Book Blogger Confessions is a meme posted twice monthly(1st & 3rd Monday) where book bloggers share, discuss & confess book & blog related topics.
Hosted by For What It’s Worth & Midnyte Reader.
Hot Topics in the Blogosphere: Amazon Buys Goodreads, The Death of Google Reader & What do we owe authors?
I am so torn on Amazon buying Goodreads. On one hand I’m pretty excited about it; it could be a great thing… when we purchase a book on Kindle it automatically updates for instance! The part that leaves me worried is that there is even more nastiness on Amazon than Goodreads. I avoid all the drama, at all costs but you can’t help but stumble onto a review sometimes that houses an entire chain of conversation… it’s 20x worse on Amazon. I’ve even had nasty comments posted on some of my reviews(which I’ve promptly deleted; I’m not in the business of entertaining rudeness). I guess all in all I hope the change is for the better but only time can tell!! Ohh… and I will NEVER leave Goodreads lol; it owns me.
When I first found out that Google Reader was ending July 1st I basically threw a tantrum. I was rudely made aware of this via a pop up box and I was LIVID! WHAT?!?!? How will I live without my reader?!?! Obviously I was completely ignorant to the fact there were other ways to read your blog posts other than Google Reader and I was beyond devastated. My first thought was… what about the BLOGS?!?!?! Once I calmed down… and let it go for a few days a ton of posts were popping up in my feed with options for new readers. I have switched to Feedly and I couldn’t be happier. I actually am a TON happier with Feedly than I was with Google Reader. Feedly has such an impressive and esthetically pleasing interface with a ton of options. It was an easy switch and I retained all of my blogs from Google. You can create folders, add tags, share in Feedly, mark for later, add blogs easily, mark as read easily… it’s just fabulous. The one thing I didn’t like was the app.. and that’s only because they didn’t have an option of just viewing the blog title, I had to view small excerpts or the image as well. They have since fixed this so now you can read header only and I am so happy. I never subscribe via GFC anymore… I stopped awhile ago because Google Reader wouldn’t update for weeks with my GFC subscriptions so I got out of the habit of using it. I think you have whatever subscription options that you want. I personally have RSS(Feedburner), Email, Bloglovin'(which I HATE), Networked Blogs & Linky. They are all equally as popular with RSS maybe taking the winner title by a little bit. About Bloglovin’… they have stopped updating my feed(which there is nothing wrong with… I checked) and will not respond to any of my concerns. I do not use this to subscribe to blogs but I have it as an option right now. If it’s not fixed within 2 weeks I’m removing it from the blog. This is not just my blog… Ashley @ Nose Graze posted about it and the amount of people who commented and said the same thing has happened to them is startling!!!
What do we owe authors… what an interesting topic. I think it’s ridiculous for authors to expect people to only buy their books, not to borrow them. I have borrowed a ton of books, not to mention had ARCs of their book and I have still spread the love via reviews, twitter etc. But that’s because I love their book. Also we do not owe it to the author to promote their books at all, unless of course it’s for a book tour or blitz that you are participating in. Obviously those are for promotional purposes. I don’t think a lot of authors think like this though… I’ve seen authors with great support of libraries. I think a few bad apples spoil the bunch and I’m choosing to be mostly neutral on this topic 😀
What are your thoughts on the recent hot topics… link up 😀
Happy Reading!
xo Lauren
What an articulated post – me likes :).
I’m sorry to hear you’ve been bugged by nasty comments on Amazon. I’m not a member, but the only bad thing I had heard before is that they tend to be over-censorious (see 2nd comment on http://www.myshelfconfessions.com/posts/amazon-goodreads/). Too bad they can’t censor nasty attitudes LOL. But somehow I have this feeling that Amazon won’t interfere with GR reviews…unless they are going to implement a system that automatically posts your GR reviews up on A. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens…
Thanks for the Bloglovin’ heads-up. I’m in the process of making up my mind about new blog-following options, and I will definitely avoid it!
I do understand where authors come from, but we’re not advertising machines. Going through a list of requirements from them would be absurd. Also, not everyone is wealthy enough to buy all the books one would like. I, for one, am not.
Yes… Amazon does sensor quite a few things as well. I used to reference my “first posted on…” in my reviews, and not for promotion just to simply say that this is from my blog basically and they would remove it. I stopped putting it because it was a waste of time.
I would keep that in mind about Bloglovin’… I know a lot of people like it but Feedly is amazing and I feel like Bloglovin has pushed it to the background lol.
I wish we were all wealthy enough for ALL THE BOOKS 😀 Gosh… what amazing libraries we would have, lol.
Crikey, I’m so glad I don’t have Bloglovin’. I agree about Feedly, I use it & it may not be all that public but does it need to be? It’s a reader… You can tweet & everything- I love that Feedly isn’t biased to Facebook. Hell yeah 😀 I didn’t really discuss this topic today but hey ho… Would you recommend Networked blogs? And Goodreads (ha, I’m kidding- I’m on goodreads & love it XD)
My opinions today were mainly on authors. You’re right about certain things being for promotional purposes but authors have been known (I believe) to think beyond that an individual isn’t doing enough to promote a book. If an author said I wasn’t doing that I’d probably NEVER put up my review, I’d just rate it. It IS important to rate a book since the popularity of book blogging etc. but it’s not mandatory, just useful. Right?
I don’t really care that Feedly is not that public either.. I just want to read all my blogs 😀 I totally agree about the facebook bias… grr it’s everywhere lol. There are a ton of sharing options and it’s just super user friendly with providing so many options. I would (ish) recommend Networked blogs. Honestly I never remember to log into mine so I forget to check .. I don’t use that as a choice now when I personally subscribe. The interface is easy to use though and I know a ton of people like it. The only thing is that I believe you can only subscribe to other networked blogs.. not like feedly where you can add others. I agree about the ratings 😀
I need to figure out feedly! Do I need to “claim my blog” like on bloglovin’?
And you KNOW I literally bought my Kindle for the deals and because they bought Goodreads! That made me so nervous but I’m so happy about it!
Love this topic!
You do! No claiming 😀
Ahh.. Kindle deals haha.
You know I’ve never even checked my reviews on amazon to see if there are any comments! now I must….haha
I’m very happy with feedly also. I find I’m able to better keep up on my subscriptions and its so much easier to add subscriptions. Not to mention delete them! Plus they said that you won’t lose any of your subscriptions once googlereader dies which I’m most happy about! Its way better than google reader. I do NOT like bloglovin. Do I have it? yes – why because so many people expect you to follow thru it. but if someone MAKES that a necessary follow then quite frankly will they get the follow? maybe but will people really check it? I don’t like the whole “you must follow me this way” thing hehe.
I’m glad that I found another Feedly lover 😀 I am honestly incredibly pleased with it!! I just take the url and plop it into feedly haha… if they want to try and force me 😉
Just wanted to give you a heads up that your post did show up on Bloglovin’ today! Maybe it’s fixed?
Thanks Merin 😀 I realized it just before you posted this… ironically it didn’t get fixed until this post went live :S Coincidence?? lol.
Oh you hate Bloglovin? How come? I’m signed up for it, but I’ve been hearing great things about Feedly too.
I haven’t gotten any nasty comments on Amazon or Goodreads…thank goodness.
Regarding this whole nonsense of what readers owe authors, I don’t think a lot of athors think like that either, but I think it’s also a kind of dangerous sentiment that I would not like to see spread around.
Hadn’t heard the negatives about Bloglovin, so thanks for the heads up! I haven’t even started researching Reader replacements as I’m still in mourning. 🙁
I’m pretty ambivilant about Amazon purchasing Goodreads as I don’t think they’ll change it much. The thing that worries me is that I don’t want a connection between Goodreads and Amazon at all (reviews get posted in both places, books automatically get added, etc) so hopefully if they decide to do that it will be optional otherwise I will be one sad puppy 🙁
I don’t think most authors share this negative feeling about libraries, but you know that one bad apple can ruin the bunch! It’s not a feeling that I want spread, especially to younger children!
I have never read an author say that about libraries until that post/tweet. All the authors I know fully support libraries and librarians. What a weird thing to complain about if you’re an author.
I switched to Feedly and offer Bloglovin but the whole things stresses me out. I hate offering so many options and not knowing what most people want. Personally, I even hate going to Feedly. Google Reader is on my dashboard so that’s what I like. I am lazy. lol
I think Amazon will add some improvements to GR but I don’t want my history to be used on both sites to market to me. I want to be left alone on GR. I stopped reviewing on Amazon except for Vine products.