Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "rabbit"
Post-Halloween Creepiness
All right, I'll admit to being stupidly curious about people who stumble over my stuff and then do something with it... Like read it, for one thing. (I'm waiting for the day when I find out someone likes the covers so much they're using my books for doorstops in lavatories.) Then there's the "World is getting creepier every day" angle and the "Here's where I run screaming from the Internet" angle and the "House of Non-Egging" angle that I've talked about before... (And also related posts from last year and early 2014).
Here's a bit of new creepiness... Some of my books have shown up over on Booklikes (a place that I don't go, and that's a pointer to the page). Oh, crapola. How does that happen?
The set of things there is rather curious because (a) most of those books have never sold even a single copy, so why the hell would anyone list them? and (b) why that random little collection but not, for example, the couple of books that people have actually bought and read? (Oh, and to add randomness to creepiness, both of the Shenanigan Cheesefield books have shown up there, too. Huh?)
Will I find some bizarre errors and end up having to go over there to stake a claim and help prevent another bibliographic train wreck? (Google books is a good example of a train wreck: they had both incorrect publisher and author attributions for the 1996 edition of A Harlot of Venus; and I had to whine at their support staff at least three times to get it corrected, but the incorrect crap still shows up in the snippet returned by a search of their site. And how the hell did it get into Google Books anyway; is there a stray copy in some university library?)
This reminds me again why I live under a rock.
So, the real reason for this rant of the day is that someone recently stumbled over something I had written and (gasp!) inquired about where to get a copy of it, apparently because someone else was reading it. That's always kind of creepy at first when it happens, but this one has a happy ending because it did result in a book sale (which is supposed to be a good thing, right?) and happily the person who made the inquiry does not bite.
And then last night, a rating/review appeared for the above-mentioned work, from someone else who was reading the book. (Where do they get these books?) But I must have been dreaming when I saw that because the review has now disappeared.
Like I said, the world gets creepier every day. And I've become unable to tell the difference between waking and reality. I mean dreaming and reality. Or whatever those things are... I've lost touch with the...
pod bay doors...
But I'm proud of myself for sitting on my hands and continuing to smile and not (again) removing the SROP catalog from the web. I'll ride out the crisis, somehow... Even if I have to price everything into the stratosphere to prevent accidental sales... LOL.
(P.S.: Nov 17: Eeek! The mysterious missing review is back!)
Here's a bit of new creepiness... Some of my books have shown up over on Booklikes (a place that I don't go, and that's a pointer to the page). Oh, crapola. How does that happen?
The set of things there is rather curious because (a) most of those books have never sold even a single copy, so why the hell would anyone list them? and (b) why that random little collection but not, for example, the couple of books that people have actually bought and read? (Oh, and to add randomness to creepiness, both of the Shenanigan Cheesefield books have shown up there, too. Huh?)
Will I find some bizarre errors and end up having to go over there to stake a claim and help prevent another bibliographic train wreck? (Google books is a good example of a train wreck: they had both incorrect publisher and author attributions for the 1996 edition of A Harlot of Venus; and I had to whine at their support staff at least three times to get it corrected, but the incorrect crap still shows up in the snippet returned by a search of their site. And how the hell did it get into Google Books anyway; is there a stray copy in some university library?)
This reminds me again why I live under a rock.
So, the real reason for this rant of the day is that someone recently stumbled over something I had written and (gasp!) inquired about where to get a copy of it, apparently because someone else was reading it. That's always kind of creepy at first when it happens, but this one has a happy ending because it did result in a book sale (which is supposed to be a good thing, right?) and happily the person who made the inquiry does not bite.
And then last night, a rating/review appeared for the above-mentioned work, from someone else who was reading the book. (Where do they get these books?) But I must have been dreaming when I saw that because the review has now disappeared.
Like I said, the world gets creepier every day. And I've become unable to tell the difference between waking and reality. I mean dreaming and reality. Or whatever those things are... I've lost touch with the...
pod bay doors...
But I'm proud of myself for sitting on my hands and continuing to smile and not (again) removing the SROP catalog from the web. I'll ride out the crisis, somehow... Even if I have to price everything into the stratosphere to prevent accidental sales... LOL.
(P.S.: Nov 17: Eeek! The mysterious missing review is back!)
Smashed-Rat-On-Press
The main purpose of this blog is to announce occasional additions and changes to the SROP catalog or the site. And it doubles as a soap-box from which to gesticulate and babble...
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