Why is Goodreads Removing Amazon Book Info from Their Website?

Something weird is going on with Goodreads. While I was rating some books last night, I noticed that one of them had the following message across the top of the screen: "This edition is in danger of being removed from Goodreads. Will you rescue it?"

One of my books with the message. Click for larger image.

I clicked the Learn More button and got the following message:

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, and publication dates. For the vast majority of book editions, we have imported this data from other sources. Those few remaining editions for which we haven't found an alternative source of information will be removed from Goodreads.

Off to the left Goodreads then gives the visitor an option to update the information and rescue the book so long as 1) they can get the information from a reliable sources like the author's website (you must submit URL along with your submission) or a hard copy of the book in your hands.

What you see after clicking Learn More. Click for larger image

I checked my three books on Goodreads and found that the Kindle editions for my two traditionally published books had that same message on their page while the my self-published book did not. (Yes, I rescued my books.)

This leaves me with several questions:

1) Why is Goodreads removing Amazon book information from it's website?

2) Why don't they consider Amazon book information a "reliable and open data source"?

3) What do they consider an "reliable and open data source"?

4) Why does this just seem to be affecting Kindle editions of the book?

5) Why did I have to rescue my traditionally published books but not my self-published one?

Scouring their website didn't give me answers. Several Google searched didn't either. Off the top of my head the only reason I can think of for doing this is that there's a lot of copyright infringement going with Kindle books and they're having a hard time sorting out the real editions from the fake one. But that's just an educated guess.

I did email Goodreads asking them the reason for this change but as of now haven't received a response. (Their website says it may take several days to reply to emails.) If they respond, I'll let you know. In the meantime, if anyone has any information on why Goodreads is removing Amazon book info from their site, shoot me an email or leave a comment below.

Update: Thanks for the comments. It appears it is an Amazon issue which, I admit is a tad surprising. I think I've found the official statement from Goodreads here. Part of what it says is:

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.

Amazon data that we will stop using includes data such as titles, author names, page counts, and publication dates. For the vast majority of book editions, we are currently importing this data from other sources. Once the imports are done, those few remaining editions for which we haven't found an alternative source of information will be removed from Goodreads.

I wish they'd give a little more detail. Please send me any links if you have them.

Update 2: Goodreads finally got back to me. The content of their email is below:

Thanks for writing in. For years, we’ve used Amazon’s data, and while they have always had certain restrictions and requirements, those terms have gotten harder and harder to adhere to. We have been working as hard as we can to find a new, independent source of data. Ultimately, though, this deadline is Amazon’s, and they have told us that we must stop using their data by January 30, and we have to meet this deadline.

Looking at the bright side of this, we’ve never been able to use Amazon data in our mobile apps, and we’ve had to show Amazon buy links and only Amazon buy links on all book pages sourced from them. Obviously, that will now change. Ultimately, we feel that while we would have chosen a more relaxed timetable for all of this, having our own data will make Goodreads a stronger, more independent site.

For more information about the change, please see Patrick’s post.

Update 3: There's a nice thread over on The Passive Voice's post about this.

Early Stocking Stuffer

If you're a Vince Flynn fan or have one on your shopping list, you can get a free download of  his book Transfer of Power from December 22, 2011 through December 30, 2011. The free download is available through Kindle, Nook, Apple, and Kobo. If you haven't ready Vince Flynn but have an e-reader, this is a great way to check out one of his books without any cost. He's a great storyteller. I highly recommend his books.

Happy Holidays!

Ideas for Marrying a Widower Book

As most of you know, I'm working on a sequel to Dating a Widower. Titled Marrying a Widower the book will focus on how you can know whether or not the widower is ready for marriage or some other lifelong relationship. (Dating a Widower is more about knowing if he's even ready to date and start a relationship.) What I'd like to know from all of you is what topics you'd like to see addressed in this book. For those who are married to, engaged to, or divorced from a widower or are just working toward marriage with a widower, what issues have you experienced that others might be dealing with? What do you wish someone had told you before you married a widower? I have a rough outline of topics I'm going to write about but want to be sure I haven't overlooked anything before I start . Put your ideas in the comments below or send me an email if you'd rather keep it private. Any and all ideas are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Update: Thanks to all those who have asked about submitting essays for the MAW book. I'll have a full list of topics that I'll post in early January that will let you know the topics I'll need essays on. Hold off on sending any until then.

My Next Book

I want to thank everyone for the support they’ve given my latest book, Dating a Widower. Sales have surpassed expectations and the reviews and feedback have been very positive. As a result of its success, I’m thrilled to announce that a follow-up book, Marrying a Widower, is in the works and will be released the first half of next year. Look for more details in January. Like its predecessor, I’ll be asking for readers to contribute their stories. So if you’re engaged to, married to, or divorced from a widower, start thinking about a story you might want to share. A full list of topics will be posted in January.

And no, I haven’t stopped writing fiction. I expect to release a novel next year as well. Look for more details on that in early 2012.

More Book Availability

A couple of quick book updates: The Third

  • For a limited time publisher of The Third has reduced the price of the Kindle version to $4.99.  Download your copy here.

Dating a Widower

The Social Downside of eBooks and eReaders

The e-book revolution is affecting bookshelves. According to The Economist:

Next month IKEA will introduce a new, deeper version of its ubiquitous “BILLY” bookcase. The flat-pack furniture giant is already promoting glass doors for its bookshelves. The firm reckons customers will increasingly use them for ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffee-table tome—anything, that is, except books that are actually read.

A lot of pundits are wringing their hands over this declaring that end of the print book and the demise of reading. I think they’re wrong on both counts. Books aren’t going to die and people aren’t going to stop reading just because of the switch to e-books and e-readers. IKEA sees that books are moving to the digital realm and is trying to make its bookshelves useful for something other than books. (Don’t tell anyone but you can still put books in them if you want.) Offering a new version of their bookshelves is good business move. However, the article reminded me that as much as I love e-books and e-readers there is a social downside to the digitization of books.

I love talking to people about the books they’re reading. Not only is it a great chance to share something you have in common with someone, but it’s a great way to learn why readers like certain books. For a writer, learning what pushes someone’s emotional buttons and keeps them reading is as valuable as gold.

My friends who are readers or writers always have bookshelves overflowing with book. I like scanning the books and talking to them about the new books they’ve been reading. I’ve also had lots of conversations in airports, parks, or other places just by seeing someone reading a book by an author I like or wanted to know more about. I’ve had people come up to me and do the same thing. For the most part, I’ve really enjoyed those conversations.

But as eReaders have grown in popularity, I’ve noticed the opportunity for book related conversations has decreased dramatically. The bookshelves of my friends, though still overflowing, haven’t changed since they started reading books on their Kindle or Nook. Books still come up from time to time but usually it’s only if they’re really excited about the book their reading. For the most part I don’t know what they’re reading unless they keep their Goodreads account updated.

When I travel, I see a lot more eReadres than I do paper books. Talking to someone about the novelty of their Kindle or Nook was cool a year or two ago but now they’ve become more widely available those conversations just don’t work anymore. Besides, I have a hard time asking people what’s on their Kindle. I’d rather see what they’re reading and, if it’s something I’m interested in, start up a conversation around that. With an eReader its impossible to tell if they’re reading a book, author, or genre I want to have a conversation about.

What would be cool is if eReaders had a feature you could turn on that would let other eReaders within 500 feet know what books you have in common. Maybe something like that exists and I haven’t heard about it. Until then, I’ll have to get more creative on how to start  book conversations.

Paper Books, eBooks, and the Environment II

Longtime reader and commentator, Phil, did some research and sent over some links about whether eBooks and eReaders are greener than paper books. Please feel free to post corroborating and opposing stats and links in the comment section below. It appears there's still a lot of debate on this issue. The one interesting theme I found when reading through these pages is that the greenest options seems to be having  a paper book read by as many people as possible. To be honest, I don't care which one is more environmentally friendly. Like it or not eBooks and eReaders are the way of the future. It seems pointless to get worked up over which one is greener since there's not much anyone can do to stop the digital tide.

Here's some of the links that Phil sent over:

Are e-books more environmentally friendly?

Almost two-thirds of the publishing industry’s carbon emissions are from deforestation of natural forests, according to US stats. But it’s not that simple, says Raz Godelnik, CEO of Eco-Libris (a company committed to sustainable reading). The materials (such as plastic, copper and lead) from which e-readers and other reading devices (like tablets) are made are not necessarily a greener alternative – and energy consumption in manufacturing is still significant.

Toxic waste is ‘notorious in consumer electronics’, says Godelnik, and there are few recycling options (or a lack of awareness where these do exist). However, several reports suggest an LCD e-reader can offset around 40 books: if you replace five books a year, it’s going to take around eight years before you’ve offset your carbon footprint.

Source: The Fairlady Test House.

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Are e-books greener than paper books?

Environmentally concerned customers may continue reading paper books. A report by the Centre for Sustainable Communications shows that there are no good reasons to claim that e-books have a better eco performance. Only if you read more than 33 e-books during the lifetime of an electronic reading device it becomes beneficial from a climate point of view.

There is a common assumption that e-books are limiting the burden on the environment. But our results indicate that there is no substantial difference between an e-book read on a reading device and a paper book. The reading device has to be used quite frequently. With the assumptions made in our study you have to read more than 33 e-books containing 360 pages on a newly purchased reading device for it to become superior from a climate perspective” says Åsa Moberg.

Source: The Centre for Sustainable Communications

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Paper Vs. Electronic - The Green Reading Debate

After comparing energy and resource expenses along with transportation costs, neither seems to have the advantage. The deciding factor, then, often lies on the consumer end: personal usage. Popular opinion says that if you read a substantial amount, go ahead and buy an e-reader. The idea is that an e-reader becomes the greener choice when an owner will read a large amount of books on it – anywhere from 23 to 40, depending on the source. After a certain number of book downloads , e-readers add up to a larger ratio of books-to-environmental-footprint, and new books lose out because of their consistent production requirements. This advantage only stands to improve as e-readers become multifunctional, allowing owners to read newspapers, books, magazines, and other documents, providing positive environmental impacts across several uses.

While the e-reader provides a narrow margin of ecological benefit over new books, all participants in this argument agree on one thing: the greenest choice is a reused book. Borrowing books from a library or friends helps offset past emissions and avoids future resource use.

Source: JustMeans

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Will Ebooks Jeopardize the Carbon Reduction Goals of the Book Industry?

In April 2009 the Book Industry Environmental Council(disclosure: Eco-Libris is a member of BIEC) announced a goal of reducing the U.S. book industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 (from a 2006 baseline), with the intent of achieving an 80% reduction by 2050. When the announcement was made, ebooks had less than 5% market share and weren’t considered to have a significant impact on the industry’s carbon footprint. In 2020 the picture will loom very different – some predict that ebooks will represent then as much as 50% of the market (some estimates go even higher), which means that every second book sold in 2020 will be an electronic one.

This forecast represents not just a dramatic change in the book industry, but also in its carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of the industry that BIEC’s announcement referred to was 12.4 million metric tons (carbon equivalent), or 4.01 kg CO2 per book (source: Book Industry Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts Report). The largest contributor to this footprint, according to this report, is the logging and manufacturing of paper, which constitute 87.3% of total carbon emissions.

If you eliminate the paper, one must assume, the book industry should have no trouble meeting its 2020 goal. Well, not so fast. E-reading is indeed paperless, but it doesn’t mean it is has no carbon footprint. For example, Apple’s iPad, according to the company, has a carbon footprint of 130 kg (carbon equivalent), which is equal to the footprint of 32.4 paper books.

Trying to determine how e-reading will influence the total footprint of the book industry is not an easy task. First, most device sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble do not provide any information on the footprint of their devices. Second, in the case of tablet computers like the iPad, we’re talking about multifunctional devices where reading books is just one of their functions and often not even the most popular one.

Still, the data available is enough to conduct a preliminary analysis, and thus we created various scenarios, taking into consideration different carbon footprints of e-readers and related variables such as the number of e-books read during the life time of a device.  The results we got were a bit surprising – even if the carbon footprint of all printed books sold by 2020 will be reduced by 20%, the chances the book industry will meet its goal are not very high.

Source: Triple Pundit

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Is Digital Media Worse for the Environment Than Print?
If your goal is to save trees or do something good for the environment, the choice to go paperless may not be as green or simple as some would like you to think.
Digital media doesn't grow on trees, but increased use of digital media is having a profoundly negative impact on our forests and the health of our rivers. Computers, cellular networks and data centers are connected to the destruction of over 600 square miles of forest in the U.S. One of the more significant direct causes of deforestation in the United States is mountaintop-removal coal mining in the states of West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina.
America's adoption of networked broadband digital media and "cloud-based" alternatives to print are driving record levels of energy consumption. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the electricity consumed by data centers in the United States doubled from 2000 to 2006, reaching more than 60 billion kilowatt hours per year, roughly equal to the amount of electricity used by 559,608 homes in one year. According to the EPA that number could double again by 2011.
Chances are that the electricity flowing through your digital media devices and their servers is linked to mountaintop-removal coal from the Appalachian Mountains. The Southern Appalachian forest region of the U.S. is responsible for 23% of all coal production in the United States and 57% of the electricity generated in the U.S. comes from coal -- including the rapidly growing power consumed by many U.S. data centers, networks and consumer electronic devices.

Source: PBS

Paper Books, eBooks, and the Environment

Indie author Melissa Douthit has decided not to offer print versions of her next book, The Legend of the Rai Chaelia, in order to reduce her carbon footprint.

For anyone who has read the first book and is looking forward to continuing on to the second, it is fairly obvious that there is a strong environmental theme running through the story, given the race of people called the Terravail, which in the story is an ancient word for “respect for the land.”  The Terravail are the people who have a special connection to the land and feel whatever the land feels so they have a vested interest in keeping it preserved.  I think anyone who has read the book will see where this is going in the story.

So the question remains, should I offer the books in print when it seems from the very nature of the story itself, that that would be something very wrong to do?  I know I have told several people, and also posted on my website, that the print version of The Raie’Chaelia will available in September but now I think I’ve changed my mind.  I’m sorry to anyone who was looking forward to the print version.  I know that this decision will more than likely hurt me as an author, as there are so many readers out there who prefer print books, but after having done some research, I don’t really care if it hurts me.

The nice thing about being an indie author is that you have the flexibility to offer books in any format you want—even if it kills one’s writing career. No doubt Douthit’s intention to reduce our dependency on paper products is an admirable one but like so many environmental decisions they're designed to make the person doing the act feel good about themselves but do little, if anything, to actually help the environment.

When it comes to the environmental issues decisions we’re taught to think that there’s a “solution” for every environmental issue. In reality there are no solutions to any problem–environmental or otherwise—only trade-offs.

For example, every spring one of the trendy environmental things to do is to celebrate Earth Hour. To celebrate you turn off your lights of an hour to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (For the record, I turn on all the lights during this time.) Yet while that hour makes people feel like they’re doing something for the planet—good feelings is about the only thing this green publicity stunt accomplishes. Instead of sitting in the dark, many Earth Hour participants light candles which, as Danish scientist Bjorn Lomborg points out, cancels any environmental impact these people were hoping to achieve.

When we switch off the electricity, many of us turn to candlelight. This seems natural and environmentally friendly, but unfortunately candles are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights. Using one candle for each extinguished bulb cancels the CO2 reduction; two candles emit more CO2.

And he’s not even taking into account all the particulate pollution that candles emit.

Douthit's is trying to save trees and paper, but what trade off might she be making not only in terms of the environment and her career.

Ebooks obviously use less paper than paper book. However, using an eReader (Kindle, Nook, etc.) has its own impact on the environment via mining, manufacturing, refining, shipping, distribution, and electricity used over its lifetime. Maybe an eReader has a smaller impact on the environment than say buying 100 paperbacks, but what happens if someone upgrades their eReader every year or two owns multiple eReaders? Douthit has not control over other people's purchasing decisions. Those who read her eBooks but upgrade their eReader every year might mitigate any positive environmental impact she hoped to make.

Besides, when it comes to their impact on the environment indie authors can utilize tools that the big six and other smaller presses don’t use much: print on demand (POD) technology. Most (big) publishers print thousands or millions copies of a title and ship them off to stores. If the books don’t sell, they’re returned and destroyed. But with POD a book is printed and shipped as soon as someone orders one. There aren’t hundreds or thousands of copies sitting around collecting dust or heading to landfills because no one wants them. Resource wise it’s about as efficient as you can get when it comes to printing books. I took advantage of this technology for the paperback edition of my Dating a Widower book. However, I made that decision not because of it lessens my impact on the environment but because it was less expensive than paying for thousand of copies of printed books. Plus, I don’t have to deal with the problem of storing or distributing them. It’s odd that Douthit doesn’t take advantage of that especially when you consider that trees are one of the most renewable resources on the planet and are in no danger of disappearing anytime soon—especially if our forests continue to be managed properly.

Despite the rapid growth of eBooks and eReaders, millions of people still enjoy and purchase paper books. Limiting one’s potential audience to those with eReaders limits one’s exposure. And since Douthit’s books offer an environmental message (one that she is very passionate about) it seems the best way to spread her word is to get her books into the hands of as many people as possible. Authors who limit themselves book to eBooks are only reducing the number of potential readers and, quite possibly, their careers*. Personally I don’t care if eBooks and eReaders are better for the environment or not. I prefer reading eBooks on my Kindle because they’re cheaper than print books, more convenient to buy, and don’t fill up my already overflowing bookshelves. If that happens to be better for the environment, so be it.

Douthit seems happy with her decision—and that’s fine. Like all writers she’s untimely in charge of her writing career and needs to make a publishing decision she can live with. However, considering Douthit dreams of being a fulltime writer, her choice to go eBook only seems to make that possibility a lot more difficult.

*For writers looking to sell short stories or novellas, the eBook only approach makes more sense. Going eBook only for full length fiction or non-fiction is also an inexpensive way to get a book into the market if you don’t have the time or money to spend on typesetting. However, if you ebooks take off, I suggest taking some of the profits and investing them into a POD paperback option. Considering where the book market is in complete flux and no one really knows where it's going to end up, adding more ways for people to read your book is the best way to grow your audience.

(Hat Tip: The Passive Voice)