Buzz Worthy News August 13th 2012

13 August, 2012 Buzz Worthy News 24 comments

Buzz Worthy News

This week on Buzz Worthy News, A legitimate kindle ebook blog gets shut down, Forbes points us in the right direction to ask for handouts, Fareed Zakaria is busted plagiarizing, NPR releases its 100 Best Young Adult novel list, and, of course, Scandalous Scandals!

Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly Monday news post informing you of all the latest Book World news and Book Blogging drama.  We used to have a Friday post, HNT, but we sent it to live on a farm.  Enjoy!

Book World News

Image by Kanikey

Angry Internet Mob Closes Legitimate Blog

The internet is a powerful thing.  It can get a little girl a set of kidneys when a hospital turns her down for no good reason, it can launch a new recording artist, it can make you famous.  But it also has some downsides.  Tila Tequila being one, and rampaging mobs of angry people people being another.

This week, author, misinformed of the purpose and operation of a Kindle e-book lending blog, LendInk, was forced to close after a barrage of angry authors complained it was illegal sharing their content.  The site operated in a similar manner to BookLending.com in that connects Kindle users across the internet and provides an system for them to lend the books publishers have made available for lending within Amazon’s preexisting lending system.

However, confused authors, unaware that allowing lending was part of their contract (self-pubbed authors who allow their title to be lent generally get a much higher rate of commission than those who don’t) successfully had the blog shut down.

Site owner, Dale Porter was quoted in The Digital Machine as saying, “The hosting company has offered to reinstate Lendink.com on the condition that I personally respond to all of the complaints individually. I have to say, I really do not know if it is worth the effort at this point.”

Laura Miller Addresses the Growing Problem of Author Social Media Scam
It’s no secret that some author behaviour is becoming increasingly skeevy when it comes to trying to sell their books.  The bulk of authors, both traditionally and self published, are ethical, responsible and passionate about their work and interaction with with their readers.
Unfortunately, a few are spoiling it for the rest and Miller discusses the ultimate outcome in her article for Salon.
““You always have to read the reader reviews first, before you buy anything,” someone else declared. On that point, everyone agreed. They didn’t know about the companies you can hire to write positive customer reviews of your book if the volunteered ones are not forthcoming.”
She then discusses the change in the social media aspect of self promotion:
“the Kindle store alone has been flooded with 1.1 million new authors. The chance of making oneself heard over the Web-2.0 din is vanishingly slim, or just vanishing.”
Some authors do try to artificially inflate their book Buzz.  They can purchase (for the low price of $5) five star reviews of their books, pay people to manage their twitter feed and social media, trade positive reviews with other authors, bully reviewers to take down negative reviews, vote down or flag negative reviews to make them less visible, create sock puppets to spread positive praise for their books in forums and more.
Miller discusses the end result of such actions:
“Readers aren’t cattle to be milked. They’re human beings who do writers the great favor of spending their time and attention (and sometimes their money) on authors’ work. Their good faith, once lost, is unlikely to return. They’ve become leery of the glut of off-brand e-books being peddled to them by retailers and of incessant Facebook and Twitter pitches from people they barely (or don’t even know). Most of them still believe that the fellow readers who recommend books to them online are sincere and actually exist, but how much longer can that last?”

Forbes Once Again Tells Us Who To Marry/Rob

Forbes releases this year’s list of wealthy authors and the question on everyone’s mind is, “Who do I have to sleep with and how many bags do I have to put over their heads first?”

The answer is: James Patterson.  I’ll leave the bags, if any, up to the discretion of the reader.  Hopefully readers will be so busy trying to seduce him that he won’t notice when I rob him blind.  That’s the plan, anyway.

The list, or so I’m led to believe by Goofusgallant when I stole this off OhNoTheyDidn’t:

James Patterson: $94 million (He published 14 new titles in 2011!)
Stephen King: $39 million
Janet Evanovich: $33 million
John Grisham: $26 million
Jeff Kinney, $25 million
Bill O’Reilly: $24 million
Nora Roberts: $23 million
Danielle Steel: $23 million
Suzanne Collins: $20 million
Dean Koontz: $19 million
J.K. Rowling: $17 million
George R.R. Martin: $15 million
Stephenie Meyer: $14 million
Ken Follett: $14 million
Rick Riordan: $13 million

J.K. Rowling actually made it back onto the list this year.  She’d cancelled herself off previously when she gave so much of her money away to charity. Because J.K. Rowling is a boss.
Forbes advice for making money is to write genre fiction – particularly YA and Thrillers.

Plage Me Once, Shame on You. Plage Me Twice – wait that’s not a word…I’m probably not a good person to plagiarize

Fareed Zakaria, pundit and Harvard graduate was busted plagiarizing.  But, even worse than blatantly plagiarizing, he did a really, really sloppy job at it.  Where have ethical standards of theft gone?  I remember the day when Plagiarists worked hard to obscure their source material.  But what does Zakaria do?  Publishes portions of his Time article from Jill Lapore’s article IN THE FUCKING NEW YORKER.

I mean, seriously.  Where is the integrity?

Zakaria apologized today saying:

Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column on gun control, which was also a topic of conversation on this blog, bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time and CNN, and to my readers and viewers everywhere. –CNN

SOURCE

NPR’s Best Ever 100 Teen Novels List is Out

Our verdict?  A lot of John Green – needed more Melina Marchetta.

You can find the results here.

The Poll was voted on by an incredible 75, 220 people.

NPR enlisted the help of judges to determine what was actually Young Adult and what wasn’t.  A blog post regarding the theory their used while judging which made the cut, and which didn’t, can be found here.

For any of those interested, NPR also posted a list of the 235 finalists.

SOURCE

Scandalous Scandals

Gossip on the rumour mill is that a certain blog turns six months old today and that a giveway in imminent.  More news on this tomorrow.  But it seems there would be a reason to get excited.

Other than that, we can all sit back, sip Mai Tais and relax – because we managed to go an ENTIRE week without shit hitting the fan!

 

GO TEAM US!

24 Responses to “Buzz Worthy News August 13th 2012”

  1. JustALilLost

    That GIF at the bottom is the best. How fitting! Go team us indeed! lol

  2. Rosepetals1984

    Thanks Kat.  I’m still a bit disappointed at NPRs list.  There were so many good books that were left off or ranked too low on the list, imo.   Chaos Walking Trilogy surprised me with how low it was, among others. And agreed, the list needed more Melina Marchetta.
     
    I don’t think I’ll understand how frequent plagarism has been going on lately in the book world. =/
     
    And it really is a shame as to what happened with LendInk.

    • KatKennedy

       @Rosepetals1984 I know.  I was extremely disappointed as well.  Also, I just don’t think LoTR should have qualified as YA. 

  3. Lisa FicTalk

    Happy Half-Year Anniversary?  😛
     
    As for Fareed. So disappointed.
     
    As for James Patterson? $94 MILLION. MILLION. MILLION. I still can’t get over that after reading about it in my shelf awareness update last week. $94 Million. OMG.
     
    Y U NO BRING ME ALONG TO ROBZ HIM KAT?!
     
    I IZ STEALTHY AND ALL THAT. 🙁
     

    • KatKennedy

       @Lisa FicTalk So, I take it if I DO decide to rob him, you’d be interested in coming along for the ride?  Awesome…

  4. CarloShmarlo

    Bill O’Reilly made $24 mil­lion from his books?! Either ignorant people have a lot more expendable cash than you might think or they’re counting his income from other sources as well. I mean the term “author” is a very loose fit in this case.

    • KatKennedy

       @CarloShmarlo It was VERY depressing that he made the list – but I’m pretty sure they’re only taking his book profits into account for that.  *Sadface*

  5. Fangs4Fantasy

    That point on social media is so true – and says a lot about why we need to call out thjings like bullying of review, author socks and paid reviews. Because, with this wonderful explosion of authors (and it is wonderful to see so much more writing) in the epub world, reviews become all the more important; and trusting those reviews becomes all the more necessary
     
    But also why we need to know what we’re calling out – hence the angry mob attacking the poor lender’s site. More call outs, more research
     
     
    And don’t you just love how plagiarists make “mistakes”? How does that work? “Oh dear, I accidentally completely copied someone else’s work and mistakenly thought it was my own!” Are drugs, booze or head injuries involved?

  6. Kara_M

    I saw that list on NPR this week. I know it was listener voted, but most of the bottom half was complete crap. People loving that kind of literature (if you can even call it that) these days makes me lose faith in humanity once again. Why yes, Hush Hush and Twilight ARE two of the best YA books ever written. ACK. O_O

  7. RachelTsoumbakos

    OMGs! Didn’t that angry mob cut off their nose to spite their face? At least they now have something new to whine about – a decrease in book sales!

  8. Lissa Bilyk

    Wow, totally awesome wrap up of last week’s news. I can’t believe those authors on the lending library thing! GAH! Some authors are getting SO crazy these days.
     
    And the authors and social media thing? I’m so glad I can still rely on my friends to recommend/discover great books. It’s getting so that the only place you can still trust is Goodreads. You certainly can’t trust Amazon reviews.
     
    And that plagiarist guy? At least he had the balls to confess and apologise. Respect.
     
    JK Rowling is a boss. Just saying.

    • Kate C.

       @Lissa Bilyk Oh, you can pay for goodreads reviews, too.  At least the kindleboards say so.  Disgusting.  Rely on your friends only!

      • Lissa Bilyk

         @Kate C. For sure! Friends only. But even then, your taste might differ wildly. I’ve discovered books I really enjoy after being warned away from them!

  9. Kate C.

    Yeah, you wouldn’t believe how many of the indies are in an uproar about the “buying reviews” scandal.  It’s been around for a while, but somehow most of us are mortally offended at the idea that someone would buy reviews just to get themselves up to the top of a freaking list.  Personally, that’s why I never take reviews at face value unless I know the reviewer in question.  I don’t care if you have 800 reviews, these days I don’t pay attention unless you have a recommend from someone I know and like.
     
    And don’t even get me STARTED on that YA list.  Most of those were new, like in last couple of years new.  And some of them… like HITCHIKER’S GUIDE (which I love, don’t get me wrong) aren’t even in the YA section of my library.  WTH?
     
    So happy there’s no dramz on the internet this week!  Yay!

    • KatKennedy

       @Kate C. Well, it is a pretty horrible thing to do.  Not only are you deceiving customers and cheating a system but it’s just so seedy. 
       
      The YA list was truly horrible!