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
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““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.”
“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.”
“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
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
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.
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!
Kat Kennedy
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