Today's post is late because I've been struggling to get the final edits done for A Modicum of Truth. A scene I thought I'd written wasn't in there. I went through notes and spread sheets, and I finally realized I'd thought about the scene while doing laundry, and when I went back to my computer, I picked the story with the following scene. *facepalm*
Then the rhythm of the climax was really off, and I didn't note something super important that had happened in the climax in the final chapter. My endings usually are a lot tighter, but then I realized it's technically the middle of the trilogy.
Add in my usual tendency to accidentally leave out articles and prepositions, I'd added nearly 10K words to the novel by the time I finished.
Just in time for the new episode of Samantha Bee tonight, thank Goddess!
In the meantime, chaos is running through Indie World. Data Guy put out the latest iteration of his Author Earnings report. And he greatly underestimated the level of anger Indie World has concerning trad pub.
Sort of like the men who don't get the #MeToo movement.
Even though a lot of indie writer will talk money, they are revealing their own numbers, not someone else's. Data Guy made the mistake of naming names and counting Benjamins. Publicly.
How gauche!
Then he made the second mistake of revealing that he's selling info he's scraped from Amazon to the bigger publishing companies. Basically, if you make $10 million or more, he'll sell you a copy of his data.
*facepalm*
A lot of indies gave Data Guy their personal information in order to calibrate his 'bots back at the beginning. And now they're feeling a little betrayed. Especially after they were named on Author Earnings.
There are already calls for a class action suit.
I can't comment on the legalities, or lack thereof, on who did what. But I will say there's nothing more fearsome on Earth than a bunch of romance writers with their panties in a wad.
1 hour ago
Yeah, I was watching that mess. :/ I've never felt that my salary or whatever was personal or private information, but I get that I'm an outlier here.
ReplyDeleteIMO the part he needs a good smack for is only selling the info to companies that make at least $10M per year. WTF why?? Anyone whose check clears should be able to buy the info. I have no clue what he's thinking here. Kris asked him and he rambled on about how only big companies can afford what he needs to charge because this is a huge and complex project, blah-blah-blah, but he didn't actually answer her question.
I hope he realizes just how much good will he's burned with this stunt.
Angie
Yeah, I think that's where DG messed up, too. There were several indies who wanted to donate money to the cause at the beginning. Now, we know why the guys were squirrely about taking any donations. The deleting of posts criticizing what he did should have sent a warning message to everyone. Then to top off was his non-apologetic explanation.
DeleteYep, he definitely burned a hell of a lot of good will, but my question is what will Amazon do about it? If they don't do anything, either he scraped their website with their permission or they're laughing their asses off because his calculations are wrong.
I agree about Amazon. Someone pointed out that getting 24/7 live data on pretty much everything has to be putting a huge load on their servers, so either their computing oomph is huge enough that it's just a fleabite (which I guess is possible) or they think they're getting some benefit out of it, whether they have an explicit agreement with DG or not. Or possibly they're working on a C&D as we type and it'll all grind to a halt RSN. We'll see.
DeleteAngie