Thursday, June 21, 2012

BookBitchin'

Every now and then I feel the need to vent, and having a blog is just about the best and most public way to do it. So here goes...

Publishers who reissue old books as new books suck. I had a library patron come in all upset because she read THE DECISION by Penny Vincenzi and loved it so much that when she saw what she thought was a sequel, MORE THAN YOU KNOW, she ran out and bought it so she wouldn't have to wait for a library copy. It's the same book. THE DECISION was released in the UK by Headline Publishing Group in 2011 and MORE THAN YOU KNOW by Doubleday in 2012. In small print on the copyright page of MTYK it does say, "Originally published in different form in Great Britain as The Decision..." So now you know.

Writerspace sucks. Who is Writerspace and why do they sign me up for newsletters I never asked for? Not only do they send me their newsletter, but also some authors' newsletters (are you people paying them for this service? Cause it sucks...just saying...) I might actually read the author newsletters if they came to my regular email address and I had signed up for them. But that isn't the case here.

Shelfari sucks tooWhy do I have to opt-out to not receive spam from Shelfari? Shouldn't I have to opt-IN to get their crap?

Gmail doesn't suck, it's awesome!
 I use Gmail for the contests I run for all the books I giveaway, both here on the blog and on my website at BookBitch.com. The way to enter those contests is to send an email to the gmail account I use just for contests. The mail is sorted automatically for me (thanks, Gmail!) and I don't use that account for anything else. Yet somehow Shelfari and Writerspace seem to think that email address is good for their crap. Here's a hint - everything that isn't automatically sorted into contest email gets put into the spam folder.

Here's another hint for those of you who enter my contests - if you don't have the subject exactly the same as it states in the contest rules and on the link I provide, guess what - your entry gets sorted into the spam folder. Or maybe the trash folder, I forget. Either way, you won't win so pay attention. Trust me, use the link or type carefully - it's great fun to win a book!

And that ends today's rant. Thanks for reading and feel free to rant yourself in the comments.

3 comments:

A. Rivera said...

I hate the whole re-issuing old books as new books. Wizards of the Coast (they publish D&D novels and such) is notorious for this. I always check the fine print inside to make sure something that looks new and slick was not published originally sometime in the early 90s or such. And in their case, I hate to say this, but the old editions' cover art tends to be much nicer than the new slick stuff.

In the end, it does pay to look at things closely to not end up paying twice for something you read already.

Best, and keep on blogging.

MaryC said...

Totally agree!

marleenandlouie said...

I love your rants! In fact I love your entire site but especially your dedication at the bottom of the win books page. What a great salute to the people that you love and loved.

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