Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "rant"
The World Gets Creepier Every Day
I'll probably delete this blog posting soon because it's just another of my periodic wild-eyed paranoid rants, so you should ignoreread it while you can.
Some people might think it's nice when their stuff goes travelling without supervision. Woo-hoo! Exposure! For some reason, I can't help but feel that it's actually kind of creepy. At least in my case, the "exposure" is effectively just pollution. Bits of cruft that flaked off my little boat and floated down stream. And it's impossible to eradicate it... I don't mind not selling many books; in fact I prefer it to the alternative. (I don't really want lots of random readers, I only want a dozen or so cozy friendly readers who grok my stuff, and with whom I can have a drink and laugh. I just haven't found them all yet.) In case you haven't noticed, SROP doesn't really sell many books, it's more of a hobby that I share just for fun. Playing author on the Internet. So it's annoying when information gets away into the wild despite the fact that books aren't being sold.
Originally, I came to Goodreads because an artist with whom I worked pointed out that one of my smaller books--which has never sold even a single copy to the public, mind you--was reviewed here. Huh? Reviewed? It turns out that someone borrowed the book from a person who received a copy because they were involved in its production, and then the borrower entered data and reviewed it here. Egads. Why bother? So the book's main data showed up here.
But what really made me gag when I came to look at the train wreck is this: I discovered three other books of mine also listed here--two in the hideous editions that I hate and have gone so far as to burn and which have likewise never been purchased by a member of the general public. But none of the newer/better editions, which had already been "published" by SROP, were listed here. OK, so I rolled my eyeballs and looked up how to fix this disaster.
To top it off, I discovered that I was lumped in with another poor, unsuspecting author by the same name. Poor guy! (Which is my best example, young writer, of why you should make up a silly string as your pseudonym and then always use it instead of some normal name like John Smith. Use something unique like Yozmabel Sprogalox.) So I joined up here at first to correct the bibliographic data. Sheesh. But then I figured as long as I'm playing author anyway, and this is a sandbox, I posted the rest of my goop--so at least I wouldn't be the unwilling subject of someone else's amateur bibliographic efforts. I started nosing around and joining some groups and doing expensive giveaways in a misguided effort to wave my little flag and be noticed. I should have remained safely under my rock.
Yesterday evening, one of the artists who has done some illustration for me pointed out that on another site, LibraryThing.com, one of my books showed up, and was mistakenly attributed to him as the author. Oh, gee, here we go again! So I had to go there and file a complaint. The admin person was wonderfully responsive and helpfully fixed the bug right away. So now I think they're nice people at LibraryThing.com and you should give them some love, too. (Even though I'm not sure I understand what they do.)
Now... The reason I think this is all creepy is that the book listed over on LibraryThing is also a book that has never sold a single copy! Why on Earth would anyone bother to enter bibliographic data for a book they do not own, and could not possibly have read? They want to read it? (First of all, what for? I should never have done a giveaway for that particular book because it's not independent enough from related work, and people who see it fail to understand its context. It was a poor choice; and I'm sure the "want to read" click and subsequent bibliographic roaming resulted from that giveaway offer.) The little book is too expensive on paper and not worth buying, except to the author, or if you're already buying a bunch of other SROP stuff to save on postage. Furthermore, if the person had looked at the bread-crumbs I've been dropping here in this blog for over a year, they would know they could get it for free just by asking for a copy of the e-book.
The situation tends to feel like the random shuffling of particles in the universe are spontaneously forming themselves into the shape of bibliographic entries that resemble reality--like the alien "villains" in Ice Skating in Hell with Molls. And that is just creepy.
Appendix A: The ugly, embarrassing POD editions that I want to burn are still showing up for sale on Amazon, despite the fact that no copies were ever sold, and they are long out of print. The data probably came from Bowker or somewhere because the damn things have ISBNs. (I have since steered clear of using ISBNs and from all ordinary sales channels precisely to avoid this in the future.) So that's yet more pollution. I ran across one seller a few evenings ago who claimed to have an autographed copy of the bad edition of Fumie's Teacup for which they were asking $40. My first thought was: Really? That's odd because I never signed any except for a small handful of "friends"! And no copies have ever been sold. I wondered which of my so-called friends might have dumped their signed copy. When I inquired of the seller whether they could prove the book was autographed, they apologized and removed the listing. Obviously they didn't actually have one to sell. Which is good news, I suppose.
Appendix B: What about SROP? I wrote a draft essay about Products and Contraptions, which contains some thoughts about the whole "publisher" illusion.
Appendix C: Bread-crumbs... When ever I've done a giveaway, I've generally also posted a blog entry to tell people they could get the e-book for free; just ask. A large percentage of people who enter giveaways also click "want to read" for those books. Anyone entering the giveaway who also read my blog would have known they could get a free e-book of it--or any SROP book for that matter--just by asking. But of 1000+ people who shelved the books, 2000+ who entered giveaways, not one person ever requested an e-book. I conclude that they don't actually want to read those books, they just want to get free tchotchkes they could re-sell to used bookstores. Good luck trying to re-sell a SROP book--without an ISBN your neighborhood used bookstore won't know what the hell it is. :-)
Some people might think it's nice when their stuff goes travelling without supervision. Woo-hoo! Exposure! For some reason, I can't help but feel that it's actually kind of creepy. At least in my case, the "exposure" is effectively just pollution. Bits of cruft that flaked off my little boat and floated down stream. And it's impossible to eradicate it... I don't mind not selling many books; in fact I prefer it to the alternative. (I don't really want lots of random readers, I only want a dozen or so cozy friendly readers who grok my stuff, and with whom I can have a drink and laugh. I just haven't found them all yet.) In case you haven't noticed, SROP doesn't really sell many books, it's more of a hobby that I share just for fun. Playing author on the Internet. So it's annoying when information gets away into the wild despite the fact that books aren't being sold.
Originally, I came to Goodreads because an artist with whom I worked pointed out that one of my smaller books--which has never sold even a single copy to the public, mind you--was reviewed here. Huh? Reviewed? It turns out that someone borrowed the book from a person who received a copy because they were involved in its production, and then the borrower entered data and reviewed it here. Egads. Why bother? So the book's main data showed up here.
But what really made me gag when I came to look at the train wreck is this: I discovered three other books of mine also listed here--two in the hideous editions that I hate and have gone so far as to burn and which have likewise never been purchased by a member of the general public. But none of the newer/better editions, which had already been "published" by SROP, were listed here. OK, so I rolled my eyeballs and looked up how to fix this disaster.
To top it off, I discovered that I was lumped in with another poor, unsuspecting author by the same name. Poor guy! (Which is my best example, young writer, of why you should make up a silly string as your pseudonym and then always use it instead of some normal name like John Smith. Use something unique like Yozmabel Sprogalox.) So I joined up here at first to correct the bibliographic data. Sheesh. But then I figured as long as I'm playing author anyway, and this is a sandbox, I posted the rest of my goop--so at least I wouldn't be the unwilling subject of someone else's amateur bibliographic efforts. I started nosing around and joining some groups and doing expensive giveaways in a misguided effort to wave my little flag and be noticed. I should have remained safely under my rock.
Yesterday evening, one of the artists who has done some illustration for me pointed out that on another site, LibraryThing.com, one of my books showed up, and was mistakenly attributed to him as the author. Oh, gee, here we go again! So I had to go there and file a complaint. The admin person was wonderfully responsive and helpfully fixed the bug right away. So now I think they're nice people at LibraryThing.com and you should give them some love, too. (Even though I'm not sure I understand what they do.)
Now... The reason I think this is all creepy is that the book listed over on LibraryThing is also a book that has never sold a single copy! Why on Earth would anyone bother to enter bibliographic data for a book they do not own, and could not possibly have read? They want to read it? (First of all, what for? I should never have done a giveaway for that particular book because it's not independent enough from related work, and people who see it fail to understand its context. It was a poor choice; and I'm sure the "want to read" click and subsequent bibliographic roaming resulted from that giveaway offer.) The little book is too expensive on paper and not worth buying, except to the author, or if you're already buying a bunch of other SROP stuff to save on postage. Furthermore, if the person had looked at the bread-crumbs I've been dropping here in this blog for over a year, they would know they could get it for free just by asking for a copy of the e-book.
The situation tends to feel like the random shuffling of particles in the universe are spontaneously forming themselves into the shape of bibliographic entries that resemble reality--like the alien "villains" in Ice Skating in Hell with Molls. And that is just creepy.
Appendix A: The ugly, embarrassing POD editions that I want to burn are still showing up for sale on Amazon, despite the fact that no copies were ever sold, and they are long out of print. The data probably came from Bowker or somewhere because the damn things have ISBNs. (I have since steered clear of using ISBNs and from all ordinary sales channels precisely to avoid this in the future.) So that's yet more pollution. I ran across one seller a few evenings ago who claimed to have an autographed copy of the bad edition of Fumie's Teacup for which they were asking $40. My first thought was: Really? That's odd because I never signed any except for a small handful of "friends"! And no copies have ever been sold. I wondered which of my so-called friends might have dumped their signed copy. When I inquired of the seller whether they could prove the book was autographed, they apologized and removed the listing. Obviously they didn't actually have one to sell. Which is good news, I suppose.
Appendix B: What about SROP? I wrote a draft essay about Products and Contraptions, which contains some thoughts about the whole "publisher" illusion.
Appendix C: Bread-crumbs... When ever I've done a giveaway, I've generally also posted a blog entry to tell people they could get the e-book for free; just ask. A large percentage of people who enter giveaways also click "want to read" for those books. Anyone entering the giveaway who also read my blog would have known they could get a free e-book of it--or any SROP book for that matter--just by asking. But of 1000+ people who shelved the books, 2000+ who entered giveaways, not one person ever requested an e-book. I conclude that they don't actually want to read those books, they just want to get free tchotchkes they could re-sell to used bookstores. Good luck trying to re-sell a SROP book--without an ISBN your neighborhood used bookstore won't know what the hell it is. :-)
Smashed-Rat-On-Press
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