Dear Author Errata
By Jane • May 11th, 2008 • Category: Misc • •I was going to blog about Net Neutrality but I got home late from a couple’s baby shower where everyone drank but the mother to be. There’s some kind of cruelty in that. My Net Neutrality piece is in pieces and not fit for public consumption and I lack the perspicacity to blog with any intelligence.
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Dear Author is offering up an ad space for Brenda Novak’s Diabetes Auction. It is a one day auction taking place on May 17, 2008. We are aren’t doing ads, we are just doing it for this charity event (and the winner of DA BWAHA) so it is a unique opportunity.
- Amazon readers are still being harassed. Steve Hedge, who just surpassed the 1600 reviewer mark, got the Reba Belle treatment in that all his comments were deleted and he can no longer post reviews. It’s completely unfair.
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Carol Stacy, from Romantic Times, says that the complaints are being heard and they are interested in hearing everyone’s opinions. But she would like to remind people that there were several good things about the convention as well.
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The romance v. porn debate is going on at Karen Knows Best.
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Romance readers and authors are banding together to raise money for the relief of Myanmar.
- A new publisher warning is Kira Takenouchi who formed Yaoi House. I’ll post more information tomorrow.
P.S. Happy Mother’s Day
That’s it.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
Email this author | All posts by Jane
Happy Mother’s Day!
Looking forward to your thoughts on Net Neutrality. It’s a huge issue.
Romance vs. porn, I am not touching with a 100 ft pole although I did read some of the debate over there. As always, Nora Roberts said it well. (We should all just get score cards that say, “What Nora said”.)
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!
I do feel for the mother-to-be at said Baby Shower.
Hey. Happy Mother’s Day. Drink up!
Errata? Or am I missing something here?
I meant it as a list of things I should have blogged about in the week preceeding but did not. Probably not the best term.
Miscellany? Potpourri? :-)
Lacunae is the highfalutin bookish word for “things that are missing.”
Learn new things all the time. I like it. Thanks.
Addenda. Lacunae are a form of tiny strokes, too.
Hello,
In my attempts on this site to see if there are any updates on Reba Belle’s situation, I discovered this thread for the first time and the inclusion of my situation on Amazon, so forgive my late entry here. I thank you very kindly for mentioning me although I don’t compare very well to Reba’s situation in which she was threatened and harassed. I have attempted numerous times to get a more detailed explanation from Amazon as to what happened to cause me to be both banned and have ALL my comments over two years deleted, but to this day I have not been given ANY specifics other than the canned response, “Your comments were reported as spiteful, harassing, negative . . .”
I am one that personally never accepts these actions I was accused of very lightly and I make it a constant habit to report such actions myself when I discover them on Amazon. Like anyone, I can say some regrettable things in anger, but that IS NOT my HABIT on Amazon or elsewhere. I admit that I’ve left some sharp comments on some top reviewers who I think are abusing the ranking system by exploiting loopholes in it, but most were tongue in cheek comments and there were only a handful at best. In addition, I was banned on Amazon some time after I had basically given up on those reviewers and there are still endless other people hounding them who are clearly angry, spiteful, and mean-spirited and nothing I said there would even come close to their near DAILY comments. I hope that I have cleared this up some as it has been suggested that my comments there were the reason for my banning. I do not believe that suggestion holds much weight and considering my vocal support of Reba and condemnation of DAM and her company of clickies, it seems more likely that there is where the banning lies more than anywhere else.
Now, since Amazon refuses or is unable to notify me as to where I was such, I am still left assuming that it was a situation like Reba’s where I was a victim of “clickies” on Amazon’s automated system that allows one’s comments to be deleted if enough people click “abuse” and if enough comments are “clicked” as “abusive”, one is subsequently banned with NO human investigation of any kind. Since Amazon themselves will ONLY state that my comments were “reported” as abusive in some manner, but NOT that they themselves found me abusive and will not tell me where or how I was such, I think my argument/belief has considerable credibility to it.
I do want to offer an update though in that Amazon has backed off on my account. I was initially banned completely with no ability to post new reviews or vote, no movement in rank, and, of course, no ability to post comments. Since then, Amazon, with NO notice to me from them, suddenly allowed me to post new reviews again (I had tried and failed numerous times and one day . . . POOF, I could again). In addition, again without notification or acknowledgment from Amazon, I noticed that I was allowed to move up in the rankings again (where I had no movement for quite some time). I then experimented with voting again and noticed that I could do that again as well.
The only thing I’m not allowed to do at this time still is comment, and, of course, I have made no headway in getting my nearly two years of comments restored. I admit I’m hurt by that as I had engaged in many good conversations on reviews about drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse, violence in films, dysfunctional families, and health concerns. To see ALL that gone is admittedly difficult for me to accept, but I have little choice in the matter. I did seek approval from Amazon to start up another profile with my real name again so that I could comment again on other reviews as well as ones that I still post on my old account. I have now broken into the top 1,400 since my banning. I guess Amazon considers me still useful to them.
Well, I wasn’t sure where to post any kind of update on my situation and since I saw my situation noted here, I thought I might give my update here. I hope that was okay.
I sincerely thank Jane for having this site up and for their support of Reba and others who are unfairly treated on Amazon and for taking such an active stance against authors who behave so badly.
With Respect,
Steve Hedge