Moving on, letting go

Posted on July 26, 2009 by janicu

I’ve had a couple of discussions with people whose opinions I like to pay attention to, and after about 7 months of my personal Amazon boycott, I’ve decided I’m over it and will start putting links to Amazon up here again.

1) They fixed the problem with the amazonfail (even though their explanation left me kinda meh)

2) They apologized for moving customers books from their kindles

3) While I still feel irritated that authors can game the system, well.. I’ve moved onto the idea the authors are probably more to blame than the system.

So, thinking about it, I feel like 7 months is enough. While I will probably spend more of my money elsewhere, I no longer think I need to stop linking to them. I also like giving people a choice and I understand a lot of people didn’t have the same strong reactions that I did (in my own household, I have people disagreeing with me). Hopefully amazon doesn’t do something else .. *crosses fingers*.

Now on to grumbling about other things, like how advertisements for that Orphan movie take over one third of the screen while I’m watching the Tour de France. *shakes fist*.

#amazonfail

Posted on April 13, 2009 by janicu

Have you heard the latest about amazon? Here's a couple of links with the low down:

Amazon under fire for perceived anti-gay policy

and

Amazon Rank

I really have a love/hate relationship with that company. This latest controversy is making me swing over to hate yet again. I have to now get a Barnes and Noble or Borders affiliate account and start linking my books over to them instead of Amazon. Also must ask people not to buy me gift certs there and get it elsewhere instead. I feel very aggravated.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Off the TBR

Posted on April 19, 2008 by janicu

The TBR needs to go down, so I'm being stern with myself. I know I'm never going to pick these books up and finish them, so may as well take them off. TBR will be at 130 without them. I also took off a travel book (it's a reference book, why is it there? and a book the fiance asked me to get which I'll never read).

Note about amazon thing from before – I know that the book pictures I have link to Amazon. That's the way vox works. Contemplating what I want to do about that.

Howling Moon (A Tale of the Sazi, Book 4)

C. T. Adams

I read about 100 pages in, skimmed the rest. Lets call this a did not finish – was not my bag, baby. I got this book with a bunch of other urban fantasy. It's book 4 of a series, but you don't have to have read the other books to understand this. It's a story of a Sazi (shapeshifters) couple – Raphael, a wolf and Cat – who just got bitten and is a jaguar. Raphael is supposed to be teaching Cat about being a shapeshifter. They have to deal with a bunch of people in the Pack who aren't happy (just sounds like poor leadership), and there is a psycho Sazi who turned Cat. For some reason dealing with the psycho is complicated even though everyone knows who he is. The writing is ok, but I didn't really care about the characters and the world, and the story dragged.

Prep: A Novel

Curtis Sittenfeld

This was just a downer. Loner kid joins prep school. Learns about life. Life is hard. I couldn't take it. I can smell when a book is just out there for angst's sake. I was pretty sure the ending will be something like: and nothing happened; the end. The writing was good, but I had zero interest after 5 pages. I skimmed – yup, angst, nothing happens, the end. My life is angst enough, so I avoid it in books if I can. I may have read this when I was younger and had a higher tolerance.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I changed my mind

Posted on April 19, 2008 by janicu

Remember how I was talking about switching to Amazon for pre-ordering because B&N took longer to give me my books? I changed my mind. I can wait.

On Dear Author I've been following a story about someone who gave a book a three star review, but because the author was gaming the system, her review just kept getting deleted over and over, no matter how many times she complained to Amazon. Now she's become someone of "bad standing" and can't post reviews at ALL.

I had this whole rant but really just look at the evidence yourselves.

UG.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend