Some months ago a discussion thread on the Author’s Guild site about Anna’s or some other “free ebook site” got me my first strike because I pointed out the users of such virus laden sites were Freetards. You see, nobody on that site keeps up on marketing or technology. The other day the AG magazine/newsletter showed up and just a few pages into my bathroom reading was their No Banned Words Pledge. I laughed so hard . . . well, use your imagination.
Definitions
Incorrect definitions can be found at Urban Dictionary and Wordnik. These are the Microsoft funded definitions. I remember the word surfacing in the 1990s when most people had dial-up Internet. What else was happening then? Microsoft was desperately trying to push DEC and its VMS operating system out of corporate data centers so the home hobbyist x86 computers running their operating system could occupy it.
Shenanigans happened. Compaq bought DEC and immediately tried to kill off VMS. What is now Homeland Security paid Compaq and Microsoft with offers of lifetime vacations in CIA Black Sites. Why? The NSA, CIA, Defense industry, most metal mills and nearly all nuclear power plants used the platform because it had up-times measured in decades. A robustly configured Windows box might make it a week. Most had to be rebooted multiple times per day.
Reboot
The Microsoft Solutions to Everything
Story Behind the Story
The Janet Reno investigations of Microsoft lead to Bill Gates testimony before Congress. Despite Google’s AI answers, you should be able to find C-span video of the testimony where Bill Gates stated Linux was a serious threat. Besides illegally threatening Dell and other hardware vendors, Microsoft tried to push Midrange computer vendors out of the data centers with bogus studies reporting lower Total Cost of Ownership for Windows vs. their products. They also went after Linux with similar bogus studies.
Every few years you can find one some magazine actually reported on. Their corporate testicles really are in a vice now though.
Linux Mint and MX-Linux run just fine on i7-gen4 computers. PCLinuxOS really likes older hardware though the initial desktop experience might take a bit of getting used to. It does have a very friendly community behind it and you really can customize it with the desktop of your choice.
So, in a hopeless attempt to eliminate Linux from the world, Microsoft funded the definitions you find at those two dictionary sites.
Exposure Marketing
The Christmas market is upon us. Given the uncertainty of tariffs, many are hoping books will once again become a go-to gift. It should come as no surprise you will find endless conversations about marketing and book reviews in the Author’s Guild forums. It should also come as no surprise that even Publisher’s Weekly is allowing vendors to use its list to SPAM authors and publishers about Exposure Marketing services.
Exposure Marketing is always a waste of money.
Roland Hughes
Understanding What Freetards Are
To understand this, you have to understand what Freetards are and how the Internet works. In case you can’t see the featured image.
You’ve all done this:
Created a bogus “free” email account
used said “free” email account to sign up to get a discount or something free
Never looked at that email address again
Sometimes you sign up for discount coupons and then only look at the bogus email account when you are thinking of buying something again. Other times you create a bogus email address to get a fremium. Most fremiums can then be found up for sale on eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, etc.
The point is these email addresses are what populate those “verified email lists” you both see for sale and the ones the Exposure Marketers claim to have. I have little doubt that they have accumulated hundreds of thousands of emails. Most of them acquired this way so most of them will go unread until the host deletes the account.
The Experiment
Back in 2016, when I finished this book,
I obtain a supposed list of book buyers. Set up Mutt on a Linux machine and had it send out just a few messages every hour using an email address created for this express purpose. You could send with disposition confirm then so, even if it was deleted without being opened I got notice.
Many, many, many emails bounced. I got many “deleted without being opened” status messages. Most importantly, I got “deleted without being opened” notices up to two years later. They are probably still coming to that email address, but I don’t use the hosting company anymore.
No sales were attributable to that email list. Yes, it took weeks for that spare computer to send all of those emails out using multiple subject lines so I would trip the spam detectors. When I pressed the “vendor” of said list, and pressed hard, I found out the question users responded to.
Have you purchased a book for yourself or as a gift in the past five years?
Book Clubs Don’t Buy Books
Most Exposure Marketers will claim to have thousands of email addresses for book club members. They will show you logs of having sent all of the emails. Some might even show you the actual bounce rate. Now you also know most are going to a dead email address.
Major publishers with big dollars behind a title ship physical free copies to book clubs. Unless your email comes with as many physical free copies as the book club wants, it isn’t being opened. They have no intention of actually buying your book. Freetards join book clubs to get free books. You will find them listed for sale on eBay, Amazon, etc. If one person from a book club actually posts a review of the title, count yourself lucky.
Goodreads – Bad People
Prior to Amazon purchasing Goodreads, if you offered ten physical copies of your book, you would get roughly five reviews. Amazon brought with it the scum of the earth. Today, if you offer ten physical copies of your title for review, even sign them, you won’t get even one posted review. You will, on the day the title arrives, find it listed as a “signed by author collectors item” for a price well above list.
Scum exists on both sides of the Amazon transaction. Scum uses CreateSpace and other self-publishing sites to create books of pure gibberish with price tags in the thousands (used to just be hundreds) of dollars. They then make that title available to Prime Rewards or whatever it is called now. Where Prime members can claim it as their one free item. Amazon ends up paying the vendor lots of money. Prime members leap at the book, figuring if they can sell it for even half that they will “make Prime pay!”
Hard to feel sorry for any party in that screwing, isn’t it?
Freetards – Full Circle
Many “review services” want non-DRM ebook versions of your work “for review.” These instantly get uploaded to “free ebook” sites where they are bundled with copious quantities of viruses and other malware. This is the topic we were discussing when I posted this message.
You can actually count these as “lost sales.” Yes, the people who go to these sites are Freetards. The people who host these sites tend to be massive nasty criminals that install viruses in the “free books.” Many of these viruses create bot-nets while also stealing your personal financial information, potentially installing Ransomeware. What happens is the great unwashed masses gullible enough to use those founts of wire fraud and ignorance called “Social Media” see a post from such an individual worded something like this. Don’t download Sally Author’s “Insert-book-title-here” because it has a virus! Insert-virus-scanner-name-here told me it was malware that stole my identity. Nowhere in the post will it state “I downloaded an illegal free copy from insert-site-name-here. Adding insult to injury, this person probably will actually have their identity stolen and it may have absolutely nothing to do with that virus but they will get a following telling the tale of how horrible it is to get your identity back. Identity Theft Statistics: Fraud Is on the Rise – Experian
What is truly amazing, at least to me, is the number of imbeciles who download something from said sites in such a way to avoid automatic virus scanning. Only later, when they notice something “not right” do they kick a scan off. You’re smart enough to get around scanning downloads but not smart enough to scan them prior to opening???
Deleted message on Author’s Guild forum
If you want a list of known at some point in time illegal book sites from a Web site that looks like AI wrote it, you will find it here. Anna’s archive is notorious for virus distribution. No, I won’t provide a link.
North Korea, China, and Russia love Freetards
This is one of the largest means of data and identity theft out there. Large scale identity theft from downloading illegal books is documented. Guess what? Your illegal movie and music downloads come with the same/similar viruses. These bad actors steal the blood sweat and tears of creative people, infest them with all kinds of viruses and malware, then give the book/movie/music/game to Freetards.
Why? Because they are the product. Where they work is the product. You’ve got to build that bot-net somehow. So far the biggest one I’ve heard of was 600,000. Yes, they found 600,000 Freetards.
Note: A virus scanner can only identify a virus after it has been identified and some method of removal determined.
The Author’s Guild claims to have a policy of no banned words, but Freetards, despite being a national security and global financial risk, is banned.
P.S. When you purchase a new computer they don’t “give you that software for free,” it is baked into the price. There are entire marketing courses around “selling to Freetards.” Even billionaires believe they have a right to eliminate intellectual property law so they can use your content to train their AI and make money from it.
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