Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
This topic is about
Dinah Lee Küng
Book & Author Page Issues
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Something/one has created a new "me" denying me access to my e-books in the process
I've gone through and changed the author of your books to be the umlaut version of you. Is Left in the Care of: A Novel of Suspense also yours?I'll leave the dealing of the duplicate author to more experienced librarians, but correcting the name on the book level should give you access to your books back.
BTW - probably no clowns involved, just well-intentioned people...
The best way is to post a request with the links to the right and the wrong profile(s) in this thread: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...These things just happens sometimes. Not all users are familiar with umlauts and accents and automatic imports seems to have often problems with umlauts and accents too.
I've just added this issue to the correct thread
Dinah, your attitude is very unwarranted, especially when you clearly don't understand how the system works. Stop spreading abuse at the people who you are trying to enlist help from.
Okay guys. Let's fix the issue and move on.Dinah, the thing is that any member can create books and not all use the same language. When you have special characters in your name, some members just add the normal letter. This is NOT necessarily a librarian doing this.
What we can do is merge the profiles, if all books in a profile belong to you. If the other profile has books that do NOT belong to you, link to the other profiles and state which books ARE or ARE NOT yours.
Seeing as how most of your books seem to be fixed, keep this in mind in the future if another member adds one of your books incorrectly.It is really an easy fix that can be taken care of quickly, without insulting any members.
Dinah, I can understand your frustration and upset. Please calm down, because the Librarians can help you.Someone clearly messed up, but that happens all the time around here. It's a big site. But fortunately there are lots of volunteer Librarians to fix things when they're caught and pointed out.
Michael, Dinah is upset at being cut off from her books and records, as anyone would be. I don't think she was being abusive, just vexed the way many people faced with recalcitrant tech are. If she's been up half the night she's probably tired too.
I think things work better if everybody assumes underlying good will (until and unless demonstrated otherwise, of course -- I'm not recommending doormatism).
Alessandra wrote: "If she's been up half the night she's probably tired too."I'll never understand why people who are here to sell their products don't bother to put on a professional appearence. Being tired is no excuse for acting unprofessional on the internet.
Another thought, before *anyone* posts a thread...when an author or a book is referenced, it links back to that book or author page. Think carefully what you post; the internet is forever.
Alessandra wrote: "I think things work better if everybody assumes underlying good will (until and unless demonstrated otherwise, of course -- I'm not recommending doormatism). "Thank you for being the voice of reason.
Krystal109 wrote: "That's a whole different author."I wouldn't bet on it!
Thank you to all of you, Andrea, Renske, Banjomike, Krystal109, Lafon and others who tried to be so helpful. The underlying goodwill is much in evidence. I'm a Goodreads reader/reviewer as well as an author, but connecting with readers and discoverability is essential.As for Mike and Mel, my reference was to someone/thing who likely disregarded the Librarians' alert about being very careful with duplications and imports—not very professional. It might have been a careless intern at a publishing house, who knows?
To be denied access to my own identity/work was indeed upsetting but I spent hours trying not to take up anyone else's time before sending out my appeal.
In case the Facebook generation doesn't understand a 60+ author's reaction after literally decades of writing and publishing, imagine someone created a phony, faceless Facebook page for you and it hijacked your access to your own day-job responsibilities, (in the case of the epub file book, of four years-plus and a prize nomination.) Most Goodreads volunteers seem to understand; for writers, this is a professional issue, not a social one, with decades of effort and industry relationships in New York and London in the background.
Alessandra's comment was very kind, thanks. The Goodreads' Librarian volunteer community is very impressive.
btw, Dirk, don't combine me with D.L. Kung. Thanks.
Krystal109 wrote: "That's a whole different author."Are you sure? On D.L. Kung's author profile it says that she has written a play called "Dear Mr. Rogge", which is currently atributed to Dinah Lee Küng, which is clearly the name on the cover, too.
Krystal109, As I said, please don't combine. Two different profiles/genres.
At least one book attributed to D.L. Kung -in that author's profile- has Dinah Lee Küng on the cover...
D.L. Kung is another author because the profile is CLAIMED. Also the bio states enough info to know that it is another author.Now, some of the books may not be all hers, but we don't want to merge 2 GR's authors.
The D.L. Kung info includes "Dear Mr Rogge" which is on Dinah's page. Is the blurb on D.L. Kung wrong or should the book be moved to him from Dinah?
Krystal109 wrote: "D.L. Kung is another author because the profile is CLAIMED. Also the bio states enough info to know that it is another author.Now, some of the books may not be all hers, but we don't want to merg..."
WE couldn't merge them anyway. It does happen but only the Valar have the POWER.
Dear All,I am requesting you all not to merge the GR profiles for D.L. Kung and Dinah Lee Küng.
Thanks again,
Dinah wrote: "Two different profiles/genres."But not two different people?
Banjomike wrote: "The D.L. Kung info includes "Dear Mr Rogge" which is on Dinah's page. Is the blurb on D.L. Kung wrong or should the book be moved to him from Dinah?"D.L. Kung added it to his/her shelf, and recommended it to someone else...they made a comment on another thread that they recommended it, not the author. Two different people, and Dinah Lee Küng is the author of Dear Mr Rogge.
The USA/UK publishers are at fault here, I guess...
Another option is that we have an author with two pen names which as far as I know is OK on Goodreads. I think I will leave it to Rivka who has access to more info than the rest of us.
Hi All,No one is at fault. Thanks for all your interest. This is the sort of thing that happens in a long writing career:
Left in the Care of was published in the 90's as a stand-alone mystery in hardback by Carroll and Graf under the name Dinah Küng. The rights reverted after many years. It has now been re-issued as Vol II of a gritty trilogy, The Handover Mysteries: The End of May Road by Eyes and Ears Editions, under the gender-neutral pen name D.L. Kung.
In short: my literary work is published under Dinah Lee Küng, (including the very serious play about a Chinese dissident) with the Asian genre mysteries under D.L. Kung.
The two profiles should be kept separate, please.
This is standard practice out of respect for readers who want to know what they're getting, as well as the London publishers' reputation for literary authors. Think Agatha Christie and Mary Westmacott.
If anyone is interested, here's a summary of four decades of writing labor, the webpage which should resolve many questions.
http://www.dinahleekung.com/events.htm
Dinah, can you confirm that you are happy with the two merges requested in the other threadhttp://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...
Dear Librarians,Krystal109, As far as I'm concerned, Left in the Care by Dinah Küng (not a penname I'm now using) should be deleted altogether as that edition is no longer in print, the publisher no longer exists, it's impossible to get (defunct for all purposes) and confusing to be still wandering around the internet.
As I said, it's recently been reissued/revised as part 2 of a series under the gender-neutral D.L. Kung and a new title. Can "Left in the Care of" be deleted altogether?
Banjomike: I just would like the Dinah Lee Küng profile page left alone, and if possible, if someone searches Dinah Lee Kung,
http://www.goodreads.com/search?utf8=...
they get all my books by being bounced to the Küng page, not just a few of them as just happened to me with the link above.
As someone said, many people will search my surname without the umlaut. But I fear "merging" something that might erase all my reviews and readers.
Many thanks again,
p.s. what I meant by all my books was: all the literary novels, not the D.L. Kung mysteries.Thanks
I've edited the merge message to point Rivka over here before she starts merging stuff.We do not delete book for being out of print and anyone who edits a book out of existence is quite often, um, spoken to. So we don't do it.
Dear Banjomike,Okay. So best leave it with Dinah Lee Küng. The book description explains that a new edition has been reissued under a new format.
Thanks again.
Dinah wrote: "Dear Banjomike,Okay. So best leave it with Dinah Lee Küng. The book description explains that a new edition has been reissued under a new format.
Thanks again."
Dinah, rivka will deal with all the merges as required by Goodreads policy. We librarians (regular and supers alike) have done what we can. Now it's up to the staff (which rivka is) to deal with.
Thanks, Banjomike. I'm hoping that Rivka can ensure that:1. genre writer D.L. Kung and literary novelist Dinah Lee Küng aren't merged for the reasons above.
2. All the works by Dinah Lee Küng are on that author page and my access to the epub files of all the books is restored.
3. All the empty/automated author pages (Dinah Lee Kung, Dinah Kung, Dinah Küng?) which may have crept into the system are deleted.
4. Searchers for Dinah Lee Kung are automatically directed to the author sites, reviews/readers and books for Dinah Lee Küng.
(It's getting late here in Switzerland,) many thanks for working on a Sunday.)
I do appreciate this and hope it's all been clarified.
p.s. while I have Rivka's valuable attention, could we please change the default covers from relatively unreadable old paperbacks (not internet friendly) of A Visit From Voltaire and Under Their Skin to the new e-book covers for consistency and visibility, matching with Love and the Art of War in style?That would be very nice,
Thanks
Dinah Lee Küng
Michael wrote: "Dinah wrote: "Because some librarian clown...some clever librarian has fugged up."What an ass!! There's one writer I won't be reading."
Dear Mike,
I've moderated my comment and I do hope you do the same. btw, I see you got awfully upset about J.R.R., so perhaps you know the feeling. Now imagine you were J.R.R.
Dear Rivka,I still can't access/edit my epub files for A Visit From Voltaire or Love and the Art of War.
Thanks for your attention.
Dear Dinah - Rivka may not be working today, although I have seen her on Sundays. But it's only 9:30am where she is, so this afternoon at the earliest if she does anything today.Why not just settle down?
Dinah wrote: Dear Mike,I've moderated my comment and I..."
I've deleted my comment in light of your moderation of yours.
I did get concerned about another librarian's editing of the Tolkien profile, but I did not use any derogatory language about them, nor, I dare say, would Professor Tolkien have done so.
The end of this particular thread, as far as I'm concerned: Michael
Dinah we can't update covers for books. If the book was published with a cover, it stays on the website. Think of it as an archive where people can shelf the EXACT book with the EXACT cover they read.We do allow alternate book covers, for replubished books with new covers that share an ISBN with an older cover.
PS. If you guys quote the comments, it doesn't matter if you changed them above. They will still be in your quote.
Dear Krystal109,I don't want to change any covers. I just would like to see the most recent covers from the e-books as the preferred or default covers on my own author page. These were designed with internet viewing in mind. I realize that if people opted to view the paperback edition, obviously, they'd see the appropriate covers.
Many thanks.
i don't think you can select the default cover that shows on your author page - it is based off the version that is most popular when it comes to shelving your books (someone correct me if i'm wrong).
Dee wrote: "i don't think you can select the default cover that shows on your author page - it is based off the version that is most popular when it comes to shelving your books (someone correct me if i'm wrong)."Correct. As more people shelve an edition it becomes the one that gets shown in search and on the author page. We librarians have no control over it.
Dinah, we don't do it for ebooks either. Let's say someone bought and read the book when it had X cover. They want to shelf THAT cover and review it.What we can do is make an alternate cover edition for the ebook and combine it. When the new cover gets more shelves it will become the default cover. We can't change/update covers. The only exception is if we upgrade a cover with a higher resolution one, if it is the same cover.
Librarians can loose their power for changing covers.
If you want a new edition with the new covers added, link us to the new covers or add them to your profile. Do NOT link us to a bookseller site, as we can't use that info.
Krystal109 wrote: "Dinah we can't update covers for books. If the book was published with a cover, it stays on the website. Think of it as an archive where people can shelf the EXACT book with the EXACT cover they re..."Seconded. Goodreads has many books that are hopelessly out of print or otherwise obscure or unobtainable. The policy is to keep images of all book covers, even obsolete ones.
If the new versions of your books have new ISBNs (and I think they should if they are ebooks), then they will be considered new editions with their own pages. The older editions can be connected with them, just like the 355 older versions of Pride and Prejudice can be referenced at the top right of P&P's Goodreads page.
It sounds like your author requirements are a little delicately balanced, but I have full confidence in Rivka's ability to untangle things and make sure your books go to the correct profiles.
It doesn't need a new ISBN for a new edition. It just needs to be published with the new cover and then we can add a new edition with the new cover.
Alessandra wrote: "just like the 355 older versions of Pride and Prejudice..."Slightly OT but I see 1208 other editions of Pride and Prejudice on that page. Are you looking somewhere different?
Banjomike wrote: "Alessandra wrote: "just like the 355 older versions of Pride and Prejudice..."Slightly OT but I see 1208 other editions of Pride and Prejudice on that page. Are you looking somewhere different?"
I see 1208 too. I must have mistyped or seen it wrong before. Sorry.
As I said, I don't want to change any covers. All the different covers/editions seem connected up on the book pages properly.I just wanted to make the the e-book cover the default cover that pops up on my author page display, not the old paperback cover. If I understand correctly, that would happen automatically over time as more and more people shelve the e-book.
Thanks
Now there's an author page with no photo, no info and my books which aren't combined with the other book pages.
I created an author page/photo/files for all my novels as Dinah Lee Küng. If you want to direct searchers of "Kung" without an umlaut to my pages, fine. But I spent half the night trying to figure out how to work around this.
PLEASE HELP!