Poll

Replica of this discussion and my petition:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Hey, Guys!!
Watashi wa Amy-chan desu
*bows*
I'm a Goodread addict and spend way too much time here, searching for books, voting in lists, upvoting cool reviews and interacting with friends so I notice right away when weird things happen. And you know what? Weird thing happens all the freaking time to successful AMYZING, AWESOMETACULAR authors who aren't part of the circle of the big five publishing houses.

Our case of study today is a little hidden gem that BTW I highly recommend to any fan of contemporary/historical clean romance and TFIOS fans:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

So so good!
Okay, fangirling mode over and I'll explain. Most books out there have several editions with different covers. Goodreads staff, authors and librarians can establish their default edition. The default edition is the one that will appear in searches. For this book the default edition up until last week was
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
so that, just as recently as last week, whenever you entered a search for Making faces the cover you got was this one


Beautiful, isn't it? As good as the book!!!

But guess what? Someone, a librarian or an employee changed the default edition. That makes the old cover of this book the default result.

That happens to be the smashwords edition. And guess what? The smashwords edition ISN'T AVAILABLE!!! Anyone who wants to get this book and clicks on the purchase links...WILL GET A BROKEN LINK!!! Besides every ebook in the KU program is an AMAZON EXCLUSIVE. It's not like whoever did this change didn't know that. The only place that should have Making faces as ebook is AMAZON!! No smashwords, no scribd, no Kobo. Amazon.
So this affects the flow of sales for Harmon sensei, and the availibility of the ebook for potential purchasers. And trust me, you don't want to miss a book by Amy Harmon, she's that good. Yet this little change done by someone affects the purchasing links. How's that?I Not cool!!!

So if among you guys there's a cool GR librarian please fix this. It's the right way to do it.

To tell you the truth, I think of cool librarians as an endangered species as it seems lately that the only people who get approved for librarian status or get hired for goodreads positions are the ones that favor the old ways: agents ruling the publishing world, traditional publishers ruling the reading trends... it's like weird things happen only to certain kind of books and publishers (KU and mass market paperbacks), never to the big five and their overpriced releases that Goodreads keeps trying to push down our throats...or our Newsfeed that's almost the same thing.

It could be a coincidence, the second "coincidence" a KU author has suffered in the past month. But okay, let's leave it a coincidence. I'll give you guys that. But can someone fix this coincidence before I start to think the worst?

Please anyone? any cool librarian here? Could you please fix this mess? ONEGAIIII!! Please Making faces default version should be the KU version because that's how things were just last week before someone messed up with the edition.

Yours sincerly
A.M.Y.

This is one of my favorite books. I can tell because I reread it from time to time. The original cover gives a hint of the main plot ... a man in spirital torment. The second cover is about the main female character who is not beautiful but an ordinary woman of extraordinary character. I don't think this is a plot against indie authors but a way to glamorize a book or maybe get a half nude male body off the cover. I strongly suggest you read the book if you haven't before you judge. It is an excellent read . It turned me into an Amy Harmon fanatic.

I haven't read this book, so my opinion is purely superficial. To me, the cover with the red headed girl looks like the most profesional one, so, if I didn't know the author, that'd be the one to make me curious about the book.

On a completely unrelated note, I always find it funny how titles change completely when translated into other languages. In portuguese the book is literally called "Lost Beauty", while in spanish it's called "Masks". The best is the italian translation, though, "You are my sun even at night", like what? LOL

I'm a librarian and I just looked - the red headed girl is the default one and other is added as an alternative. Not sure why the black and white one is showing up as the red headed one seems to be marked as default.

EDIT: tried searching myself too and the red headed one comes up as default for me on search function

Thank you for the invite, I love polls!
I admit I have not read this book, I did vote on the cover. I will be adding this to my ever growing tbr/tbl list. xxxx

Fiona wrote: "I'm a librarian and I just looked - the red headed girl is the default one and other is added as an alternative. Not sure why the black and white one is showing up as the red headed one seems to be..."

But you can see the librarian log of this book and you'll see how many changes that book has gone through in the past week.

Someone changed it again:


As I'm posting this the smashwords edition is still the default one. Someone (cool person) fixed the edition yesterday, then someone else (not cool) changed back to the old version.

It's difficult to think this is a coincidence. When someone had already fixed the edition, someone came again to make the smaswhords version the default. The librarian log will tell you who.

Cinnabelle wrote: "I don't think this is a plot against indie authors but a way to glamorize a book or maybe get a half nude male body off the cover."


Anyone who through goodreads clicks the purchase links of the default edition will get a broken link as long as the outdated, smashwords version remains the result of the search. Whoever changed the default edition from it was last week knew that.

I noticed right away because I recommend Making Faces all the time and I always recommend the default version which up until was the KU version. This week if you search Making faces the default result looks like this.

They changed it back to normal at some point and now it's all wrong again!!!

Cinnabelle wrote: I strongly suggest you read the book if you haven't before you judge. It is an excellent read
GUUUYYYSSSS listen to Cinabelle!!! Making faces is a PHENOMENAL, AWESOMETACULAR book!

Sonia N. wrote: "Thank you for the invite, I love polls!
I admit I have not read this book, I did vote on the cover. I will be adding this to my ever growing tbr/tbl list. xxxx"

It's a #MustRead!!!! So so good! Although the best book by Amy Harmon IMHO, if you want to start with her best book, is You're going to love Amy Harmon!!!

Anto wrote: "On a completely unrelated note, I always find it funny how titles change completely when translated into other languages. In portuguese the book is literally called "Lost Beauty", while in spanish it's called "Masks". The best is the italian translation, though, "You are my sun even at night", like what? LOL"
Anto!!! Lose your Harmon virginity!! Maybe with this book first and then Making faces Read it!! so so good! The writing alone is like...you could open the book at a random page and you'll find great writing !! it's a crime that so many people haven't read Harmon yet.
The foreign titles uh?
Lost beauty fits the story perfectly but I won't spoil it for you.
Masks I've reread this book so many times and it sorta fits but not as much as Lost beauty.
You are my sun even at night Awww, so sweet it might refer to H's night shift at his work, so many things happened in that night shift. so so good!

Update 2/17
Back in the old days I heard a librarian saying she had changed the default edition of another book, that's why I asked for help here, but I've been told librarians can't do that anymore so whoever did the change, if it's not a html malfuction is someone from the staff.Not cool!

If you log in you get one default edition that is out of stock. If you log out you get the edition I've been recommending for the past two years...it shouldn't be like that.

I informed Harmon sensei about this mess, but she's super busy so...

Personally, I can't stand covers with shirtless guys on the cover - They're a dime a dozen. These are just my opinions. but the cover with the girl's face makes the book seem like a Realistic YA or maybe even a psychological/domestic thriller and the shirtless cover makes me think adult romance/NA. The cover with the guy in the hoodie conveys the feeling of a contemporary YA Romance and judging by the tags associated with this book, that seems to fit with what the book is about.

Just an FYI..as a Librarian, only the author can change default editions through their portal.

Here's how to set the default edition for a work:

Navigate to the book's page. Be sure you have selected the edition you wish to become the default, or primary edition.
Click edit details below the book's description.
On the right side of the page, click Set this book as the primary edition for this work. It's about midway down the page.
Only Goodreads Authors can set the default edition at this time.

https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...

MoonstoneOwl wrote: "Personally, I can't stand covers with shirtless guys on the cover - They're a dime a dozen. ."
I don't like those kind of covers either. I mean eye-candy is great but there are like too many of those.

Debbie wrote: "Only Goodreads Authors can set the default edition at this time."
And the staff!!!!
I know I can change default cover, and I found out after Corinne told me that librarians can't change the default edition anymore, they used to have that power... but the problem is not my shelves, the problem is how this was done on purpose to sabotage Harmon sensei during romance week. And, if librarians can't change default editions, then whoever did this had employee powers. The staff can edit reviews, updates, mix editions, censor reviews, manipulate ratings. For my friend's BuddyRead of war they edited her post twice to erase the links. I've seen them put on hold positive updates and reviews that don't become visible until a negative review appears. I've seen it happen with my own eyes cuz I spend way too much time here.

It is what it is, it's their site and they can do what they want, but I can't see how this wasn't done on purpose. These "coincidences" only happen to books outside of the "preaproved" list of publishers and genres of the staff: Big publishing houses, fantasy, and YA.

And there it is, it has been changed again. I was about to recommend the book and used the search and it spat the result of the out of stock cover. This is not a coincidence but if you guys still think explain to me how this could be innocent. I've seen so many things in my short life to believe that everyone is honest, some are, some aren't and as I see it, the person doing this isn't honest. I informed the author, but I don't think she'll read my posts cuz she must be busy.

I understand that a lot of book appeal these days is cover appeal, but the saying, "don't judge a book by it's cover" still applies. If readers aren't willing to take a leap from the book blurb, your best cover will do you no good.

Readers should be reading more and judging less by how pretty a picture is. After all, jacket art is, in the context of the whole of the history of writing very new.

I love reading/listening to books. I sometimes used to, and I think it's silly, but if I liked the cover, I'll get the book. Well thankfully I don't do that anymore, if it's an author I like, I usually get the book.

Even if I don't like the cover, and do not know the author, I read a sample. When posting my review, I sometimes find another cover to the book, that is true to the book.