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unpublished Kindle Vella Episodes showing up on Goodreads
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Katherine
(new)
Jan 26, 2023 05:56PM
Hello, I'm not sure which folder I should put this in, but my kindle vella episodes are showing up on my author page and I just noticed this today. Strangely, they are the unreleased ones scheduled for next week, and not the ones already published. Is this happening to anyone else? I didn't think kindle vella stories were allowed on Goodreads anyway until the book is finished? Very confused.
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They were automatically imported by a brand new Amazon bot. Which also brings up the question if they are allowed like you mentioned. Maybe this was unexpected behavior.
Hopefully a moderator will be able to address this here or in an announcement post. I will send a report also.
Mod
Mod
I'd like to find out the answer to this as well, so I'm following.
Earlier discussion in the Policies & Practices folder regarding Vella editions:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Update: I contacted Amazon about this too and they're not going to do anything, not even investigate because they said they don't offer Goodreads support. They just referred me back to Goodreads help. But they own Goodreads now, right? If it came from an Amazon bot, they really should be looking into it. So frustrated. I just want them taken down, especially because they were not even published yet.
Katherine wrote: "Update: I contacted Amazon about this too and they're not going to do anything, not even investigate because they said they don't offer Goodreads support. They just referred me back to Goodreads he..."The request might have to come from Goodreads.
Well, I just heard back from Amazon again. They aren't going to do anything and they're not listening to anything that I've told them, they just keep saying to go to Goodreads about it. So I guess that's that. I did send in a ticket to Goodreads even before I sent anything to Amazon and Goodreads said they were investigating it but I haven't heard anything else.
The records are held at Amazon, but it isn't Amazon who is actually sending them. Goodreads, a wholly owned subsidiary, is retrieving them from the Amazon catalog. Does Amazon cooperate in allowing Goodreads access to their catalog? Of course. But the activity is Goodreads generated.(It's sort of like Goodreads is calling Amazon, not Amazon calling Goodreads.)
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "The records are held at Amazon, but it isn't Amazon who is actually sending them. Goodreads, a wholly owned subsidiary, is retrieving them from the Amazon catalog. Does Amazon cooperate in allowing..."Okay, that makes more sense then as to why Amazon is not offering any assistance. But still, why the unpublished episodes? I could understand if the glitch was with published episodes that were publicly available, but these are the two that are not. I have two published ones already and they aren't showing up. And I've looked at other Kindle Vella authors on here and haven't found anyone else so far that this has happened to. It's just very weird. I guess I might as well just give up.
Katherine wrote: "I just want them taken down, especially because they were not even published yet."Write to Support and let them know that these need to be made Invalid due to this development. If the policy changes they can be made valid again. You may wish to link to this thread so that they know.
You do have assistance here though. The poster in Message #4 is Staff & she has said GR is investigating.The rest of us are volunteers & can't offer any offer any insight into site functionality.
There is an authors section in Help if you would like to post there.
https://help.goodreads.com/s/topic/0T...
Emily wrote: "Katherine wrote: "I just want them taken down, especially because they were not even published yet."Write to Support and let them know that these need to be made Invalid due to this development. ..."
I will definitely do that. I also want to say thank you so much Emily and everyone who commented and offered help and advice! It means a lot!
OK, got an update: I sent in a request/report to Goodreads to have the episodes taken down, with a reference to this thread, and a screenshot of the problem and nothing was done. The episodes are still up and the issue was once again ignored. Here's the onion, though...I went on the KDP Community forum to talk about the issue to see if anyone else was having this problem and they wouldn't even let my questions go through. They all said "pending review" as of last night, then I check this morning and all but 1 of the questions/posts was deleted. Also I sent in a help request and asked why my forum posts were "pending review." You guessed it, no response. However, with the one that went through someone else responded that they were also having this problem, not just with unpublished episodes but some of their others, as I understand it. Apparently they were also brushed off. Something really suspect is going on here.
I'm sure they are trying to figure it out. I don't know what kind of response Goodreads sent you, but there is nothing we can do in this forum. If you got a reply that said "since these were published we can't remove them" then let them know about this thread. Until it is investigated we can't take any action in this group.Any issues with Goodreads group posts need to be addressed with Support.
EDIT: I'm not sure which group you mean, but if you are referring to an Amazon group that would have to be addressed on that site.
I know there's nothing that can be done on this forum, I'm just letting everyone know what's happening. Goodreads didn't send me any response and I did send them the url to this thread. I feel like I'm getting the run around from both. Mostly, I just want everyone who's following this thread to be aware so it doesn't happen to them too, but okay, I'll stop posting now.
Katherine wrote: "Mostly, I just want everyone who's following this thread to be aware so it doesn't happen to them too, but okay, I'll stop posting now..."I see; I just thought you were expecting an answer here. Hopefully they will send you something soon.
We do appreciate the update, as we librarians aren't getting any information about this either.
Staff did respond on Friday. There is no reason to expect they would have had much discussion over the weekend.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Staff did respond on Friday. There is no reason to expect they would have had much discussion over the weekend."Exactly.
Katherine, did you not see Jaclyn's comment (#4) in this thread? She is staff and she told you on Friday they would be investigating this.
Also, it's a bit unrealistic to send a report to staff on Friday and expect an answer rightaway. Few staff work weekends.
lethe wrote: "Few staff work weekends."Certainly not those at the decision-making level.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Staff did respond on Friday. There is no reason to expect they would have had much discussion over the weekend."I didn't get anything except something saying they were investigating. I didn't expect much over the weekend but I didn't even get an acknowledgement about the second one I sent about it being taken down with all the necessary information,i.e. the url to this thread and a screenshot of the problem. And yes, I saw Jaclyn's comment and that was about the initial message sent, not the second one. I realize it's the weekend and people have lives. I am not trying to start arguments and I think I'm being misunderstood at this point so I think it's better just to leave it where it is now. Like I said, I won't post anymore if it's going to get heated for no reason and this is what is going to happen. Also the point is being completely missed about my last post; I was only giving an update as to what is going on, not being a jerk and demanding someone do something right now. As I said earlier, thank you everyone for taking the time to post/answer on this thread but I don't want this to turn into a problem so I will not be posting here anymore.
I don't want to start an argument either, but you said "the issue was once again ignored". It wasn't ignored, they are investigating this, and you received confirmation of that in this thread.
lethe wrote: "I don't want to start an argument either, but you said "the issue was once again ignored". It wasn't ignored, they are investigating this, and you received confirmation of that in this thread."Actually it does sound like you're trying to start an argument. I said I was dropping it and you won't, so?
I'm just pointing out the inconsistency in your argument. But you're obviously not inclined to listen to reason, so.
I'm sorry you thought I was arguing with you. I was simply pointing out that Goodreads *did* respond to you. It looked to me (and others?) as if you had missed that.
No, I didn't think anyone was arguing with me, I just didn't want it to turn into that, and that's where it looked like it was heading. And no I didn't miss that point, but it seems like a lot has gotten misunderstood here somehow. Anyway, it's not worth anyone getting upset or in an argument over, that was my main point with that long comment I made.
okay, I think I know what went wrong here. Looking back on the comments, it may not have been clear to some that there were 2 messages I sent to Goodreads support, though I did state that, the first being the one that was asking about the initial problem, which I did receive the answer that it was being investigated. And I said this! I sent a second message to support asking to have the episodes taken down, which I have not received a response to yet. This was the one I was talking about that I said was ignored. I'm not sure why everyone thought I missed the point about the first message, or comment #4, because I didn't. Again, I was talking about the second message I sent to the help desk. Whether this was all misread, misunderstood or whatever, I think this is what happened. I really don't understand how all this got so twisted and messed up and if this isn't good enough for an explanation on my end, then okay, but I'm not going to be made out to be a jerk when that is not what I am doing. Anyway, have a blessed week everyone.
Thank you for explaining, I understand it now.I guess staff don't want to do anything until they've investigated, but what they don't seem to realize is that with the new procedure, they could easily mark the episodes as Invalid while they are investigating and just as easily undo that if it turns out they are valid after all.
Unfortunately, now that staff is looking in to it, we librarians cannot do anything about it.
Hope it will be resolved soon.
Mod
Thanks Jaclyn, I have marked them as invalid now.
Katherine wrote: "okay, I think I know what went wrong here. Looking back on the comments, it may not have been clear to some that there were 2 messages I sent to Goodreads support, though I did state that, the firs..."No one thinks you are a jerk. I think everyone was just trying to clarify the process and there was a misunderstanding.
Emily wrote: "Katherine wrote: "okay, I think I know what went wrong here. Looking back on the comments, it may not have been clear to some that there were 2 messages I sent to Goodreads support, though I did st..."I know, I think so too now. What a mess. It looks like the problem is resolved now, so thank you so much to everyone involved and helped to get this fixed.
Mod
Jaclyn wrote: "We've been working to bulk classify these as invalid, and will ask members to reach out in this Group if we've missed any. If we see a large amount of these requests we'll look to perform another b..."Why is the bot importing them making extra work?
Mod
Thanks for the feedback everyone! Closing this thread as we'll work to remove these editions.
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
