# 'Rescue' your book on Goodreads.



## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

Just saw this on Goodreads (partial snip):

"At Goodreads, we make it a priority to use book information from the most reliable and open data sources, because it helps us build the best experience for our members. To that end, we're making a major change.

On January 30, Goodreads will no longer display book information that comes from Amazon.
This includes data such as titles, author names, page counts...more

Your data is safe.
Your ratings, reviews, and bookshelves are safe...more

Luckily, you can help us find alternate sources for book editions."


It looks like you have to update or 'rescue' the book from a personal blog or other site.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Where did you see this announcement? Like most things Goodreads, I can't find and am not even sure what they mean.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

Umm, where do we even update that? I'm assuming all of my data comes from Amazon right now. I've never even tried to update it.

ETA: Ahh, I see it now. If you go to your book page there's a link at the top where you can go.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I want to like Goodreads, heck, I want to love it, but it's the most illogical site I've ever seen.


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## HeidiHall (Sep 5, 2010)

Is this a response to KDP Select? I know Shelfari partners (is owned?) by Amazon... did another online bookseller do the same with Goodreads? Are they boycotting? I'm not sure how the data coming from Amazon would make it unsafe, but I haven't read the whole article yet. This wording seems weird, too - "...use book information from the most reliable and *open data sources*...". Open data sources? Are they trying to make Goodreads a site where it's easy to find books to pirate? Kind of a bummer, IMO.


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

Monique, if you click on your actual book, a banner pops up at the top: 'This book is in danger of being removed from Goodreads, will you save it?'

Some of mine don't have it, so I'm wondering if readers already did them.


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## 13500 (Apr 22, 2010)

Thanks for the heads up! I went over and updated it right away.


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

Heidi, I can't figure out what it all means yet either.  But I'm 'rescuing' away!


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

What a pain in the behind. Glad I don't have a million books to update. I wonder, now that it won't be updating from Amazon anymore, what will be the best way to add new books?


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## Nicki Leigh (Aug 25, 2011)

What about those of us who are exclusive to Amazon? I know I can add my own books on GR so long as I have the ISBN number, so maybe that's how I'll do it from now all. Wow...what a waste.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

HeidiHall said:


> Is this a response to KDP Select? I know Shelfari partners (is owned?) by Amazon... did another online bookseller do the same with Goodreads? Are they boycotting? I'm not sure how the data coming from Amazon would make it unsafe, but I haven't read the whole article yet. This wording seems weird, too - "...use book information from the most reliable and *open data sources*...". Open data sources? Are they trying to make Goodreads a site where it's easy to find books to pirate? Kind of a bummer, IMO.


I'm assuming it does have something to do with Select, but I'm not sure what exactly. Maybe the 'Zon is changing their policies on allowing all these book sites to get mass amounts of data from them. Maybe they want to charge them for access to their database or something.

Open data sources have nothing at all to do with piracy. Open data sources are places like wikipedia, where data is offered freely without restrictions.


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

Coral Moore said:


> What a pain in the behind.


Agreed.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

I don't get it. What do you put as the URL if you can't use Amazon? It looks like they're planning to strip out all indie books. That's ridiculous. There are 759 reviews or other adds of my books on Goodreads. Why would they delete all that information?


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

MichaelWallace said:


> I don't get it. What do you put as the URL if you can't use Amazon? It looks like they're planning to strip out all indie books. That's ridiculous. There are 759 reviews or other adds of my books on Goodreads. Why would they delete all that information?


I put my book's website in there. If you have an author blog or website I think you could use that too.


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## Danielle Kazemi (Apr 2, 2011)

Ugh! This is stupid. Just more stuff I have to do. I doubt this will be the last place.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

My response may well be to not rescue Goodreads. They don't want me, I can live without them.


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## Lisa J. Yarde (Jul 15, 2010)

The GR statement makes no sense. The site needs to clarify the purpose behind this move before I'll make any changes that seem to have no clear purpose right now. If somehow this means my books won't be 'rescued', oh well.


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## W.W. (Jun 27, 2011)

I don't get it. _Linked_ has this warning, but my Venture books don't. I added initially added _Linked_ and _Venture Untamed_ to the site myself, but _Venture Unleashed_ and _Bonded_ appeared all on their own, even though _Bonded_ isn't on anybody's shelf.

If this is because of something Amazon is doing, why? Why wouldn't Amazon want Goodreads advertising their products for them?

Why hasn't Goodreads sent e-mails to authors explaining this? It's really short notice, and some people don't visit the site that often.

Do we know for sure that books without this warning displayed are safe?


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

HeidiHall said:


> Is this a response to KDP Select? I know Shelfari partners (is owned?) by Amazon... did another online bookseller do the same with Goodreads? Are they boycotting? I'm not sure how the data coming from Amazon would make it unsafe, but I haven't read the whole article yet. This wording seems weird, too - "...use book information from the most reliable and *open data sources*...". Open data sources? Are they trying to make Goodreads a site where it's easy to find books to pirate? Kind of a bummer, IMO.


It could be that they want links to where people aren't being linked directly to Amazon, who ebook data sources are not open (unlike epub).

Also, there has been some trouble with people loading full-frontal nudity covers to Amazon and then those are uploaded to Goodreads. When I've let Goodreads know, they've said that's what's happening and they have to wait for Amazon to pull down the covers (which they aren't exactly speedy about).

ETA: I don't see the warning on any of mine


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2012)

It amazes me that people automatically assume this is an attack on indies.  Did nobody stop to consider it may be Amazon's fault?  

Goodreads gets its data from various sources.  Does anyone here think those entries are manually entered?  Has it not occurred to people that Amazon has STOPPED providing the data feeds?


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> It amazes me that people automatically assume this is an attack on indies.


Persecution complex.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

I'm not going to rescue them. Good experiment to see if there's any appreciable effect on overall sales.


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## Katy (Dec 16, 2010)

Well, my personal website page for the book is currently down with some technical glitch, so I can't "rescue" my book even if I wanted to. 
So I guess I'll be kicked off Goodreads. 
Just what I need. 
My sales are 1/3 of what they were when I joined Select. I guess they'll plummet even more, now. 

I don't understand why they imply that Amazon info isn't "reliable". 
Whatever.


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## Christopher Smith (Aug 3, 2010)

I'd really like to tell them to kiss my @ss.  This is ridiculous.


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## Kent Kelly (Feb 12, 2011)

Hmm.  Deleting my account.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

Wow, guys. Really? That free web site that gets tens of thousands of readers together to talk about books isn't worth a few minutes of your time? Your call.

It's probably an Amazon policy change that's driving this. Amazon is likely making it more difficult for sites other than affiliates to get to their data. I really doubt there's anything unusual or conspiratorial about this. Chill out. Data is big business and right now Amazon is the best clearinghouse for book information. It's only been a matter of time before the put a choke chain on it.


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## AnneMarie Novark (Aug 15, 2010)

Thanks for the heads up!!!

Just this past week, I put all my books on sale at Goodreads. Don't know if any will sell, but who knows? Might be another income stream.

Anyway, as I rescued my books, I noticed the ones that were recommended by readers from B&N didn't need to be rescued. Very odd.

Anyone else notice this?


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Coral Moore said:


> It's probably an Amazon policy change that's driving this. Amazon is likely making it more difficult for sites other than affiliates to get to their data. I really doubt there's anything unusual or conspiratorial about this. Chill out. Data is big business and right now Amazon is the best clearinghouse for book information. It's only been a matter of time before the put a choke chain on it.


But Goodreads already has the information, so why require it to be entered a second time? And why would Amazon _not _want their information Goodreads, since an online library of book reviews would tend to drive book sales to an online merchant of books?

Something doesn't compute here. It doesn't seem to make sense for either Goodreads or Amazon to be difficult here.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

The conspiracy theorist in me sees a deal with an Amazon competitor on the horizon. The other side of me sees this as more makeshift webmastering by a site that has no idea what it's doing (technically or organizationally).


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

modwitch said:


> Go to your book's page, and you will see a big link at the top.
> 
> Question - do we have any GR librarians in the house? *I have multiple editions for most of my books, and this might be a good time to clean those up.*


I tried to do that once (getting rid of an ancient version of Throwback so people would only see the newer, shinier, better one) and was gently scolded by a librarian who said something along the lines of "we're about making books available, not hiding them."

I suspect I won't do anything about this, mostly because I have no idea what to do or where to do it...


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## Lisa J. Yarde (Jul 15, 2010)

If this issue came about because the Amazon data won't be provided, a simpler thing for GR would have been to say just that, not 'rescue' your book - tells me nothing about why I should care or act.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

AnneMarie Novark said:


> as I rescued my books, I noticed the ones that were recommended by readers from B&N didn't need to be rescued. Very odd.
> 
> Anyone else notice this?


Yes. My B&N editions look "safe," even though they are no longer for sale there (I'm KDP Select now). Hopefully, potential buyers from GR will assume they are available at Amazon when they run into the dead-ends at the B&N site. If not, I'm out of luck, as I have no blog or web site to "rescue" them with. I wonder how many people are in this same situation.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

I don't understand. What information does Goodreads pull from Amazon? I don't see this warning on any of my books. But, then again, I think I uploaded all the data myself. Can't remember.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

MichaelWallace said:


> But Goodreads already has the information, so why require it to be entered a second time? And why would Amazon _not _want their information Goodreads, since this drives book sales with an online library of book reviews would tend to drive book sales to an online merchant of books?
> 
> Something doesn't compute here. It doesn't seem to make sense for either Goodreads or Amazon to be difficult here.


Big data companies change their policies all the time. They use the drug dealer's marketing system.  Get tons of people to use your data for free, then flip the switch and tell them to hand over their wallet. I would venture to speculate that it's not that Amazon doesn't want Goodreads to have the info, but probably that they want a licensing fee from them. It may be if they don't want to pay whatever fee they have to remove all the data they got from 'Zon. Just wild speculation on my part, but it makes the most sense to me.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Why, Goodreads, why??


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

I don't really know what to think about this, but as neither of my indie-pubbed books has the warning at the top, at least I don't have to figure out what to do about it.


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

Coral Moore said:


> Big data companies change their policies all the time. They use the drug dealer's marketing system.  Get tons of people to use your data for free, then flip the switch and tell them to hand over their wallet. I would venture to speculate that it's not that Amazon doesn't want Goodreads to have the info, but probably that they want a licensing fee from them. It may be if they don't want to pay whatever fee they have to remove all the data they got from 'Zon. Just wild speculation on my part, but it makes the most sense to me.


It could be something like that. I wonder why Goodreads is going with the cute language about "rescuing books" rather than explain it a bit more thoroughly...

edit: I take some of that back. It appears that the word "rescue" wasn't in any announcement that Goodreads made.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I'm guessing that either Amazon has pulled the plug on the linked info (and maybe even demanded that they remove any information that is created by/copyright Amazon) or Goodreads plans to start selling more books (I'm not sure but I think I remember someone saying that you could sell an ebook on Goodreads but that you could only upload one version & then you were stuck with that one?) - either in conjunction with someone else or on their own - and that they know this will make Amazon pull the plug.

That or it's a policy they brought in when they thought Sopa might pass and it's to pre-empt any attempt to shut them down for having Amazon's data on their site.

Either way, I doubt they'd be doing it without good reason and it's worth doing something about it.

As a reader though, I'll be a bit annoyed if they strip out books that I've rated and shelved, annoyed at whoever is responsible for making them do this!  There's nothing I could see about this but I only have a reader account at the moment.


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

dgaughran said:


> I don't understand. What information does Goodreads pull from Amazon? I don't see this warning on any of my books. But, then again, I think I uploaded all the data myself. Can't remember.


I seem to remember uploading my own data, too. Perhaps this is why I didn't get a message and my book doesn't have anything about it on its page...? If I do have to "rescue" my book, then jolly good, I will. But at the moment, I'm not seeing anything that tells me I have to.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Here's a screenshot of the page:


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## portiadacosta (Feb 28, 2011)

All my self published titles needed rescuing. Have done that now, and added a book that hadn't been 'discovered'. 

Thanks for alerting me, KB friends!


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Just checked to make sure it wasn't April 1st.










Zeus bless Kindleboards for existing.

B.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2012)

I THINK I may have uploaded the info a while ago, because I don't see the rescue thingy.  Don't remember.

I agree with everything Monique said, btw.  It's a great idea, executed HORRIBLY.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

I wonder how this will affect Goodreads Self-Serve advertising? If you can't link to your book's Amazon URL, it's a waste of money.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Is it only Goodreads authors who are seeing this?  The screenshot reads like you can do it on behalf of an author/publisher - but I can't see where I'd find this in my Goodreads account.  I have 446 books on my shelves and would be happy to help save any that need it if I can find out how I tell if they need saving/can save them.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I am being told in the Goodreads Librarian forum that KDP books are not in danger and a fix is in progress.

I'll check there again and post more.


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## Cassandra Blizzard (Jul 2, 2011)

This is strange. Will have to check it out. I have been stuck between reading posts and looking at all the great covers out there these days!


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## emilyward (Mar 5, 2011)

Coral Moore said:


> What a pain in the behind. Glad I don't have a million books to update. I wonder, now that it won't be updating from Amazon anymore, what will be the best way to add new books?


I've added books before their release date. The easiest way to do it is search for your book. It won't show up, obviously, and in the top left there should be a link that says "Manually add a book." It takes just a few minutes to fill it all out, and the only required fields are title, author, and sort by title.



Mike McIntyre said:


> Yes. My B&N editions look "safe," even though they are no longer for sale there (I'm KDP Select now). Hopefully, potential buyers from GR will assume they are available at Amazon when they run into the dead-ends at the B&N site. If not, I'm out of luck, as I have no blog or web site to "rescue" them with. I wonder how many people are in this same situation.


Well, it's not too hard to make a blog. They're free and require little maintenance. It would at least be a nice place for readers to go to figure out where your books are sold.

I really don't think this is some kind of conspiracy. . .probably like Coral said, some change on Amazon's part. About ratings, reviews, and shelves, books aren't going to be completely erased. It says this:


> Your data is safe.
> Your ratings, reviews, and bookshelves are safe, but your data may be moved to a different edition of the book. If we can't find a matching edition, then your review will be attached to a book with no title or author.


Here is a more detailed post:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/776968-amazon-is-going-away-as-a-data-source



> Amazon's data has been great for us for many years, but the terms that come with it have gotten more and more restrictive, and we were finally forced to come to the conclusion that moving to other datasources will be better for Goodreads and our members in so many ways that we had to do it. It may be a little painful, but our aim is to make it as seamless as possible for all our members.


If your book doesn't have the rescue button, then they probably were able to find the information from other sources - Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, etc.


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## Nichole Chase (Feb 25, 2011)

I don't see a warning or note at the top of either of my books. I'm guessing that I don't need to do anything then? To be honest, Goodreads is wonderful for readers, but a nightmare to navigate.


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## Danielle Kazemi (Apr 2, 2011)

@JRTomlin Thanks for the update. Keep us posted on anything else you discover.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

This was just posted in the Goodreads Librarain forum:



> The Amazon API includes books published on the Amazon KDP and books from many other publishers. We are losing the "many other publishers" part, not the KDP. We are going to get a feed of KDP books from Amazon directly.


*KDP authors don't panic. *I've been assured that they are working removing the warnings from KDP books.


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> This was just posted in the Goodreads Librarain forum:
> 
> *KDP authors don't panic. *I've been assured that they are working removing the warnings from KDP books.


Thank you so much for the update!!


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

It would have been nice to know KDP books were safe, rather than check my book and have the banner pop up at the top indicating action needed to be taken.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I absolutely agree. In their defence, they seem to be pretty overwhelmed with what's going on. They say that the banner will be removed from KDP books. I think they may be waiting for a feed from Amazon of KDP books. Here is a further post.



> We love Kindle authors, and to clarify, none of the people who published through the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) are at risk of losing their books (or even the Kindle editions of those books). We will still be getting a regular feed of all of those works from Amazon.
> 
> Please keep in mind that it is works that are at risk, not editions, and there should, in the end, be very, very, very few works that are actually at risk. And I can guarantee you that none of them are by indie authors published through KDP. Hope that clarifies, but feel free ask any follow up questions you have.


I was assured that they are *NOT *abandoning indie authors. (I had a hissy fit and it took tea and crackers to calm me down off a ledge)

Edit: Now I am not sure about CreateSpace editions of books. I'll post a question about those later. Right now my heart rate is still going down.


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## Lanie Jordan (Feb 23, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I absolutely agree. In their defence, they seem to be pretty overwhelmed with what's going on. They say that the banner will be removed from KDP books. I think they may be waiting for a feed from Amazon of KDP books. Here is a further post.
> 
> I was assured that they are *NOT *abandoning indie authors. (I had a hissy fit and it took tea and crackers to calm me down off a ledge)
> 
> Edit: Now I am not sure about CreateSpace editions of books. I'll post a question about those later. Right now my heart rate is still going down.


So...do we not need to do anything if we published through KDP then, even if we have the banner? My only for-sale title only shows the Amazon thing right now, so it has the bar. I'm confused.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Thanks for the heads up! I changed it to my website.  Boy, things are changing daily. Between Goodreads, iBooks, DRM, SOPA, people picking sides...It's getting to be a digital battlefield out there.


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

Monique said:


> I want to like Goodreads, heck, I want to love it, but it's the most illogical site I've ever seen.


Spot on! I hate Goodreads. The "ratings" are backed up with no explanations, opening it up to literary driveby shootings. I also receive the most flippant and caustic reviews on GR than anywhere else. I cancelled out of one writers forum after the moderator persistently hit up members to buy her book services. Frankly, I wouldn't mind my books disappearing from the site.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Lanie Jordan said:


> So...do we not need to do anything if we published through KDP then, even if we have the banner? My only for-sale title only shows the Amazon thing right now, so it has the bar. I'm confused.


My understanding is that we don't have to do anything. However, you can rescue them if you want to and having an eBook copy is having a "physical" copy as far as Goodreads is concerned.

I am asking for further clarification on several issues and have to wait for replies. I'll do more updates.

I am not sure how much I get out of my books being on Goodreads or that it would hurt if they did disappear, but I don't think we want them forced out.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

angkor said:


> Spot on! I hate Goodreads. The "ratings" are backed up with no explanations, opening it up to literary driveby shootings. I also receive the most flippant and caustic reviews on GR than anywhere else. I cancelled out of one writers forum after the moderator persistently hit up members to buy her book services. Frankly, I wouldn't mind my books disappearing from the site.


My gripes aren't with goodreads users, it's with the management/IT dept. They love books; that much is clear. And yay for that! But the site has some of the most illogical and just idiotic organization/navigation. It's no wonder this rescue initiative is one foot in and one foot out without either knowing what tune their dancing to.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Monique said:


> My gripes aren't with goodreads users, it's with the management/IT dept. They love books; that much is clear. And yay for that! But the site has some of the most illogical and just idiotic organization/navigation. It's no wonder this rescue initiative is one foot in and one foot out without either knowing what tune their dancing to.


I agree and it's why I don't use it much although (obviously) I am a Goodreads librarian. I got that so I could fix things on books if they were wrong.

Being a librarian at least gives me access to the forum where this is being discussed and where I can -- kinda -- get answers.

Edit: And before I get in trouble for posting info from another forum, I am doing so with their agreement so authors here have an idea what is going on.


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## Gayle (Aug 31, 2009)

Those of you who have websites can help the "rescue" process. Put the publisher, publication date, page count on your website along with the cover and description. However, don't link this info to Amazon. If you have other editions of your book, link to the publisher. A librarian can access this info and update for you. That will help tremendously. It took me several sites to find this information on just one book.


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## kea (Jun 13, 2011)

Christopher Smith said:


> I'd really like to tell them to kiss my @ss. This is ridiculous.


This.


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## kea (Jun 13, 2011)

Still ticked, but cooling off, "rescued" my book, and, as usual, I'm so grateful to OP and everyone else here for the heads up and thinking through of the situation.


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## Lanie Jordan (Feb 23, 2011)

I think I'm going to wait until next week before I get into panic mode. It sounds really annoying to have to do this, but it seems to be a pretty easy fix. (I haven't fixed it yet, but I did look at the page.)

For those who might not have read the Goodreads message and/or are busy 'rescuing' their books, here's a bit quoted (bolding is mine):



> *Early next week, we will be importing a database of 14 million ISBNs from a new source, so many of the books that seem to need rescue today may not actually be in jeopardy. We won't know until we import this new data source. So please don't spend a lot of time rescuing books-we don't want you to do unnecessary work.* What we really need is for everyone to try rescuing a few books to see if the tools are working as we hoped. That way, once next week rolls around, we'll be ready to get down to the business or rescuing the books that actually are in jeopardy.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I got some more clarification from the people at Goodreads in response to my questions:



> Even if a book is only on Amazon, there are alternative sources of info for it--namely, the author. The author has all of the information required to rescue the book. They don't need to cut and paste from Amazon to know the title, description, cover, etc.
> 
> Authors should probably rescue their books. In most cases, the books will be included in the new database we're going to import next week, but it doesn't hurt to rescue them.
> 
> ...


I'm going to go through the rescue process on one of my books and see how that goes.


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## Usedtopostheretoo! (Feb 27, 2011)

I consider myself to be a relatively savvy and intelligent individual, and the URL source concept is simply unclear...and asinine. Hey, I have a physical copy of my book! What do I do with it? Wave it in front of my computer? I don't see this as an attack, as much as blatant, unexplained (not unexplainable) foolishness. I don't know why I get riled up by this stuff.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Steven Konkoly said:


> I consider myself to be a relatively savvy and intelligent individual, and the URL source concept is simply unclear...and asinine. Hey, I have a physical copy of my book! What do I do with it? Wave it in front of my computer? I don't see this as an attack, as much as blatant, unexplained (not unexplainable) foolishness. I don't know why I get riled up by this stuff.


You don't actually need a source URL. I confirmed that on the Librarian Forum.

Their wording on this whole thing is pretty poor. If you have the physical book which includes a file copy which one assumes an author does, you don't need any url even though it says it's required. _Ignore that_. There is a box to click if you have the physical copy.

I just "rescued" one of my own novels to confirm that it wasn't a problem.

And I understand getting riled. This whole thing has been pretty irritating.


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## Skate (Jan 23, 2011)

I wish I'd read some of these later posts before I went and changed details for one of my books (the other two didn't have the banner). Does this mean I can now change the URL back to Amazon or will they still do it automatically. I've found people don't tend to like having to click twice to get to a sale point.

I've actually found Goodreads quite good for sales. There are some aspects of the site I simply can't understand, but generally I like it.


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## Usedtopostheretoo! (Feb 27, 2011)

I just rescued my books, whatever that actually means. Frankly, it took me ten seconds, and I don't care. I do want to thank Danielle for starting this post, and pointing it out. I have been on my dashboard twice today, and didn't notice the words above my books...probably because the words did not sink into my subconscious as being remotely logical or valuable. Seriously, thanks Danielle.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Skate said:


> I wish I'd read some of these later posts before I went and changed details for one of my books (the other two didn't have the banner). Does this mean I can now change the URL back to Amazon or will they still do it automatically. I've found people don't tend to like having to click twice to get to a sale point.
> 
> I've actually found Goodreads quite good for sales. There are some aspects of the site I simply can't understand, but generally I like it.


I don't *think* the fact that they no longer get information from Amazon means that you can't link to Amazon. But that I have not confirmed it. All this has to do with the fact that they are no longer getting information from Amazon. I agree with you that people don't like to click twice. At the moment, I'm just a bit dizzy with all this so I'm taking a break from this issue.

At worst, we have until Jan. 30 to get all this figured out and fixed.


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## mish (Jun 27, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Being a librarian at least gives me access to the forum where this is being discussed and where I can -- kinda -- get answers.


If you mean the Goodreads Librarian forum then it is a public group and anyone can access it whether they are a librarian or not....just sayin' in case anybody here wants to go there and read the discussion on this topic. Somebody linked to it in a previous post.

P.S. You might want to check out your book, A Kingdom's Cost. I noticed it is separated from the rest of your books (because of spaces in your initials) and has Freedom's Sword as a title.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

mish said:


> If you mean the Goodreads Librarian forum then it is a public group and anyone can access it whether they are a librarian or not....just sayin' in case anybody here wants to go there and read the discussion on this topic. Somebody linked to it in a previous post.
> 
> P.S. You might want to check out your book, A Kingdom's Cost. I noticed it is separated from the rest of your books (because of spaces in your initials) and has Freedom's Sword as a title.


Thanks for the reminder. I'd forgotten that the Librarian Forum was public.

Oops. I'll go fix that. WAY too much time on the internet.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

First, JR, thanks for all your work on getting info and posting on this!  I'm a GR librarian but I hardly ever spend time there unless I have a new release.

The whole thing is mildly annoying, but that's about it.  Can't blame Goodreads if the terms of the Amazon feed are no longer acceptable, and can't blame Amazon for wanting to control their own data.

Now, the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if, far from being anything against indies, it's the opposite.  If Amazon's giving them a KDP feed but not other publishers, it's only good for us and bad for those publishers. And maybe that's by design.

That may not be it at all of course.  But it wouldn't surprise me to see in 2012 the Amazon vs TradPub battle get just about as ugly as it did over agency pricing. Or worse.


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

I just checked _Devil's Lair_ on Goodreads and was happily surprised. Not only did they not have a note for me to rescue the book, but the cover has been updated!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7813771-devil-s-lair

For over a year I've been trying to figure out how to update my cover on Goodreads. Last time I checked, they were still displaying the original (not-so-good) cover.

Now the current cover shows up on Goodreads.

Yay!

David


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

edwardgtalbot said:


> First, JR, thanks for all your work on getting info and posting on this! I'm a GR librarian but I hardly ever spend time there unless I have a new release.
> 
> The whole thing is mildly annoying, but that's about it. Can't blame Goodreads if the terms of the Amazon feed are no longer acceptable, and can't blame Amazon for wanting to control their own data.
> 
> ...


You're quite welcome. I can't say I spend much time there either. Obviously, Amazon is willing to feed KDP information. Why the other isn't available is anyone's guess. It'll all work out and we do have time to work on any glitches.

Doing the rescue is very easy and only takes a few seconds. Just be sure you type your name and the title in correctly, which I didn't on the first one.  

No need for a URL although the page makes it look as though you need one.


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## Colin Taber (Apr 4, 2011)

My two cents worth:

* My paperbacks (via Createspace) don't need rescuing, but there'd be data out there because of expanded distribution.
* My Kindle editions are listed as needing rescuing, as they are the lone ebook editions available outside of piracy (I never got around to Smashwords, etc.).
* My Australian paperbacks (different ISBNs, different publisher) don't even have a listing, yet that's where the vast majority of my paperback sales are.


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## Kellyfisher319 (Dec 9, 2011)

Only 2 of mine needed "rescued" which was weird since they all have only been published through Amazon, but I rescued them just in case. Thanks for the info, from now on I will just manually upload my work. It seems the ones I had to manually upload didn't recieve the "rescue your book" message.


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## 48209 (Jul 4, 2011)

I rescued mine. If you're like me and everyone's annoyance and panic had you super nervous --- don't worry. It was really easy and took less than a minute!

Also, people who are considering saying, "I'm not going to do it" a little while ago I noticed I'd have a day here and there that randomly had 7-12% higher sales. When I went back and looked at those days compared to when I got a GR review, they lined up every time. You might want to check if you have bounces like that due to GR before tossing them out for an inconvenience. I'd hate to see anyone here lose out.

The next thing will be next month when I have to relearn how to add my next book


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

Am I figuring this right.

Amazon can claim copyright on my title, and can claim copyright on my author's name, and no one can reprint that info from Amazon?


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

Honestly, it seems to be causing panic.  I have seen half a dozen wig-outs on twitter.  The way it was "explained" seemed to create even more confusion.  Most of the twitter people thought it meant they couldn't get self pubbed/direct pubbed books on goodreads anymore.

Gah!


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## Learnmegood (Jun 20, 2009)

My newest book did indeed need to be "rescued," but none of the 5 (FIVE!) editions of Learn Me Good had that banner on the top.  

What gets me about Goodreads is that except for one edition of Learn Me Good, every other edition AND the one edition of Learn Me Gooder is attributed to a DIFFERENT John Pearson!  If you look at the author information, it talks about how the author is most often associated with the James Bond saga.  I've written to them and asked them to change this, but haven't heard any response.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

Guess what I'm trying to figure out is this:

My book "title" goes into Amazon's database.

My "author's name" goes into Amazon's database.

Maybe my book's page count goes into Amazon's database.

Now is Goodreads trying to say that it can not use that info because it is "Amazon's database" and Goodreads wants us to add the "book title" and "author's name" and "page count" from a non-Amazon source?

If this is the case, then are we giving Amazon "database control" over our info, including our own name?


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

I hate to admit it, but good reads is a thorn in my side. My ranting are constantly .5 to 2 stars lower their than anywhere else. I get two-star reviews saying they enjoyed it and it was well written? My free books it's the worst. It literally makes me sick to click on some of my titles.


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## KateEllison (Jul 9, 2011)

Learnmegood said:


> My newest book did indeed need to be "rescued," but none of the 5 (FIVE!) editions of Learn Me Good had that banner on the top.
> 
> What gets me about Goodreads is that except for one edition of Learn Me Good, every other edition AND the one edition of Learn Me Gooder is attributed to a DIFFERENT John Pearson! If you look at the author information, it talks about how the author is most often associated with the James Bond saga. I've written to them and asked them to change this, but haven't heard any response.


Keep trying. There is another Kate Ellison and her books were being listed as mine. I contacted them complaining about it and they fixed the error.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

[


Okey Dokey said:


> Guess what I'm trying to figure out is this:
> 
> My book "title" goes into Amazon's database.
> 
> ...


This has nothing to do with copyright and Goodreads is saying nothing of the sort. Copyright doesn't even apply to titles or to your name.

They aren't saying they can't use the data. Whether they get the data from Amazon (which they said they expect to) or from the author doesn't matter.


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## Sylvia Day (Jan 21, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> This was just posted in the Goodreads Librarain forum:
> 
> _The Amazon API includes books published on the Amazon KDP and books from many other publishers. We are losing the "many other publishers" part, not the KDP. We are going to get a feed of KDP books from Amazon directly. _
> 
> *KDP authors don't panic. *I've been assured that they are working removing the warnings from KDP books.


Is this saying Amazon is removing the books of traditional publishers from their feeds? Or that Goodreads is just choosing to disregard those feeds (while maintaining a direct KDP feed) for whatever reason? If it's the former, I can't see that being good for relations between trad publishers and Amazon.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

sylviaday said:


> Is this saying Amazon is removing the books of traditional publishers from their feeds? Or that Goodreads is just choosing to disregard those feeds (while maintaining a direct KDP feed) for whatever reason? If it's the former, I can't see that being good for relations between trad publishers and Amazon.


No one seems to know, just there is a drastic change in what information Goodreads receives. It could be that publishers have told Amazon to remove them from the feeds. The good news is that the distruption as far as KDP authors are concerned is at worst temporary.


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## JoshuaPSimon (Jun 24, 2011)

Monique said:


> My gripes aren't with goodreads users, it's with the management/IT dept. They love books; that much is clear. And yay for that! But the site has some of the most illogical and just idiotic organization/navigation. It's no wonder this rescue initiative is one foot in and one foot out without either knowing what tune their dancing to.


And Library Thing is ten times worse.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Thanks so much for letting us know!  What a royal pain!

I just went and "rescued" about 5 editions (mostly Kindle or out of print paper) , and good thing many other editions were fine.  

However, those were just my own books.  

I do not want to deal with near 300 titles by other authors whom I've published through Norilana Books.

I hope they resolve this, else it's a genuine nightmare.


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## RuthMadison (Jul 9, 2011)

Goodreads has been good to me. I have a lot of readers there and more ratings there than anywhere.

There was no banner on my one select book; there were on the others. Pretty funny that that's the only one without a warning.

I just noticed something new. *You can sell ebook versions through Goodreads*. I'm guessing that's new, I haven't seen it before. The author dashboard has buttons for each book where you can upload an eversion either for people to download free or to buy in epub format. I wonder how that works and whether it's related to this change.


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## Marie S (May 20, 2011)

Thanks for letting us know. I've just rescued my two!


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

Steven Konkoly said:


> I just rescued my books, whatever that actually means. Frankly, it took me ten seconds, and I don't care. I do want to thank Danielle for starting this post, and pointing it out. I have been on my dashboard twice today, and didn't notice the words above my books...probably because the words did not sink into my subconscious as being remotely logical or valuable. Seriously, thanks Danielle.


Welcome. 

I don't check GR all that often, so I figured a heads up was in order.


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## JoeMitchell (Jun 6, 2010)

This might be of interest:

I rescued my book last night.  Very easy.  However, today when I go to my author dashboard page, it no longer shows my book, and says:

"Number of works: 0"

It used to show my book there.  My book is still in their database as it should be, but to Goodreads, it's not mine anymore.

I could probably fix it if I felt like digging in, but something tells me this fiasco isn't done unfolding, so I'll wait a couple days to see if it sorts itself out.

Anyone else getting disconnected from their book after rescuing it?


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## lib2b (Apr 6, 2010)

MJAWare said:


> I hate to admit it, but good reads is a thorn in my side. My ranting are constantly .5 to 2 stars lower their than anywhere else. I get two-star reviews saying they enjoyed it and it was well written? My free books it's the worst. It literally makes me sick to click on some of my titles.


For readers who pay attention to what Goodreads and Amazon say their stars mean, this makes total sense because the Goodreads stars skew more positive in meaning. For instance, on Goodreads a 2 star = OK. On Amazon, OK is 3 stars. That's because Amazon has both a "I didn't like it" star rating and an "I hated it" star rating. Goodreads only "bad" rating is 1 star to say you didn't like it. Not that everyone who uses the ratings on either place pay attention to the official meanings of the stars, but that could explain it.


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Thanks for the head's up. Only one of my actual books had the warning; the other three didn't. As for the ABNA excerpt that's there (the link for which leads nowhere, since it was taken down by Amazon sometime after that year's contest ended), I left that one alone. Maybe it will finally disappear - yay!



> This might be of interest:
> 
> I rescued my book last night. Very easy. However, today when I go to my author dashboard page, it no longer shows my book, and says:
> 
> ...


Ergh. That's weird. Thanks for alerting us, Joe. I'll keep checking, but it does sound like some things needed to be sorted out yet.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

Oh, wow! I'm so glad I clicked on this link to update my information. They should tell someone about this! Okay, maybe they did, but I somehow missed the memo until now.


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## SylviaLucas (Sep 14, 2011)

Thank you for posting this. Updating now! It actually inspired me to create needed book pages for my website, so thanks for that, too.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Why on earth would Goodreads roll out the "rescue this book" messaging before they had all of the new feeds in place? Doing it before they had set up the KDP feed was just moronic. If they had timed it correctly, very few books would have needed rescuing, and all of this author panic/angst/anger could have been avoided. And if they didn't want us to waste a bunch of time rescuing books unnecessarily, why not turn the fool message off until they were actually read to do it right?

Come on, Otis, get your act together!


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## mish (Jun 27, 2011)

JoeMitchell said:


> This might be of interest:
> 
> I rescued my book last night. Very easy. However, today when I go to my author dashboard page, it no longer shows my book, and says:
> 
> ...


There is another author in the Goodreads dbase with your name. When you rescued your book I suspect you accidentally removed the disambiguation. From my end your book now shows up under your profile. There was also a stray edition so I combined them.


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## MH Sargent (Apr 8, 2010)

Steven Konkoly said:


> Hey, I have a physical copy of my book! What do I do with it? Wave it in front of my computer?


Thanks for making me LOL this morning. Too funny.

On a serious note, thanks Danielle for this thread, otherwise I'd be clueless about this. Going off to rescue my books now. What fun!


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## BarbaraSilkstone (Feb 18, 2010)

I was over GoodReads after my first experience with them.
Now I am really over them.


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## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

Coral Moore said:


> What a pain in the behind. Glad I don't have a million books to update. I wonder, now that it won't be updating from Amazon anymore, what will be the best way to add new books?


If you have a physical copy of the book, for some reason, it's much easier to "rescue the book." Of my four novels, the only one that I needed to rescue was the one that is with Kindle Select. I find that interesting.


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## altworld (Mar 11, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> It amazes me that people automatically assume this is an attack on indies. Did nobody stop to consider it may be Amazon's fault?
> 
> Goodreads gets its data from various sources. Does anyone here think those entries are manually entered? Has it not occurred to people that Amazon has STOPPED providing the data feeds?


This is most likely the cause, I know Amazon moved from sql to nosql so that may be causing issues, or Amazon is moving to walled garden approach. Either way Goodreads pulls information from multiple sources, so no need for the mass kneejerk panic.


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## Learnmegood (Jun 20, 2009)

mish said:


> There is another author in the Goodreads dbase with your name. When you rescued your book I suspect you accidentally removed the disambiguation. From my end your book now shows up under your profile. There was also a stray edition so I combined them.


Mish, does this mean you have "Super librarian" powers on GR? If so, can you put all of MY books back under MY name?


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## mish (Jun 27, 2011)

Learnmegood said:


> Mish, does this mean you have "Super librarian" powers on GR? If so, can you put all of MY books back under MY name?


Nah, not super, just regular everyday librarian  However, there really are some librarians designated as super-librarians so can they do extra stuff.

I think I corralled all your books and got them back under your profile. If you see any I missed, let me know. I also added a missing image, combined the stray editions, and fixed a format designation (one of them had a Kindle ASIN but was listed as a paperback).

For your reference, if you add a book manually in the future, make sure you enter your name with 2 spaces between your first and last name. The book should then attach itself to your profile instead of the default John Pearson. This is how GR separates authors with the same name. If your book is automatically fed into the dbase from Amazon, B&N, etc. then it will probably default to the first John Pearson, but it is an easy thing to fix.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

HeidiHall said:


> Is this a response to KDP Select? I know Shelfari partners (is owned?) by Amazon... did another online bookseller do the same with Goodreads? Are they boycotting? I'm not sure how the data coming from Amazon would make it unsafe, but I haven't read the whole article yet. This wording seems weird, too - "...use book information from the most reliable and *open data sources*...". Open data sources? Are they trying to make Goodreads a site where it's easy to find books to pirate? Kind of a bummer, IMO.


If they are boycotting, they'll probably want to ensure the integrity of the database going forward before de-linking any Amazon APIs. Amazon may have told them to stop copy/pasting from their website. I suppose we'll have to wait until February 1st to find out (if we ever do).


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## ElisabethGFoley (Nov 20, 2011)

My single ebook has two editions - one listed simply as 'ebook', with all the information pulled from Barnes & Noble, and the Kindle edition. (The B&N one actually showed up on Goodreads first after I published the book.) The Kindle edition had the rescue notice, so I just went ahead and did it to avoid any possible temporary disappearance. Took me about ten seconds.


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## amiblackwelder (Mar 19, 2010)

Did it, thanks!


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## Lisa Scott (Apr 4, 2011)

Hi, I apologize in advance if I'm being thick about this.  Between my individual short stories and complete collections, I have 19 books on Goodreads, and most of them have the warning.  I don't have all my individual shorts listed on my website.  Can I link to the smashwords description?  Is that acceptable?  Thanks


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Lisa Scott said:


> Hi, I apologize in advance if I'm being thick about this. Between my individual short stories and complete collections, I have 19 books on Goodreads, and most of them have the warning. I don't have all my individual shorts listed on my website. Can I link to the smashwords description? Is that acceptable? Thanks


The form says not to use any bookseller, so I'd say no. Just click the "I have a copy" box. Goodreads considers (for this purpose) owning an ebook the same has having the physical book.


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## MH Sargent (Apr 8, 2010)

Monique said:


> Just click the "I have a copy" box. Goodreads considers (for this purpose) owning an ebook the same has having the physical book.


Don't worry about finding a URL site. Monique is correct that all you do is mark 'I have a copy' box and you'll be fine. Worked for my books.


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## TiffanyTurner (Jun 8, 2009)

Thanks for a heads up on this. I've been sick all weekend and have been just looking over threads to catch up. I've gone and rescued my second book. Looks like my first book was already saved by a kind GR librarian currently reading it. I do like the fact that Goodreads seems to cater to the avid reader. 

I was wondering if anyone has seen the same thing happening on other reader sites or even Author sites. If Amazon is pulling data feeds from Goodreads, would they be pulling it from other sites? I know a lot of bookselling sites use the feeds and even Amazon reviews in their ratings. I wonder how hardball Amazon is getting. 

I looked on Librarything.com and didn't see a warning. Redroom.com and Authorsden has the author enter the information. Redroom has this new author joint venture where you get a % of the sale if your books sell with them. I can see why Amazon is starting to limit their data. There is a growing competition. But are they just not making it available to Goodreads? Or will it spread to other sites as well? Anyone see this happening with other sites yet?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

LeonardDHilleyII said:


> If you have a physical copy of the book, for some reason, it's much easier to "rescue the book." Of my four novels, the only one that I needed to rescue was the one that is with Kindle Select. I find that interesting.


Having a digital copy is considered having a "physical copy" by Goodreads. LOL


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

TiffanyTurner said:


> I was wondering if anyone has seen the same thing happening on other reader sites or even Author sites. If Amazon is pulling data feeds from Goodreads, would they be pulling it from other sites? I know a lot of bookselling sites use the feeds and even Amazon reviews in their ratings. I wonder how hardball Amazon is getting.


I don't think Amazon is behind this at all. I believe it is a Goodreads initiative. Goodreads IS planning to implement a KDP feed, but it isn't in place yet. The problem here really is that their timing stinks. They should have had all of the alternative feeds in place before they started displaying the warnings.

As far as I've been able to tell, Goodreads is mainly trying to filter out the book information that Amazon passes on from other sources. Presumably, they want cleaner information from closer to the source, before Amazon has had a chance to homogenize it for Amazon's own purposes. It makes sense that they still need the KDP feed, because Amazon _does_ have the database of record for that info.

I put a question into the Goodreads Developer Forum about this issue yesterday. I'll pass along what I learn (if anything.)


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## shel (May 14, 2011)

Thanks to Danielle and everyone else who has shared info here on KB!

I needed to rescue my CreateSpace book
My KDP (the ASIN) version of my book did not need rescuing. 
There is another edition of my book on Goodreads    It has an ISBN I don't know and says that it's an ebook.  Even stranger:  the description has some weird characters in it.  Any advice on how to clean up/eliminate this edition?  

Hoping by bumping someone else stumbles on this thread like I did.


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## 4eyesbooks (Jan 9, 2012)

Thanks for sharing this info.  I never got any notification from Goodreads, but I've "rescued" my book.


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## AliciaStreet (Sep 27, 2011)

Here's what Goodreads had to say about it on their blog.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/776968-amazon-is-going-away-as-a-data-source

Makes it a little clearer.


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## tgahan (Jan 23, 2012)

It appears that this another example of how authors have painted themselves into a corner by using Amazon only.


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## mscottwriter (Nov 5, 2010)

After reading this (and other) threads, I blogged about this topic . The post was nothing special (just a recap of the discussions), but a day later, I had a GoodReads employee post a comment on the blog.

Mind you, my blog gets precious little traffic, so I was amazed to see a GR rep. bothering to post a comment. It must be that they were trolling the Internet for this topic? I didn't mind the comment at all, but it surprised me.


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## 13500 (Apr 22, 2010)

mscott9985 said:


> After reading this (and other) threads, I blogged about this topic . The post was nothing special (just a recap of the discussions), but a day later, I had a GoodReads employee post a comment on the blog.
> 
> Mind you, my blog gets precious little traffic, so I was amazed to see a GR rep. bothering to post a comment. It must be that they were trolling the Internet for this topic? I didn't mind the comment at all, but it surprised me.


I think there is something wrong with your link. I couldn't read it.


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## Elmore Hammes (Jun 23, 2009)

Karen Wojcik Berner said:


> I think there is something wrong with your link. I couldn't read it.


Here's the correct link for mscott9985's blog: http://www.mscottfiction.com/21stCenturyWriter/?p=382


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## mscottwriter (Nov 5, 2010)

Elmore Hammes said:


> Here's the correct link for mscott9985's blog: http://www.mscottfiction.com/21stCenturyWriter/?p=382


Thanks, Elmore! No idea what happened there


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