were happening while goodreads was independent.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to review on Amazon's site where one knows what one is getting into (and for that matter goodreads now), it's quite another to have all one's past content now both vetted for appropriateness and used to market product(s) after the fact.
We do have a lot of fun over at the goodreads Literary Horror group and at least for now Amazon has let me rant and rave about all their negative aspects without throwing me out the door. And no I'm not an author and I don't work for Amazon or goodreads.