Misguided authors unite to destroy a legitimate e-book lending site

Here.

And the Facebook site of the downed site...

Here

Basically, a group of authors mistook a legal, legitimate book lending site for a pirate site and ganged up to get it pulled down. Taken down originally while the web host looked into the allegations, they offered the site owner to restore his site, but he's endured so much harassment now that he's not feeling emotionally able to restore it.

It all seems to be about writers who can't read. They can't read and understand how Lendink worked, nor can they seem to understand what they even agreed to when they signed Amazon's contract. Many of the authors said they'd never gave permission for their books to be loaned out, yet had actually given permission for Amazon to loan out their books. Many ignored their fellow writers who tried to clear up the misunderstandings, only to then be attacked by their fellow authors for 'defending piracy'. A few of the original mob organizers won't admit to having made a mistake, and one is even now trying to say that they were targeting LendLKN, not LendINK, and it's removal was an unfortunate happenstance. Yet others have proven that LendLKN has never even been registered as a web site, so never existed to be taken down.

It's a sad occurrence, especially since the site helped authors make money and advertise their work. And it's really sad to see that so many people will believe anything anyone says, just like those that believe and pass around all those fake emails that it only take seconds of research to find out they're fakes and lies.

And sad that some writers can't seem to read. But then, they're not the only ones, I guess. How many times have we seen people, readers presumably, who end up causing problems because they can't seem to read the site rules at PBS?

Sad all the way around.

WOW.
Just does go to show many people do not read the contracts they enter into.  Amazon is actually one site that does clearly state what your contract is, and if you want the book to be lendable or text to speech options.

All it does is make those authors look uneducated on ebooks, petty and money grabbing. 

I HAVE looked at amazon as a way to self publish, I have read their contract and it was not half as confusing as many other places have.

If that site was breaking the lending rules, Amazon would be on them like a spider on a fly.

It is sad that the site owner no longer feels able to run the site and thus gives the misguided authors a victory in some sense.

I think its time for these authors to go piss up a rope. 

Here's the link to the list of authors which the blogger has promised to add to.  Not that I would ever want to read anything from these Hacks, but it would be nice to stay away from they crap they write.

-RD 

I was terrified to reaD the author's list as I was waiting to find one whose book I want to read. Nope. I came up clean. Apparently I only like to read rational author's work. Yea!

It's just amazing to me how after all the explanations that authors, and some others, still don't get what the site was doing. That there were no books on the site. That all the links took people to Amazon, and if the book wasn't lendable, it didn't get lent. Over and over it's explained, and they just can't seem to understand basic English.

One author complained that LendInk was loaning the same book hundreds of times, so it must be a pirate site. Never occurred to her that there might be hundreds of members with one legal copy to lend? Duh.

Or the one who says that Amazon's policy of "Loan to family or friends" means that if you loan to a stranger that's a pirated copy?

Another author even stated that no one has permission to link to her book on Amazon without her permission. Yeah, like that's going to get a lot of her books sold, isn't it? Think she'd see a drop in sales if no one knew her book existed?

Let alone the authors who apparently never actually read their contract with Amazon. Seriously?

I also dropped by the stupid author list and was glad to see if there wasn't anyone I follow. Glad to see it was all strangers. I'd say I'd boycott them, but truthfully I doubt I'd ever have bought from them anyway.

Also, not a fan of hitting the harassing author's books and leaving 1-Stars on Amazon or other places. I'm not a fan of book reviews being used for anything but a review of the book. Didn't like it when people did it for prices being too high, for authors some people though had insulted them on twitter, or other reasons they want to rate a book at 1-star that has nothing to do with the actual book itself. I think those complaints should stay in the forums, blogs, journals or wherever.

What I would like to see is a list of those authors who did their best to stem the tide of insanity, stood up for common sense and those who got attacked for standing up for doing what was right. I might be persuaded to try a new author who was actually smart and level headed.

Wow.  You'd think authors would also be readers, but this just proves that's not true for most of them.  Sad.

Cindy- No clue how they cannot understand it, seems they don't want to and are happy to be ignorant.

Does not take rocket science to say it was a matching service. And yes I was told about this through various channels, other authors, on twitter and I was like what!.  But some wont listen as they know it all.

Don't know if any of you read through the lengthy comments, but there's a priceless post about one of the main idiot authors in which she states she's lost her dvd copy of Thor and is now having to download it again.  The person who posted about the tweet even provided a screen cap of the original post.  Seriously?  She helps take a legitimate site claiming piracy, but turns around and downloads a copy of a newly released movie?  Good grief.

ET fix spelling.

If anyone is interested in testing it out, they're back up at...

http://www.lendink.com/

I've posted a few books.

Basically like the other sites. I just wish there was a better way to browse books. They all seem to be hit or miss that way.