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Turned out to be easier than I thought to put those sort indicators in. I guess it's semi-built in to the javascript library I used. Yay! http://goonreads.com/reference/author-list/
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Oct 16, 2012 06:42
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Nice work on the table. Thanks! I decided to work a bit on an author blog multi-site tonight and got as far as to set it up with two test users. Basically, authors who post books at the site can have their own book or writing blog under the goonreads/authors subdirectory. It might be interesting for people who like your books. The one thing I ran into was that I really want to have only one theme that everyone can use. But I want it to be customizable enough so that authors don't feel like another brick in the wall. I got to looking around at themes and noticed how late it was getting. I'll fix it up tomorrow, but let me know if you want your own blog and I'll set it up. You would have admin control on your own blog but should be comfortable using Wordpress.
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Oct 16, 2012 07:22
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I submitted my book info to Goonreads on the 3rd. Any idea of when it will show up?
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Oct 16, 2012 16:14
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I don't see any posts pending in the queue. I wonder if your post was somehow incomplete, or just got eaten by the machine before it reached the submission queue.
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Oct 16, 2012 17:12
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Yeah I don't see your post, even in drafts. My guess is that you were trying to submit it either when our hosting was going up and down or during the move to our new hosting. Would you mind resubmitting it? If not, point me to the link of the book on Amazon and I'll submit for you. Sorry about that. We have fixed the server problems by completing a move to a different host, so that problem shouldn't occur again. Also, I have finished the author blog multi-site setup and decided to enable the Weaver 2 theme across the network. It is pretty responsive, is very customizable, and authors can basically just have the room for their own author blog. Icon, did you get your invite for it? I can't tell if when I set up your site, whether an email went out. Author blogs are by invite-only, and everyone who posts their books at goonreads can have one. I'll send out invites before making the site live. Here's an example of mine: http://goonreads.com/authors/clarahume/. Yours can look completely different. Anyway, I'll probably put goonreads live tonight or tomorrow as long as there aren't any other lingering issues that anyone has.
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Oct 16, 2012 17:47
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Alright, re-submitted. Thanks for letting me be a part of this.
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Oct 16, 2012 18:27
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This is exciting! I would like to post books. I will also do my best to promote the site itself once it's public. I think the name is hilarious.
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Oct 16, 2012 19:28
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Great! So all books submitted are now approved. It generally doesn't take too long unless the mods are sleeping. Also, I've updated the OP. The site is now live. If there's anything outstanding, please just shoot me a line or post here. There are a few minor updates to make, but nothing game-breaking.
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Oct 16, 2012 21:25
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So, what about us goons over in the romance/erotica thread? We sell books on amazon too. Are we invited to this party?
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Oct 16, 2012 22:56
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anviroid posted:So, what about us goons over in the romance/erotica thread? We sell books on amazon too. Are we invited to this party? Of course!
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Oct 16, 2012 23:01
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I'm registered. I just noticed that it wants my account to be 7 months old plus. My main account is years old but I have a separate one just for my adult endeavors. Is there something I can/need to do about this, or am I sol for a few months?
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Oct 16, 2012 23:28
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anviroid posted:I'm registered. I just noticed that it wants my account to be 7 months old plus. My main account is years old but I have a separate one just for my adult endeavors. Is there something I can/need to do about this, or am I sol for a few months? You're good. The 7-month thing is adapted from SA Mart and applies only to SA members who want to offer paid services, such as editorial work and design. Contributors just need to be members of SA. I don't think we'll really require a length unless it gets problematic.
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Oct 16, 2012 23:38
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Fantastic idea and I've just registered. Thanks to everyone for setting it up and anviroid for suggesting it for those of us in erotica/romance!
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Oct 17, 2012 00:37
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Yes, thanks for inviting the erotica/romance goons. I collaborate with Shady Anachronism under one pen name. Is it best to post stories under one username or does it matter?
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Oct 17, 2012 01:16
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I've no objection to erotica, though I wonder we should institute some sort of decency policy vis-a-vis covers which will after all be featured on the site. Although I think the major retailers for which these covers are made impress their own rules on covers anyway, so maybe we don't run the risk of freewheeling dongs on the front page. I think as erotica comes in we might do well to supervise the most efficient tagging of it. I don't just mean individual subgenres (i.e. "bondage"), I mean the basic categories: for straight men, for straight women, etc. That way people can find what they want easily. Perhaps people from the erotica community can enlighten us on what some efficient, standard abbreviations might be (you know, in the vein of "M4W" on dating sites, ha ha). As self-appointed tag police, I wouldn't mind standardizing tags on submissions as they drift in. I'm going to prematurely ask and answer a question that has to be on some people's minds: "Erotica people are prolific. What if erotica conquers the site, and we have ten thousand erotica submissions for every four regular stories and the tag cloud is conquered by porn and the whole site looks ridiculous?" Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Perhaps we could make erotica not a tag but a Category (or maybe both) if that helps the database somehow in sorting; maybe we can have the database mark all erotica posts just so no one accidentally clicks anything they didn't want to; maybe if erotica gets prolific there's a way it can have its own tag cloud away from the main one. But I've no objection to having such publications on Goonreads, let's put it that way.
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Oct 17, 2012 01:20
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I read the rule as to "If amazon won't publish it, we won't either". Amazon rejects covers that are too racy (mind you some slip through the cracks). In general, if you can't see it on primetime network television it probably isn't going to make it through review on amazon. Nipples and genitals are obviously a no no. They also don't seem to like using hands as bras. Generally butts need to at least be attempted to be covered in some manner.
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Oct 17, 2012 01:41
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Icon-Cat posted:I think as erotica comes in we might do well to supervise the most efficient tagging of it. I don't just mean individual subgenres (i.e. "bondage"), I mean the basic categories: for straight men, for straight women, etc. That way people can find what they want easily. Almost all of it is for straight women (basically the same market as for romance novels in general), but those straight women might also read gay stories. It's sort of like a gender reversal of mainstream porn, where the majority of lesbian stuff is actually for straight men. I'll give some thought on how best to tag it. I'm sure there are more experienced people who'll have ideas, too. Re: erotica covers. Yeah, they don't generally get too bad, because Amazon and other retailers don't want dirty covers either. Some backsides in thongs and a whole lot of sideboob are about as far as it usually goes.
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Oct 17, 2012 01:57
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I apologize for being retarded here but I couldn't figure out how to "add" a picture under the Media Library to the Featured Image. Also I inadvertently added a second image and don't see where to delete it. I'm assuming they're both obvious but I've been agonizing over searching for it. Or maybe it doesn't display correctly in Chrome. I don't know.
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Oct 17, 2012 02:41
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inkblottime posted:I apologize for being retarded here but I couldn't figure out how to "add" a picture under the Media Library to the Featured Image. Also I inadvertently added a second image and don't see where to delete it. I'm assuming they're both obvious but I've been agonizing over searching for it. Or maybe it doesn't display correctly in Chrome. I don't know. Heres a question. Wat r u doin? I didn't have to do anything like that. Are you adding extra pictures beyond the cover?
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Oct 17, 2012 02:55
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anviroid posted:Heres a question. Wat r u doin? I didn't have to do anything like that. Are you adding extra pictures beyond the cover? quote:7. Before submitting your book for review, go over to the Featured Image section on the right and click Set Featured Image. Select your 2oo pixel high book cover image from the media gallery and set that as the featured image (full size). There's a link under the SHOW function. I didn't notice it with all the other options before. But I still can't figure out how to remove an image.  EDIT: And some how I did manage to add a full sized image of the 200 pix image to the body of my book. I'm really good at breaking things.  I really have no clue how I did that.
inkblottime fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 03:01
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inkblottime posted:There's a link under the SHOW function. I didn't notice it with all the other options before. But I still can't figure out how to remove an image. Well then. I didn't do anything like that. I just uploaded a cover image in the template.
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Oct 17, 2012 03:03
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inkblottime posted:There's a link under the SHOW function. I didn't notice it with all the other options before. But I still can't figure out how to remove an image. I think that step might be out of date since we put the image upload thingy in along with all the custom fields. Before you had to add the image in the main description part but you don't need to do that anymore. edit: I was wrong about the feature image thing. Whoops 
Squibbles fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 03:10
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and your book is live, but with two covers. One is huge and blurry at the bottom.
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Oct 17, 2012 03:11
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I have fixed the problem with images. They should be exactly 200 pixels high. When you "set featured image", just choose the same image from the media gallery that you uploaded for your post. It's kind of confusing, but basically the image you upload goes into the post itself and the featured image is what gets picked up on the front bottom slider bar. I've updated the policy (which is agreed to when people register) that warns of some books containing adult literature. For contributors, I think these rules are pretty fair and would equate with SA rules too: 1. No illegal subject material (child porn, bestiality, rape) 2. Images must be work-safe. I'm probably not the only one accessing this site at work a lot  3. And the original rule about if Amazon doesn't distribute it, neither will we is still there. Sorry, but I think that covers PI. I'm trying to create a third adult (18) taxonomy, so bear with me if you see some strange categories for a while tonight. Edit: Never mind a third taxonomy. I've updated our template so that if there's adult content, authors should note that in the title. Edit: About tags, I think they should be genre-specific just like the other tags for other books. Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 03:38
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Desmond posted:Edit: About tags, I think they should be genre-specific just like the other tags for other books. Okay, I get it. I'm seeing in recent posts that people are doing things like 'steampunk erotica' and 'fantasy erotica' and whatnot. I think it will become clearer to me as we get more submissions, the community will make clear what is useful to them. Desmond: When you initially set up the form, where people were typing everything in themselves, you suggested that people keep to 2-4 tags. I note that there is no such disclaimer now. Is that by choice? I don't mind allowing people more tags, so long as tags are used intelligently / saliently and in a fashion that serves all authors in that genre. We talked about this elsewhere, but my general rules for if something should be a tag are twofold: 1: Is this tag fulfilling a function that an existing tag is not? (For instance, I believe "dark fantasy" serves a function and would not roll that into "fantasy", but I standardize "teen" and "young adult" to "YA".) 2: Would any author besides the person who created it find this tag useful?
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Oct 17, 2012 04:41
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Icon-Cat posted:
I agree totally that we should start being a little more consistent and efficient with tags. I'm wondering if there's some sort of pre-defined tag plug-in that we can fill in where people would have to choose from tags and also would be limited to a number of tags. I think it would take a little time to build, but it would be worth it. And then if there's something truly not covered when we're finished, authors could just email me and I could add it. Bur for now, how about joining the following? -teen or young adult = YA (young adult) -paranormal = supernatural (or the other way around?) These are the only ones I see doubled up right now. Inkblot: I'll get back to you on a response for your queries below. I think it's pretty fair to allow the other non-erotica authors have a say in gray area material posted here. I don't want to have full control over what gets posted. But I do want to maybe research some ways to draw lines that are a little more than just hovering around gray. Also, I noticed one of your books is still in draft form. Not sure if you meant to finish it later or just forgot to submit for pending review Same goes for a couple of "PersonMan's" books.
Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 04:58
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Desmond posted:I have fixed the problem with images. They should be exactly 200 pixels high. When you "set featured image", just choose the same image from the media gallery that you uploaded for your post. It's kind of confusing, but basically the image you upload goes into the post itself and the featured image is what gets picked up on the front bottom slider bar. Thanks again! I will certain note the Adult title change as described. Also just to give you a heads up because erotica rides that line where people buy but no one wants to see; PI is allowed on Amazon but it gets put under an Adult curtain where it's not searchable via the home page, only under the kindle store. They don't allow full on incest though (as far as I know, but some have squeaked by I'm sure). Also shape shifting human/animal sex is allowed but there's this gray area of what is okay and what is not. From what I understand, if the animal is somewhat humanoid (aka paranormal), then it is okay. But they don't want anything that is described as bestiality. "I turned into a dog and humped her from behind like a dog." Again it's vague at best where that line is. But there is a LOT of PI and shifter-sex in the goonerotica thread. Even I have a story with two demon sisters who get busy with each other (which seems fine since it's paranormal) and two werewolf series that rides that fine line. Anyway, if you guys want to restrict that stuff, it is fine but just keep in mind there's going to be a lot of gray area with those subjects. inkblottime fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 04:59
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Desmond posted:tags I'm gonna make "supernatural" the winning tag for genre stories because paranormal has (these days) become associated with "paranormal romance" (which has its own tag). I don't mind playing tag police. You know, see what people pick, and then nudge them in the right direction when they're wrong. :p As the tag cloud becomes more populated it will be easier for folks to not duplicate or be redundant, they will gravitate toward the right thing.
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Oct 17, 2012 05:08
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I've just registers. One way to avoid getting trampled by us erotica writers might be to request that we only upload our bundles or other longer works, rather than every short story.
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Oct 17, 2012 11:57
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lilmisssunshine posted:One way to avoid getting trampled by us erotica writers might be to request that we only upload our bundles or other longer works, rather than every short story. Yeah, I had this same thought in the middle of the night and wished I'd suggested it. (What, doesn't everybody worry about these things at 2AM...?) If we limit the shorter erotic stories to the bundles, that will cut down on a possible booty bomb. Maybe only stories/collections over 5k words or something. I'm not sure where the best place for a cut-off would be. I'm perfectly happy not to upload my shorter stuff if it'll help prevent the site from looking unbalanced, though.
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Oct 17, 2012 14:22
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So far, the site is not unbalanced. We have 36 books posted and of them, 3 are adult content books. However, the activity since yesterday from the erotica thread authors is busier than any time previously, so I could see where that activity could unbalance things. Do what you think is best. I'm glad you all are here and love it that you're trying to self-regulate, ha. I know that Icon-Cat was starting to feel badly because his real name is high up the list alphabetically, and our old author/book list was sorted that way by default, making it seem like he was trying to dominate stuff. I just appreciate that people are adding their books. If you want to bundle and submit longer works, I think that would eliminate the booty bomb. However, if it looks like stuff is already pretty balanced on the site, feel free to sneak in a short story here and there. This is probably a good idea for all authors, not just erotica. Icon-Cat is by far our most prolific author (which is great, because his books are awesome), and he is staggering the posting of his books (some of which are short stories). That way, the bottom slider of recently added books is usually not all just one author or one genre. Ultimately, and I think we'd all agree, this site should represent all goon books, not leaning heavily toward any one type. Sorry for the longish post, but I wanted to also ask if people have gotten their invites to their personal author blogs? I created a goonreads.com/authors multi-site network, and have now sent out the invites to anyone who has posted a book at the site so far, but I'm worried that the email might not have come through? It should say you have a new site, and give you your username and password to start working on your blog. Writing a blog will require that you know how to use Wordpress, since you are the administrator of your own blog. I've created one for everyone so far (who has posted books). Currently each blog is in maintenance mode and will stay that way until you build it and let me know it's ready to be open. I can then go back and link your blog in your "about the author" field in each of your book posts. I think it'd be a nice way for readers to get to know their authors and a good way for authors to become more personable to their readers. It is just an option, but there it is. The Weaver 2 theme (customizable, responsive) is the only theme I want to install across the network right now. I've run into themes in the past whose library definitions become outdated, etc., and I don't really want a big mess of themes to deal with. Your blog can still be a unique snowflake with Weaver 2 because there's so much customization with it. Edit: Oh, just found another author blog that is being worked on. Don't forget when it's ready to go to deactivate the maintenance blog thingy. Finally, back to the question posed last night by inkblottime: I think if Amazon distributes it, they've done the legwork in the gray area for us and we'll list it too. All books with adult content are marked that way in the title and tagged as adult (18+) at goonreads. I feel that's fair warning for more conservative readers and younger people. I put up a content warning in the footer, so people can just browse at their own discretion. You could also add to the description of the book something something something dark side if you want, though I'm not sure if that's going too far. Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 18:08
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Desmond posted:Icon-Cat is by far our most prolific author Why do you think I shared your passion for this site and had once considered launching a poorly-programmed Goonreads on my own?  (I'm all caught up with my old publications now though. Ha!) Look. I think our guidelines toward erotica are fine as they are, I think we've found the right dividing line for that. With respect to domination issues (not the BDSM kind)… ha. Look. All I'm worried about is a scenario like this:  which would be a natural consequence of erotica being a prolific-by-necessity genre. But I think as long as we have this database and every book that comes in is tagged appropriately, we can figure out how to deal with such a scenario if it arises, and it doesn't need to be dealt with right now because it's not a problem yet. I'm no programmer, but I'm sure there's a way to split a tag cloud somehow, so that all the erotica tags could have their own cloud or category or something. This would help erotica people as well, as their own lesser-used tags (i.e. "tentacles" might find more prominence if they weren't competing against mainstream-genre tags like "YA" and "science fiction"). I may be overthinking the importance of the tag cloud but hey.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:56
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If the adult tag got to be super big like that, the taxonomy widget we're using for clouds could be used to separate out adult books into their own category with their own sub-genres.
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Oct 17, 2012 19:13
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Desmond posted:I just appreciate that people are adding their books. If you want to bundle and submit longer works, I think that would eliminate the booty bomb. I think that's a good plan. I'll post something over on the erotica thread. But I was thinking that you may also see erotica goons being too busy cranking out books to post them all on goonreads. I'd already made up my mind that I would only put up my favorites out of my catalog and bundles, since it would take a long time to put up over 25 stories. Also, we write, like all the time, rarely stopping long enough to check the forums and I wouldn't be surprised if your post got buried. Christ the new erotica thread was posted in late August and it's already over 160 pages long. But I'll remind people. I didn't even see your post myself until Shady Anachronism pointed it out to me, and by then it was a page back. Desmond posted:Sorry for the longish post, but I wanted to also ask if people have gotten their invites to their personal author blogs? Got mine. Question; can that "author" account be used to post books instead of our SA usernames? Desmond posted:You could also add to the description of the book something something something dark side if you want, though I'm not sure if that's going too far. That's what we call in the smut writing world, "advertising."  BOOK DESCRIPTION - "WARNING!! This story contains the sinful lust between a young man and his step sister, graphic sex, taboo situations, debauchery, and is only intended for adults who are not afraid of the darker side of sex."  - Oh hot! I'm so buying this!
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Oct 18, 2012 02:18
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Pan the Writer here! Just signed up as "Pandora Box", my pseudonym!
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Oct 18, 2012 03:21
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inkblottime posted:
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Oct 18, 2012 08:06
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I've just registered there under my writer-name of Gia Vanna. I've sneaked over from the Erotica forum too. I write short mucky books and also longer historical romance, so it's just the long historicals that I'll upload to Goonreads. Ok they're still erotica but they have plots and everything too.
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Oct 18, 2012 08:13
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I'm excited to sign up! I wouldn't mind the option of giving a freebie to a Goon at request for some feedback/reviews on Amazon, etc. It's what really helps us authors out.
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Oct 18, 2012 12:21
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 You are our 60th registered goon.I had another thought about why blogs might be useful, especially for erotica authors writing tons of stories. Since uploading that many books will be crazy, just take advantage of your author blog, link it in your book post(s) under "About the Author", and then just keep a running list of all your books links in a prominent place. One goal of goonreads is to really put the book and the author together. It's entirely possible that someone finds your book at goonreads, likes it, and wants read more of what you write. They look at a book post, see your author blog listed there, click it to find more of what you've written that might not be listed at goonreads, and go from there. Speaking of that, it's probably advisable for you to fill out your SEO fields in the book posting area (you can go back and edit your books). This'll help your books on goonreads show up on google. My next goal is to go through the entire list and start doing this if it hasn't been done (so if you see that I have edited your book, that's all I'm doing). Finally, I will be heading to California Fri-Sun so may not get to stuff as fast as usual, but will have my laptop on me.
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Oct 18, 2012 18:07
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Hey desmond (and whoever else is involved here), whenever you're back, I've got an idea that may fit with the scope of goonreads, or it might work better as a companion to it. Think something in the realm of an anthology concept, an umbrella of fictions, possibly involving shared elements.
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Oct 18, 2012 21:24
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