Going Back to Goodreads

One of my 30 Before 30 goals is to improve the blog layout. While it isn't exactly an adjustment to my site, last night I finished importing all my reviews on this blog and LibraryThing to Goodreads.

I got onto Goodreads years ago (seriously, the first book I added was East of Eden on July 11, 2007). Back then, I didn't like it. It was clunky and slow, and it didn't do a good job of sorting through multiple editions. Just because I read one version of Pride and Prejudice doesn't mean I need 1000 versions in my library.

When I started blogging about books, I discovered LibraryThing. It had a much smoother interface than I remember from Goodreads, and the site is small enough that I've actually won a few books from their give-away program. But smallness is a disadvantage, too. I'm not leaving LibraryThing, but with 21 million members, Goodreads is where the people are.

If I'm going to properly serve myself in promoting my reviews, and serve the publishers and authors who have sent me books, I've got to reach the biggest audience possible.

So, whichever site you prefer, let's connect.
Goodreads
LibraryThing

Are Paper.li Tweets Spam?

from here

As I get the hang of Twitter, social media and all of this, I'm still learning my way around the netiquette of (frankly) everything.

This is the thing that has always scared me off of Facebook and Twitter to date, that even as a member of "the Facebook Generation," none of this is intuitive to me. I dislike frictionless sharing, I don't care what you ate for breakfast, or that you miss your babies (by which, you mean your dogs). I hate abbreviations and text speak (FTW!), and don't want to see a picture of how you look to yourself in the bathroom mirror.

So as I've begun to use Twitter to connect with other people interested in the things I'm interested (I have separate feeds in Hootsuite for baseball, books, friends, and the NYTimes free that gives me my news fix), I'm increasingly interested in what is and isn't acceptable in these forums.

In that vein, I don't know what to make of the paper.li tweets that periodically show up with my name attached. If there was a person deciding that my writing is one of their "top stories," I'd be flattered. Knowing that there is not, that this is a machine collecting anything published under hash-tag "whatever," I find I'm annoyed by it.

How annoyed should I be? I don't really know.

I know there are ways to opt out. Is it worth the effort? Are these mentions trolling for traffic from me showing up in my follower's feeds? Or is it just reaching me?

I know from visiting a couple of these sites that have tweeted about my work that my article is not particularly easy to find, even when I am a "top story." On the other hand, all publicity is good publicity, right? And links from outside sites impact where your blog ends up in Google searches, so is this auto-tweet spam just a side effect I should tolerate?

Writing as Communal Art

One of the old truth that seems to have been passed down from every preceding generation of authors is that writing, like painting and composing, is a lonely art. A full life, Yeats reminds us, leads to nights filled with regret.

I spent most of this evening with my friend Adam playing Samurai Swords (a Risk-like board game that awaits a post I've been meaning to write for a couple weeks now). I could have sat hunched alone over my computer. I could have made a cup of tea and curled up with one of my books. I could have gone back to work and done any of the many projects calling me there.

I think Yeats is wrong. The modern writer (maybe the modern person?) is too plugged in to be as isolated as "The Choice" suggests a writer must be. When I look around, all I see are people writing. My blogging buddies have recipes for a steak-mushroom-cheese pie, ruminations on hand-written mail, and poetic horoscopes to get us through our week. Some of my friends are busy getting themselves published (yay Mel!).

Writing this way (on the internet, in a blog, often with no intention of editing and refining the little pieces of truth we stumble across as we work), this lacks the permanence of Yeats' work. But Yeats was an oddity in his craft and in his time: a successful poet (as such things are measured) who won a Nobel Prize for Literature at 58; who published some of his best work after that; we wrote wreaths of intricate work while also exploring Irish theater.

I have a half a dozen posts I really do mean to sit down and pound out as soon as I have the time, and I sometimes wonder why I keep writing. Mainly, I think it helps me think; writing helps me to know what I think and to find a way to articulate it. But I keep my pace because of all the writing I see around me, all the thoughts and words and ideas that my friends pour out. I'm grateful for them.

Worst Customer Service Ever, or Giving Up On the New York Times

I've been a regular New York Times reader since high school, when I would swipe the print copy from the principal's office to read throughout my day. I read something from nearly every section, and with the joys of the online edition, I read (or skim) nearly every article.

When NYTimes.com went behind a paywall in May, they did their math and offered readers like me continued access to the NYTimes online free through December 31. This was both fantastic and logical: according to the little counter that appeared over the "Most Emailed Articles" I averaged around 300 articles per week.

At the start of December, I received an email inviting me to sign up for a reduced rate. I tried to sign up online, but since I had an "active" account, the NYTimes' system wouldn't let me pay. I called the phone number listed, and the lady on the phone told me that if I signed up that day (around the 20th) I would begin to pay immediately, and would be better off calling back after the New Year.

First off, I'm trying to give you my money. How can it be that you are running a business unprepared for a pre-pay customer? No wonder journalism is dying.

I called back today. I explained the situation to the young lady on the phone, who tried to look me up via my email address, which is my first initial followed by my last name, the number 2 @ my place of employment. It took us no less than 5 minutes and 3 attempts to get this right ("J as in Joke, B as in boy... No, you've got an extra 'O' in there... No, you've dropped the numeral 2...").

Once she finally figured out who I was, she told me that the offer was no longer available and would I like to sign up at the usual rate?

No, I would not like to sign up at the usual rate, since I'm doing what was suggested to me by the lady I talked to last time who couldn't sign me up then. This is ridiculous!

Here's the crux of the issue: there are plenty workarounds for the NYTimes paywall. Go ahead, turn to the googlemachine and look them up. The payment I'm willing to make is not, in my mind, a payment- to me, this is a gift designed to support an organization that performs a service I approve of, not unlike a donation to NPR.

After today's fifteen minute kerfuffle, I am no longer inclined to give; I'll use the workarounds while I decide whether I'm inclined to give them any of my money at all. Maybe in a few weeks I'll feel that I truly owe it to them: that I should try to prop up the Gray Lady beyond the revenue my traffic generates via their many roll-over and pop-up ads. More likely, they've missed their only chance to get my credit card information. In many ways, I feel guilty because I know how important a free press is to democracy, and I know how import this particular paper has been to me. But, really, if Geico and the doctor's office are prepared for me to pay up front, why shouldn't the New York Times?

A New Project

One of my favorite things about writing for Pinstripe Alley was getting to review books. I've had my hands on some of the best Yankee books of the last few years before they hit book stores: Last Boy, 56, and more.

So when my friend Lindsay pointed me to the website LibraryThing, where they give early reading editions to contributing members... well, I have a new project.

I've copied the 400 or so books I'd marked as "read" on my old, long dormant Goodreads account, and I'm going to start going through posting short reviews. I'll dual post my reviews of my favorite books, and post the ensuing tangents (and trust me, there will be tangents), which will lead where they will.

Words with Friends, Or One More Thing to Hate About Facebook

I love board games. I love word games. I love Scrabble.
Most of all, I love playing games with friends.

So, you'd think that Words with Friends would be my favorite thing on the internet: a quick and easy way to play my favorite game with my favorite people.

But I can't love Words with Friends because I can hardly ever play. A third of the time it freezes trying to select a board; a third of the time it freezes trying to play a word; a third of the time it won't load at all.

Might this be intentional on the part of Words with Friends or Facebook as a way to compound traffic, driving up ad revenue and increasing page views? Or could a company really have developed a game so poorly supported that its servers and programming are overwhelmed by its popularity?

Deceptive marketing or shoddy design? I can't decide which would be worse.