My Call to Action for Amazon
I’ve emailed Amazon corprate offices about Goodreads’ policy on bullying. I’m posting this email here so it won’t go unnoticed. Since they own goodreads, they can do something about this. I hope they will.
My name is Tyffani Clark. I own a small press and publish my books and two other authors on Amazon. I have used Goodreads for a while to keep track of the books I’ve read and for marketing of the ones I published. Today I read a very disturbing story of a woman who was bullied on Goodreads about a book that hasn’t even been published yet. She questioned how readers could rate a book they hadn’t even read and was attacked for her inquisition about a website she was just starting to learn. Her book and name was added to lists with titles such as “authors who should be sodomized” and “should be raped in prison”. (A recent search I ran did not show these lists, so I *hope* that means they were deleted.)
I understand “freedom of speech”. I understand that bullies happen and that authors need to have a thick skin about their work. I am an author, so I do get that. But this was not an attack on a work that has been published. It was an attack on someone asking a question about a site they didn’t understand.
My REAL issue here is this: as the owner of Goodreads, do you know that this kind of behavior is ALLOWED in their site rules? They’ve done nothing about this, even though the author contacted them, because it’s okay for people to do this kind of thing on their site.
I’m not asking you to change bullying. I’m asking you to please take control of Goodreads in a way that changes this horrible rule so that people who say such nasty things can be deleted and blocked.
I am prepared to start a full boycott of Goodreads, should this go unnoticed by Amazon and its corporate offices. I don’t mean this as a threat, but simply to let you know that the indie community will not stand for this kind of harassment.
Here are the links to this author’s story. Please, give this the attention that it needs. I’m not going to let this go.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rm0eap
http://laurenpippa.tumblr.com/post/58778318048/cancelling-the-release-of-learning-to-love
If you want to contact Amazon, here is their contact info:
Phone: 206-266-1000
Email: Jeff@amazon.com
