If this offends you, don't read it...

It amazes me when people write this. Maybe someone can explain to me just how in the hell you can tell if something is going to offend you unless you read it?!? So you have to read it in order to tell whether it's offensive to you or not, and if it is, then it's too late.

Obviously people know ahead of time that whatever drivel they are writing about is going to offend some people, and that it's impossible for a reader to tell unless they READ it. And I realize there is simply no way to warn a reader properly. So what are they really saying? If this offends you, I don't want to hear about it? If this offends you, I could care less? If this offends you, well then good, it was meant to?

Sometimes you see the "If this offends you, then don't read it" reply in a comment you make because you were offended. It is pointless to argue in a comment thread. People lose all sense of civility and reasoning in comment threads. You can argue and give all the sources you can find to support the reasoning behind your being offended to no avail.

At any rate, the whole point of this was because I decided I have had enough of seeing childish, irresponsible, offensive and totally uninformed images and opinions on Facebook. It's cool getting connected with old friends and school mates and seeing what is on peoples minds. And yeah, I know, if I don't like Facebook, I don't have to go there. But friends, please at least use your mind for something other than holding your ears apart.

We all have our opinions, and there is free speech in this country after all. But why would you pass around two and three year old hate filled messages to present your rabid political views when they are proven hoaxes? Why would you commit yourself to something like that with out checking it out first? How would you like it if someone started spreading their hate about someone you know personally just because they heard it from someone else? Do you blindly believe everything you read just because it supports your views?

And what about all those images people are so fond of? What is funny about people sharing a picture of the President with his head covered in shit? Or the picture of a kid riding his bike, trying to jump something only to smash his face into a concrete sidewalk? What are we, a bunch of five year old's? Is this what intelligent, educated people have become? Are you teaching YOUR children or grand children that it's OK to post pictures of people with shit on their head? What does this really say about you?

What ever. People will continue doing what they want, not caring about what it tells others about themselves. There's at least one good feature on Facebook I started using lately. If you are friends with someone, and one of their posts appear on your timeline, you can hide it if you don't like it. Click the little down pointing arrow next to the post in the top right corner. A drop down list will appear and you can select, I don't want to see this. Once you do that, then another list will appear where you can hide all post from that person if you wish.

I mention this because I've done it. Some people are just so rabid in their hate that they don't care how it makes them look. They don't care whether the things they share are true or hateful, or disrespectful or offensive. And if that's the way they feel, fine. It is their right. But if you can't be civilized in your opinions, I'd just as soon not be bothered by them. And seeing as there is no way to tell if something is offensive without seeing it first, the next best thing is to just block everything from you, based on how you have presented your offensive opinions thus far. I may be every bit as hard headed in my views as others, but at least I'm not hateful or childish about it. I just can't believe the way some people act without a care in the world for how it makes us all see what you are really made of... Unbelievable.

BookDaily.com: Is there anyone home?

Around two weeks ago, I stumbled upon what looked like could be a good promotional site for writers, BookDaily,com. Their motto is "Book samples for book lovers". They also proclaim their ability to promote emerging writer's books to readers, so I became interested enough to check them out.

I now have seven e-books published on Amazon, and I can use all the free promotion I can get. BookDaily offers free promotion to authors. All they have to do is sign up as an author, and provide a few details about their books, including an excerpt, and the books will be listed on the site under whatever category or genre you choose. Visitors can then peruse the categories and read the first chapter or excerpt of your book. If they like what they read, BookDaily provides a nice little "Buy it now" link. So you can see why I was interested.

BookDaily looked like a fairly well designed, professional site. As quoted from the BookDaily about us page:

"BookDaily is owned and operated by ArcaMax Publishing, Inc. ArcaMax.com publishes more than 300 of the most popular syndicated features and 700 classic books. This content is sent to 1.5 million subscribers by email -- all free of charge." 

So the parent company has been around awhile, and BookDaily is a spin off of it, being geared towards modern books and emerging authors. Of course there has to be some kind of gimmick, there always is. In order to gain the full benefit of the BookDaily site's promotional prowess (as an emerging author) you have to pay a fee of $49 a month. For this fee, they guarantee to expose your book to 25,000 new readers per month by sending your book details and excerpt by email to readers that have signed up for this by adding books to their book shelf. Further, they go on to say:

"Typically 1000 or more open and read their daily email from us. Your title will also receive featured placement during the month on BookDaily.com and ArcaMax.com, driving additional exposure and readership."

 I get it. It's a professional site and obviously they're a profit oriented business. I don't have a problem with that, though I do feel $49 a month is a bit steep. However, they still do have the free promotion, and it is up to you as an emerging author to go the free route and hope readers will see your book offering (where apparently it is listed at the very end of the list in whatever genre you post it in, not alphabetically but by the date posted) or, you can pay the fee. Paying the fee also gets you a special icon in the top right corner of your listing indicating that you are an 'Emerging Author'.

Seriously, I don't have a problem with any of that. My problem with them is a simple one. For lack of a better word, their community relations suck. They don't have a forum of any sort to discuss problems, and repeated emails sent to them through their 'Contact Us' link have been totally ignored. They don't even send a confirmation email  regarding your message like most, if not all professional sites do.

I admit, I had no intention of signing up for the $49 promotional benefit package. I did however sign up as an author and provided details of one of my books for free promotion. What gets me is that the 'Buy It Now' link is not working. It's such a simple thing to fix, it makes me wonder if you have to pay the $49 fee just to get a working link. It makes me wonder if you have to pay the $49 fee to get an answer to my email concerning the broken link. It makes me wonder if they are as professional as they appeared to be at first glance.

After posting my book, I waited several days to see if the link simply  took a few days to become active. It didn't, so I emailed them through their contact page. As on many 'contact us' pages, there are six subjects you can choose from for your inquiry. The best I can tell, five of them are oriented toward those that have paid the $49 fee. After the first email, I waited a few more days for a response or to see if the link would get fixed, but it didn't. Since then I have sent two more emails, also with no response.

To be fair, there is another link in the book details that lists the book as "Kindle Edition", and that link will take you to Amazon if you want to purchase it. But it's been a week now. They said in their promo that they would provide a Buy It Now link and they haven't. I had thought that maybe in the future, I might consider paying the fee for further promotion when and if I could afford it, but I seriously doubt it now. I also thought I might provide details for a few more books too, but again I'm not so sure I'll bother.

I plan on contacting them every day, for a while at least, to see if I can get a response. As hard as it is to find exposure, I thought BookDaily.com might be a good place to gain a bit of traction, but so far it has been another example of just spinning my wheels...

Updated Thursday afternoon: I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with this post, but this afternoon I finally received an email from BookDaily saying they had fixed the broken 'Buy It Now' link. A week to fix a broken link is way to long IMHO, but at least it has been taken care of.