Amazon is going away as a data source Showing 1,551-1,599 of 1,599

[Helen]

I know some page counts I entered on rescue pages have gone, I spent the afternoon recording them from books onto paper and will enter them at the weekend, in case they come back! I'm off to lok at my covers...

[Sara ♥]

pjreads ♫ wrote: "But there's a Buy Books tab. "

I'm thinking there's a difference between linking to book buying websites (even GR does that) and actually being a website that sells books. In this case, it looks to be the former—a comparison of prices from a bunch of external-to-them sites.

[Alessandra]

James wrote: "Felt good to scan and upload the cover image from my copy of: The Tough Guide To Fantasyland

I had purchased that one from Amazon back in September...

So, a measure of poetic justice..."

Good on yer. Is yours the Walter Velez cover?

[Tom]

My novel The Stone Dragon lists the author as Thomas Lee Kepler. I'd like that changed, please, to Tom Kepler so all my books are on my author page.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...

If it is added to my author page for Tom Kepler, then I can upload a cover image.

Also, I print through Lightning Source, so the novel is in the Ingram catalog. Does that help?

Thanks! I bet the librarians are busy right now!

[Rosemary]

Looks like it's been done, Tom.

[vicki_girl]

Gundula wrote: Lee wrote: "Lisa wrote: "I really hope that everyone will stop purchasing from Amazon and will write and tell them why. I did."

I'm with you; my feelings for Amazon are irrevocably altered as well. It *kill..."

Probably, if they own Shelfari."

They not only own Shelfari, they also have a 40% stake in librarything (Amazon Acquisitions as stated on Wikipedia). It certainly does raise questions about their motives...

[Alessandra]

vicki_girl wrote: "They not only own Shelfari, they also have a 40% stake in librarything (Amazon Acquisitions as stated on Wikipedia). It certainly does raise questions about their motives... ."

Huh. Isn't librarything the other big online book cataloging site? A direct competitor to GR, I mean?

(Normally I would think of such a thing as an ally, but right now I'm mad at Amazon.)

[Petra X]

Amazon also own Abe Books, so if you are looking for an independent source of bargain/used/hard to find books, you might try Alibris which is more or less the same as Abe.

[Tom]

Rosemary wrote: "Looks like it's been done, Tom."

Thanks, all!

[Anna]

I was rescuing a book when it become unknown book### by unknown###. Fortunately I saved it in time : )

[Lobstergirl]

I hope the fact that "Unknown Author 71" (and others) which includes works by various authors is just some kind of intermediate label and doesn't mean the system really thinks all these works are by the same person.

I'll also assume for the moment that the fact that I rescued one of Unknown Author's books yesterday doesn't mean anything significant.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Lobstergirl wrote: "is just some kind of intermediate label and doesn't mean the system really thinks all these works are by the same person."

That is correct.

[Bex]

Lobstergirl wrote: "I hope the fact that "Unknown Author 71" (and others) which includes works by various authors is just some kind of intermediate label and doesn't mean the system really thinks all these works are b..."

And so the crazy attempts at disambiging numbers begins... (tomorrow ;) )

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Bex wrote: "And so the crazy attempts at disambiging numbers begins..."

Why? If you can correctly edit in the right author, why try to separate out the various unknowns?

[[deleted user]]

So, how exactly do we rescue these unknown author/title books? Is it up to the individual member to tell us what's missing from their shelves? What's the plan?

[Alessandra]

Petra X wrote: "Amazon also own Abe Books, so if you are looking for an independent source of bargain/used/hard to find books, you might try Alibris which is more or less the same as Abe."

Blimey. I had been getting my used books from Alibris (when my local used bookstores or Powell's online didn't have a copy), but had heard a lot about Abe Books and was considering trying them.

Now, no.

[Manybooks]

Alessandra wrote: "Petra X wrote: "Amazon also own Abe Books, so if you are looking for an independent source of bargain/used/hard to find books, you might try Alibris which is more or less the same as Abe."

Blimey...."

I use both ABE Books and Alibris to find out of print books (I have to). It's not like you are buying the books from Amazon, but from the individuals booksellers who have the books. But I must admit that I am less than thrilled to hear that ABE Books is owned by Amazon, sigh.

[Peter]

Gundula wrote: "Alessandra wrote: "Petra X wrote: "Amazon also own Abe Books, so if you are looking for an independent source of bargain/used/hard to find books, you might try Alibris which is more or less the sam..."

Try finding your books on eBay. Many of the same booksellers that sell through Abe and Amazon also list the same books on eBay; some even maintain a storefront there or on Half.com (which can be checked if searching eBay by ISBN).

[Manybooks]

Peter wrote: "Gundula wrote: "Alessandra wrote: "Petra X wrote: "Amazon also own Abe Books, so if you are looking for an independent source of bargain/used/hard to find books, you might try Alibris which is more..."

I have found some good German out of print books on eBay (which were not even available on ABE or Alibris), but I have had a few cases with English language books (classic girls' fiction) where the quality and condition of the books I received was not at all what I had been promised, so I am now a bit careful buying books on eBay. But I will try the website you suggested.

[Cheryl]

www.half.com is often the cheapest, especially for newer and popular fiction, if that's what you happen to be interested in - they have tons of books for 75 cents - pretty US-centric though

[Peter]

I'll post in another thread some of the sources I use. I hope they might help.

[James]

Regarding The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, Alessandra wrote: "...Is yours the Walter Velez cover?"

Yes, it is, Alessandra... Says inside the back flap of the dust jacket: "Jacket art by Walter Velez"...

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Jeannette wrote: "So, how exactly do we rescue these unknown author/title books? Is it up to the individual member to tell us what's missing from their shelves? What's the plan?"

Two main things: Users who know (from their reviews, I guess), and continuing imports. I believe two more started up today (from new sources).

[Audrey]

The website www.addall.com is a used book price aggregator search engine. Input the ISBN and it'll run it across upwards of 30 used book sites. It then lists out the lowest priced books (while also taking shipping into account).

[Keith]

Bernadette wrote: "I don't think there can be much doubt now that Amazon doesn't just want to compete - it wants to dominate the book selling/publishing/discussing market place"

Close, but not quite. Amazon hardly cares about books; that was just an easy place to start. They don't even make money on books, not really. The intent of Jeff Bezos is global hegemony of online commerce. All of it. If you buy it on the internet, Amazon wants to be the one to sell it to you. Everything, everywhere, hence the A->Z logo.

[Sandra]

Luckily, I could count on my fingers the times I've bought something from them, and it was a fairly long time ago. I certainly won't be increasing my purchasing from them.

[Moloch]

Are non librarian users still able to edit books?

[Maria]

Moloch wrote: "Are non librarian users still able to edit books?"

I wouldn't expect so, since we're back at the usual edit page now.

[Melody]

If I were Goodreads I would certainly remove the plug-in that promotes Amazon.
http://www.goodreads.com/user/edit?fo...

[Nyssa]

Really people? I don't remember there being this much fuss when Barnes and Nobles stopped being a data source.

[Maria]

AFAIR Barnes and Nobles didn't make such a fuss about not being a data source any longer. I'm pretty sure this would have gone just as unnoticed if Amazon hadn't wanted Goodreads to strip all books of data sourced from them.

[Nyssa]

Maria wrote: "AFAIR Barnes and Nobles didn't make such a fuss about not being a data source any longer. I'm pretty sure this would have gone just as unnoticed if Amazon hadn't wanted Goodreads to strip all books..."
If I've read Rivka's post correctly, the did ask that their data be removed :Barnes & Noble is no longer available as a data source

It just so happened, that Amazon became the instant go to, at that point. I think the biggest issue here, is that there was no instant g oto after Amazon. That's not exactly their problem.

[Maria]

I don't see that anywhere? As I read it, it just said they couldn't use them as a source in the future, not that existing data had to be removed.

[I ♥ Bookie Nookie (bookienookiereviews.blogspot.com)]

I thought they ended their data source relationship in December...

[Sandra]

If B&N had wanted their infomation stripped it wouldn't still be listed as a source on the rescued books.

[Julie]

Yes, I have seen books that still listed B&N as the source.

[Maria]

Exactly. I think it was mentioned earlier in this VERY long thread that B&N allowed their data to be 'grandfathered in'.

[Manybooks]

Maria wrote: "Exactly. I think it was mentioned earlier in this VERY long thread that B&N allowed their data to be 'grandfathered in'."

Whereas Amazon just acted like a total bully!!

[Peter]

It also looks like Amazon gave a very short time in which to pull the plug. B&N switchoff seemed very orderly.

[Mahlon]

I'm sure this was asked awhile back in the thread, but now that we have to add Kindle books based on our own info, is it ok to get the Asin from Amazon?(I left it blank until further notice)

Thanks,
Mahlon

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Is the ASIN not somewhere in the Kindle ebook itself, the way ISBNs are in the ebooks I have?

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

I see that book pages for "voided" titles now have a new feature inviting anybody in the know to fill in the blanks. Nice!

Question, though: Assume I'm looking for a book that nobody had heretofore shelved and which therefore now appears to have been deleted from the database. If I decide to manually "recreate" the book, will the system recognize (e.g. by way of the ISBN entered in the "create book" form) whether that book is actually still there -- just in the guise of "unknown book 12345 by unknown author 678" -- and if it is, automatically dirct me to the existing page and invite me to fill in the blanks rather than recreate the book from scratch?

(This used to be done by way of suggestions based on book titles appearing above the "create book" form in the past, and I suppose for books that haven't been temporarily voided it still is. For those books that temporarily don't have any titles and/or author names associated with them, though, how do we avoid creating duplicate entries there?)

[Mahlon]

rivka wrote: "Is the ASIN not somewhere in the Kindle ebook itself, the way ISBNs are in the ebooks I have?"

Rivka, not that I saw, it does have an isbn, should I put that in instead?

I have about 4-5 books I wanted to add, so I wanted to be sure of the correct process before doing so.

Thanks,
Mahlon

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Mahlon wrote: "should I put that in instead"

You could, but then mark it "ebook", not "Kindle", as that's almost certainly an ISBN used elsewhere as well.

[[deleted user]]

Mahlon wrote: "I'm sure this was asked awhile back in the thread, but now that we have to add Kindle books based on our own info, is it ok to get the Asin from Amazon?(I left it blank until further notice)

Thank..."

If you download the book to Kindle for PC (and presumably other "Kindle for" apps), the filename format is ASIN_EBOK.azw. So you can use that.

[Cait]

Yes, I have ebook ISBNs on some of the Kindle editions I just checked. Others have no ISBN. I haven't found any with ASINs internally.

[Mahlon]

Christa, I downloaded the Kindle for PC app. How/where do I find the book's filename?

Thanks,
Mahlon

[[deleted user]]

Mahlon wrote: "Christa, I downloaded the Kindle for PC app. How/where do I find the book's filename?

Thanks,
Mahlon"

If you have whispersync turned on, K4PC will sync your archive. This can take a few minutes after you start K4PC the first time.

(If you don't have whispersync turned on in your account, you'll have to go the the Amazon "Manage My Kindle" page and "deliver to my..." to K4PC for that book.)

Once the books show up in your archive, double click the archive book to download it. Then, go to "My Documents" > "My Kindle Content" in Windows explorer. There you'll find the file and can get the ASIN from the name.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I suggest a new thread about finding ASINs in Kindle books you own, so people might actually see it.

Actually, I'm going to close this behemoth of a thread, now that the deadline has come and gone. Feel free to start new threads as needed.