Once upon a time, Goodreads was supposed to be a haven for readers—a digital bookshelf where book lovers could discover hidden gems, share what they were reading, and celebrate storytelling.
Wow. So true. I had a reader review one of my books, give me two stars, writing about 1500 words as to why she was hurt because one or two of my characters (ancient gods) were mean, sexist, and generally 'not nice.' When I pointed out to her that literary critic, James Wood, a staff writer at the New Yorker and a professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard University stating in his book, How Fiction Works, “A glance at the thousands of foolish “reader reviews” on Amazon.com, with their complaints about “dislikeable characters,” confirms a contagion of moralizing niceness.” When I pointed this out to her she essentially threatened me to back off, or she wrote, "So far, I've refrained from flagging your response for breaking the Goodreads author guidelines because I think engaging was an honest mistake and because I was, frankly, curious, as this is a situation I've never personally encountered before. But, I am letting you know as a courtesy, as an honest difference of opinion is really not worth the potential consequences to your account."
I let it go aftr that. There are 'gangs' or 'reviewers' and, I believe, a lot of them are newbie 'writers' who incite their posses to drive down ratings of books they deem 'competitors' or books they have some kind of ideological difference with. These are the same people who on social media fuss and fight endlessly, unable to 'just agree to disagree.'
One other thing, a popular literary writer's new novel was attacked in this way. One of the characters, a young girl of eleven or twelve, alleged that a male character had raped her. (Turned out that she had made it up out of jealously.) Well, as I followed the comment thread, I could see one 'reader' actually forming up a mob of incensed 'readers' to go after the author. They even attempted to change the minds of any reader who logged on in the book's and writer's defense.
I tried to garner readers and share my books and read other author's works on Goodreads. But after a year or so I gave it up, as it is, as you point out, a cesspool of jealousy, rage and hate.
Oh man, you hit a button with me! I have had a multi-year run in with Goodreads and it all started when I tried to correct my name. One of the Librarians tried to help me and she came to me later crying that they fired her. They fired a volunteer, because she tried to do what I asked. I still can't get into my account and it's been years. Frankly I don't care because I can't stand that platform. I had a friend that was faked reviewed so badly her career almost bombed and she is a traditionally published! Jealousy no doubt. My only interaction with Goodreads is hoping they don't post any of my new titles there.
As long as woke culture is funded and weaponized against civilization, there will never be any reliable platform on which to springboard our careers. I think Nick Cole correctly stated that direct marketing via chiml mail lists works best, especially in this era of gatekeeping. Its a pain, but its something a lazy sod like myself should learn.
This makes sense. I rarely look at my Goodreads page. Didn't get any traction from it, so I just ignored it for a couple years. Checked a few weeks ago, and the first book in my series has a one star review. No comment. Most reviews were four and five with a couple threes. I'm not the greatest writer in the world, but one star? The story isn't ideological or political at all, although I have written a few of those. And I'm on the right. Maybe a leftwing ideologue did it. Who knows? Thought it was strange though. I've had some excellent feedback about my stories from people who know writing, so this could be what happened. Whatever the case, all I can do is shrug and keep writing. Cheers!
I feel like describing Goodreads as a left wing echo chamber only describes the YA section. There's just as much anti-LGBTA and reactionary politics in the military sci-fi section. People terrified of books that they think are "woke."
Honestly, I have had enough of cancel culture and all it brings - while some authors do deserve it because they are engaging in harming other people, one could say "I hate pancakes" and be cancelled. There is a missing component in what reading means, critical thinking. If an author writes something, i doesn't mean they agree with it - it could barely be a representation of the current world, or something they thought important to explore, or something in their fantasies that they wouldn't want to do irl. About bad behaving authors - I think the whole booktok and Instagram thing gave authors way too much sense of power. I'm not going to leave someone a bad review because a fave author of mine said so. Stay in your lane and write good books.
I like Goodreads, but I use it as a reader. I do the yearly reading challenge to keep track of what I've read, and it makes me remember to review things, mostly for my own reference later. And if I hated a book, reading the bad reviews is fun. Bad reviews are the only way I can find out if a book has content I'm trying to avoid, like bedscenes or cheating. The author and the 5 star reviews sure won't tell you. If a book has obvious troll reviews, I ignore those, because they're as fake as the gushing 5 star reviews from the author's beta readers, lol.
Wow, I had no idea they were that bad! I'm going to look into it now... One of my son's and I are both on Goodreads and put some reviews of books we've read there.... But I never realised people put up star ratings without comment or all the rest of the stuff mentioned here....
I'm definitely going to check it out lata... Though I agree 100% on the platform looking and feeling like an outdated website...
Wowza, I've heard and seen horror stories, thankfully none have happened to me. Goodreaders rate harder, but at least for me they have almost all been fair.
Thank you! Your article hammered the final nail in the coffin on why I would never consider opening a ShitReads account. My take? Let the platform die. The neglect, deliberate promotion of mob psychology, and subsequent obfuscation of anyone trying to make a living from their work better reflects the need for its complete removal rather than continuing to fester and infect our society and culture already suffering in the throes of death.
I think there will be reviewers who aren't genuine on every platform... Because it's not the platform but the reviewers who are the problem... And the authors who try to abuse their sway on followers....
I only review on amazon.com.au and Goodreads, I don't have Kobi etc and B&N forget, I ordered and paid for an ebook and never received it so I literally just delete their emails now without even opening them...🥴
Wow. So true. I had a reader review one of my books, give me two stars, writing about 1500 words as to why she was hurt because one or two of my characters (ancient gods) were mean, sexist, and generally 'not nice.' When I pointed out to her that literary critic, James Wood, a staff writer at the New Yorker and a professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard University stating in his book, How Fiction Works, “A glance at the thousands of foolish “reader reviews” on Amazon.com, with their complaints about “dislikeable characters,” confirms a contagion of moralizing niceness.” When I pointed this out to her she essentially threatened me to back off, or she wrote, "So far, I've refrained from flagging your response for breaking the Goodreads author guidelines because I think engaging was an honest mistake and because I was, frankly, curious, as this is a situation I've never personally encountered before. But, I am letting you know as a courtesy, as an honest difference of opinion is really not worth the potential consequences to your account."
I let it go aftr that. There are 'gangs' or 'reviewers' and, I believe, a lot of them are newbie 'writers' who incite their posses to drive down ratings of books they deem 'competitors' or books they have some kind of ideological difference with. These are the same people who on social media fuss and fight endlessly, unable to 'just agree to disagree.'
One other thing, a popular literary writer's new novel was attacked in this way. One of the characters, a young girl of eleven or twelve, alleged that a male character had raped her. (Turned out that she had made it up out of jealously.) Well, as I followed the comment thread, I could see one 'reader' actually forming up a mob of incensed 'readers' to go after the author. They even attempted to change the minds of any reader who logged on in the book's and writer's defense.
I tried to garner readers and share my books and read other author's works on Goodreads. But after a year or so I gave it up, as it is, as you point out, a cesspool of jealousy, rage and hate.
Oh man, you hit a button with me! I have had a multi-year run in with Goodreads and it all started when I tried to correct my name. One of the Librarians tried to help me and she came to me later crying that they fired her. They fired a volunteer, because she tried to do what I asked. I still can't get into my account and it's been years. Frankly I don't care because I can't stand that platform. I had a friend that was faked reviewed so badly her career almost bombed and she is a traditionally published! Jealousy no doubt. My only interaction with Goodreads is hoping they don't post any of my new titles there.
If Goodreads is sucky, and Amazon reviews are just as bad.
What site would you suggest we send readers to, so that they can review our books?
I'm genuinely curious, as I'd like to know what people think of my books.
There are other retailers that list reviews like Kobo.
True, however, not everyone uses Kobo or Lulu, or even B&N. Gods don't get me talking about trying to find reviews on there.
Why can't we have a good honest reviews site? One where writers can hang out with their fans and share their favorite books and quotes...
As long as woke culture is funded and weaponized against civilization, there will never be any reliable platform on which to springboard our careers. I think Nick Cole correctly stated that direct marketing via chiml mail lists works best, especially in this era of gatekeeping. Its a pain, but its something a lazy sod like myself should learn.
That might be so. Which is why I'm looking into my own website, where I can host my own work and ask people to join an email list.
I could pull my list from here on substack as a starting list.
This makes sense. I rarely look at my Goodreads page. Didn't get any traction from it, so I just ignored it for a couple years. Checked a few weeks ago, and the first book in my series has a one star review. No comment. Most reviews were four and five with a couple threes. I'm not the greatest writer in the world, but one star? The story isn't ideological or political at all, although I have written a few of those. And I'm on the right. Maybe a leftwing ideologue did it. Who knows? Thought it was strange though. I've had some excellent feedback about my stories from people who know writing, so this could be what happened. Whatever the case, all I can do is shrug and keep writing. Cheers!
I feel like describing Goodreads as a left wing echo chamber only describes the YA section. There's just as much anti-LGBTA and reactionary politics in the military sci-fi section. People terrified of books that they think are "woke."
Honestly, I have had enough of cancel culture and all it brings - while some authors do deserve it because they are engaging in harming other people, one could say "I hate pancakes" and be cancelled. There is a missing component in what reading means, critical thinking. If an author writes something, i doesn't mean they agree with it - it could barely be a representation of the current world, or something they thought important to explore, or something in their fantasies that they wouldn't want to do irl. About bad behaving authors - I think the whole booktok and Instagram thing gave authors way too much sense of power. I'm not going to leave someone a bad review because a fave author of mine said so. Stay in your lane and write good books.
I like Goodreads, but I use it as a reader. I do the yearly reading challenge to keep track of what I've read, and it makes me remember to review things, mostly for my own reference later. And if I hated a book, reading the bad reviews is fun. Bad reviews are the only way I can find out if a book has content I'm trying to avoid, like bedscenes or cheating. The author and the 5 star reviews sure won't tell you. If a book has obvious troll reviews, I ignore those, because they're as fake as the gushing 5 star reviews from the author's beta readers, lol.
Wow, I had no idea they were that bad! I'm going to look into it now... One of my son's and I are both on Goodreads and put some reviews of books we've read there.... But I never realised people put up star ratings without comment or all the rest of the stuff mentioned here....
I'm definitely going to check it out lata... Though I agree 100% on the platform looking and feeling like an outdated website...
Wowza, I've heard and seen horror stories, thankfully none have happened to me. Goodreaders rate harder, but at least for me they have almost all been fair.
Thank you! Your article hammered the final nail in the coffin on why I would never consider opening a ShitReads account. My take? Let the platform die. The neglect, deliberate promotion of mob psychology, and subsequent obfuscation of anyone trying to make a living from their work better reflects the need for its complete removal rather than continuing to fester and infect our society and culture already suffering in the throes of death.
I think there will be reviewers who aren't genuine on every platform... Because it's not the platform but the reviewers who are the problem... And the authors who try to abuse their sway on followers....
I only review on amazon.com.au and Goodreads, I don't have Kobi etc and B&N forget, I ordered and paid for an ebook and never received it so I literally just delete their emails now without even opening them...🥴