Silke Juppenlatz's Blog, page 8
July 5, 2011
Upcoming Romance Writer Conferences (Global)
With RWA National just passed, and as everyone likes their conferences, I thought maybe I'll list a few.
They are a great place to get market information, meet publishers, authors, agents and — of course — readers.
So here are a few you might like to go to:
Moonlight & Magnolias Conference Sept. 29-Oct. 2
Georgia Romance Writers
Emerald City Writers Conference October 28-30, 2011
Westin Hotel, Bellevue, WA
Romance Writers of New Zealand Conference 19-21 August, 2011
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Auckland
Romance Writers of Australia – 2012
Brisbane – Date TBA
49th Annual Cape Cod Writers Center Conference August 14-19, 2011
Craigville Conference Center
Right, those are a few I found. Some will be too late to register, some are not open to register just yet.
But if you want to go an hobnob a little, you've got a few there, all over the globe.
I'm actually thinking of running a little Event mod, so if you want a link to your conference, drop me a line.
Enjoy!
July 4, 2011
Sign up required? No Thanks.
This morning, I went to comment on a guest post one of my favorite authors did on a site.
Color me thoroughly unimpressed when commenting required me to sign up for an account at the site.
I have two words for you, on this matter: BAD MOVE. (The original words were "Fuck off" btw)
In light of the recent Writerspace debacle, where I was required to sign up to do much the same thing, sites need to rethink their strategies.
I signed up at Writerspace a few years ago and came to regret it.
One of my email addresses was on that 60k list of emails and passwords released onto the internet.
While I'm one of the "lucky" ones, because I use a quick and dirty password just to sign up, I did not appreciate finding the email address on a huge list out there. And all because the site in question has no idea how to protect their user database. On top of it, it appears Writerspace stored user email addresses and passwords in an unencrypted, clear text, database.
To make matters worse, I was never able to verify the account and hence unable to change the password. Requests for verification, even deletion, have gone unanswered — even NOW, after their lack of security exposed those logins to the whole freaking world. (Avoid them like the plague, seriously.)
The address is lost to me now, because it's being spammed to death.
Many people were not so lucky. One of the first places anyone downloading that list will try is Paypal — and I don't even want to know how many users got burned that way, because they used the same login details.
Quite frankly, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
So if you own a website, and you require users to sign in to do something as trivial as leaving a comment on a blog — change it.
By all means encourage them to sign up and return often, but don't require signup for trivial things — or your visitors will walk away. (Or at least a good few of them will.)
I walked away without signing up, without commenting, although I like to support the authors I like.
I'll do it at any site, regardless. If I want to sign up, I will. If you demand it, I won't.
I encourage everyone to just walk away from sites like that. Refuse to sign up. Just don't do it. Don't give them your information, because they don't NEED it.
Boycott requirements like that.
Sites need to take note and change their attitudes toward their visitors (and guests!).
Internet users need to grow a backbone and refuse to give in until the sites change. If there is a contact link, TELL them why you walked away.
If you don't know the site, you're only there for one visit, you didn't buy anything — then ask yourself why they need your details. Most sites will ask you for name, address, phonenumber, birthdate, email etc — why? Ask them WHY they need this, and HOW they PROTECT your data.
If the answer is research, tell them where they can shove it.
If they want research, they should run a (voluntary) survey – not force users to hand over their personal details.
What's more — if there is no privacy policy to go with the signup, then don't sign up, because then they already show a lack of care for your interests.
And if you do sign up, for God's sake read the user agreement and know what you're agreeing to.
Another thing for site owners: Please be aware of international law. You can't just ask someone in Europe for all their details, without asking express permission to store that data on a server not located in Europe. It's illegal.
If you don't know how this data is stored, if you can't be sure it's encrypted, then don't hand it over. Especially not for something as trivial as a comment on a blog you may never visit again.
Site owners have a duty to protect this data, but most are completely clueless when it comes to security.
There are systems out there, like OpenID, which are easily integrated on a site, where the data is stored in a secure location, and which doesn't require a visitor to sign up and remember yet another username and password.
By all means let them sign up if they want to, but don't make it a requirement. Find other ways to block spammers. Use OpenID systems, that's what they are there for — and you don't have the duty of having to protect the data yourself.
As a user, you may think you don't have an OpenID, but if you have a Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Blogger, WordPress etc account — then you already have one. All of those are OpenIDs – and you can use them in many places to sign in.
The fact of the matter is: You should not have to sign up for an account to comment on a blog post.
June 24, 2011
More guest blogging!
I'm blogging on L.K. Below's blog today.
Come and check it out!
What was the inspiration behind Howl?
June 23, 2011
Every link helps
I just tripped over a great site, which allows you to post backlinks in one click.
Social Monkee looks pretty straightforward and useful, so I'm going to see how it goes.
I figured I'll put the link here for others to check out.
There are videos explaining how it works, and it's free. (Unless you want premium)
Click the link above to check it out, join up, and get submitting. 
You can't really beat that for promotion, can you.
June 21, 2011
Blogging at RAH today
Come and join me at Romance Author Hotspot, where I am blogging today!
I'm talking about werewolves and what they are to different people!
June 19, 2011
Howl has been released!
Today is the day!
Howl is finally out! Get your copy today!
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Lyrical Press
I'm so excited!!
Here are some early reviews:
June 17, 2011
Keep your email secure
The hackers are out in force.
Writerspace.com was one of the victims, all usernames and passwords were released among a 62,000 name list on the web. The Senate was another victim.
Once again it brings me to the importance of keeping stuff to yourself.
If you use the same login / email / password combo on every site, then you only have yourself to blame if you end up in deep sheep.
Don't.
Just, don't.
I woke up this morning to an email from writerspace.com to alert me my username and password for their site are on this list. Luckily I don't use that combo anywhere else.
The really annoying part of this is that I am now having to deactivate that email address – thanks to their inability to keep their member's details safe.
The rub of all this is — I'd signed up a few years ago for some chat event or something. They never activated the account, so I cannot get in and change it, or even access anything or participate.
After many emails (which returned standard "We've received it and will deal with it" replies) I gave up, as I never had a single reply to my attempts to get my account activated so I could use it.
I will never sign up there again, no matter what tempting offers or events there are. But then, I'd already given up on them and wasn't going to create a new account anyway, since they were incapable of activating the first one.
I've also demanded they remove my details from their servers. No doubt it will be ignored as much as my emails to activate the account were.
Personally, I will never go there again, and I'm quite sure a lot of other users won't either.
Sites have a duty to keep your details safe. You can have the most secure password in the world — if the site you sign up at doesn't protect your data, you're screwed.
As writers and readers, we tend to join a lot of sites, which generally demand personal details.
I'm sick of that. I won't provide them.
Ask me for my address and phone number? Sure. I'll give you an address and phone number.
A FAKE one. It's because of things like this list of emails/passwords getting out there.
They don't need to know my home address or phone number. Give me ONE good reason why a forum needs to know where you live.
If you're stuck with coming up with one:
A shopping site – fine. Shipping details are usually stored, but their databases tend to be mega encrypted. I'm not terribly worried about that.
But if you log in with the same username and password at multiple sites — some of which may hold personal and financial data about you — and something like this happens… well. No amount of encryption will stop a user who logs in with the correct details. And then they have full access to everything, because the system thinks it's you.
While you may not be worried about some forum login being compromised, be worried about places like Amazon (for instance) which you likely also have an account with. If your login details are the same, what's to stop a user going to town with your credit card details, if they are stored there?
Facebook is another. Twitter. Myspace. Whatever. Those places where you hook up with people.
Someone I know had her Facebook account "hacked" because of this email/password release. The user posted porn — using her login — and the account got banned for being offensive.
And if you're not worried about your Facebook account…that's your prerogative. I'd like you to worry about the people who friended you, though. They probably gave you access to their details — and someone logging in with your username and password will have full access to their details because of it.
I have taken steps to stop my main email being compromised — because it's going to get spammed big time now — and will deactivate once I've changed the logins at the sites where I've used it. (Though not with the same password.)
And I will no longer register with a generic password anywhere. Because if I can't get in, then I can't change it to something safer. (I generally take my time to come up with something secure that I can remember, hence the generic. It gives me a day to think about the password I want to use.)
So from now on I will use a dedicated domain (yes, domain) to create login emails to use.
All those email addresses on the list they released will have been picked up by spammers by now.
If it contained your main, use for everything, email — prepare for lots of spam.
Which is why I'm deactivating mine. (It's already locked into a spamassassin / boxtrapper loop anyway.)
Barring instances like this, where the whole kaboodle is released onto the web, here are some steps you can take to be safe:
Use a dedicated email address to sign up on sites – one you don't use for anything else.
Don't use the same email address you use for friends and family.
Change your passwords frequently. (And I mean more than once every 5 years!)
Don't use the same password at every site.
Use long passwords (over 8 chars)
Stay safe.
June 16, 2011
Resurrection
So I have resurrected the theme.
It's not completely done yet, I'm still tweaking, but it works.
Hoo-freaking-ray.
I'm still working on the sequel, but it's nearly finished.
Yes, I'm getting close. Hopefully my publisher likes it as much as they liked Howl.
But speaking of resurrection, I'm resurrecting some older stories and am revamping them.
I find it quite interesting to see how much my writing has grown in a few short years.
But I find the same is true with books I loved years ago.
Either my taste has changed, or I'm more critical, or the books didn't stand the test of time.
Some of my keepers…well. I'll remember them with fondness, but I'll never read them again.
Doing so would spoil the memories.
Have your tastes changed? Can you still re-read the books you raved about ten years ago?
Or do you shelve them and not dare to read them again, because you know you'd hate them now?
In other (old) news, there was a lunar eclipse last night. Apparently Australia and India got the best view, but I was out with the camera as well.
The sky here turned a spectacular color, courtesy of the rising – quite red – moon.
As you can see, quite spectacular.
Well, I shall work more on the sequel, but I thought I'd share the photos.
I hope you enjoy them.
June 14, 2011
The Way I Read
I'm disorganized. Well, most of the time.
I lose track of things, I procrastinate and waste time.
When I read books, I like quick fixes these days, because I just don't have the time to sit down for several hours to read.
Read it over several days, I hear you cry.
And that would be fine — only I like to read a book in one hit. Luckily I read pretty fast.
If I put a book down, I often don't get back to it for ages. There is a whole stack in a corner of my study (well, the second bedroom) which are all in various stages of being read.
It's weird. I used to be able to shut everything off, lay on the bed or the sofa (or wherever!), and just get lost in the world the author created.
Not anymore. I don't know when it changed, but my attention span has definitely got shorter.
I think it has to do with the Internet. We've become so used to getting a quick fix, anything that requires us to sit still and stick with the same thing for several hours is perceived a chore.
I'm going to wean myself off this behavior. I don't like letting my brain's notion of what constitutes entertainment get in the way of my enjoyment of a 500 page book.
For instance, I love Stephen King's "The Stand". It's a bloody long book, but it certainly is well worth reading. There are others. Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series is one I really enjoyed.
But these days, I go for quick fix novellas a lot of the time.
Have your reading habits changed?
