In some respects, Goodreads is a victim of its success: too many readers recommending and reviewing too many books (even among the well-intended); too many book groups; and way, way too little moderation of any sort. Nothing works quite as advertised. I've purchased several Goodreads Giveaways--but came to recognize that the thousands of readers who signed up for a freebie have no intention of every buying or reading my books, and of course an author cannot capture them for mailing list purposes. I think Goodreads' day has come and gone. Thanks for saying out loud what many of us have been thinking!
Dec 20, 2023·edited Dec 20, 2023Liked by Kathleen Schmidt
Thank you so much for sharing this! What you wrote here is so informative; thank you so much for sharing that. It's always important to make environments safe for the community and you're right that if the unwelcome comments are still up, then the moderation needs more support. Thank you for sharing and for raising awareness.
It makes me so sad that a platform that united others through something as wholesome as books is being used against those whose voices need to be heard the most. Thank you for writing such a great article.
I know this is impossible for nearly everybody, especially the very online younger generations, but I stress this again and again when I talk to aspiring writers: Do not online search your name and book. Don't do it. Let your publishers sift through the muck and send you coverage that is fair, sane, and helpful.
Feeling very seen by this. (First thing I did when I arrived on Substack was write a cathartic essay about my Goodreads experience as a debut author - https://katebrook.substack.com/p/not-quite-shakespearean ). Everyone has the right to dislike a book, but internet reviewers seem to hold a disproportionate amount of power over that book's chances. It takes years of energy, care and attention to write a book and five minutes to write a careless review that can do genuine damage.
You wrote: " One simple fix would be to allow reviews for books that have already been published" - this doesn't make sense - isn't that what is already happening? Did you mean NOT to allow reviews for books that have not yet been published?" (which I would argue then just makes it a clone of Amazon) Frankly, I go to GoodReads a LOT to check out books I might be considering reading and would hate to see it disappear. I hope you and others with clout in the industry will work with the platform to address the issues and get them corrected, rather than just throw the platform away. Indie authors have few enough ways to get word-of-mouth buzz and I, for one, want to see GoodReads improve but not implode.
I am one of the authors who was review bombed on Goodreads. It remains to be seen whether they will do anything about this. Thank you for your support here.
Your final paragraph is right on point. My novel (my 6th) is now being bombed by dozens of anti-Semites.--prior to its 1/30/24 release. It is a concerted attack that is being egged on on TikTok and Instagram, using GoodReads as the convenient platform to air their hatred-- anonymously. The ferocity of the attack on my upcoming novel has drawn media attention in an article published this week in the Forward. GoodReads removed one 1-star "review" but allows 15 to remain. The problem is that ratings without text cannot be flagged, and there are over 50 such 1-star ratings for my book that hasn't yet been published, and clearly these people had not received an ARC.
GoodReads hasn't even acted in light of this weeks media write-up about it.
I agree with all of this, though I would love to point out that disallowing book reviews pre-publication excludes booksellers (like myself) who are genuinely reading and reviewing books that they have read. If it were possible to have tiered accounts - like on Edelweiss or Libro.fm where I have a bookseller account - so certain options are allowed for me that aren't for people with non-bookstore-sanctioned accounts.
Generally I dislike Goodreads and I only begrudgingly use it as a place to count my reads for the year, but I do use it (for now - I do also have a Storygraph account) and it would be frustrating to not be able to track what I've read and what order I read them in. (I rarely write reviews or even provide star ratings unless I'm absolutely moved by how good or terrible a reading experience was.)
Well yes, for sure. One would hope that specific tiered accounts would be one step toward that, as well as a million other improvements that could be done. It just feels icky to use it in general since it’s owned by every independent bookstore’s main competitor.
Just a point of clarification—do you mean: one simple fix would be to *disallow* reviews for books that have not yet been published? I'm a publisher and I hate Goodreads. We had an incident last year where one of our authors attacked someone for leaving her a good review on Goodreads. It was insane, and we do so much author education. You're so right that publishers need to do more/more/more, but competition, jealousy, and immaturity is going to lead to this kind of behavior no matter how well a publisher does at author education because the authors being terrible out there are not listening to their publishers. There's something about the combo of getting your book published plus social media that creates monsters among the less-mindful. I love your suggestions for Goodreads to do better, though. That said, I think Amazon just doesn't care. My own experience with Amazon is that they're so antagonistic to publishers, so when bad things happen to publishers, better for them. Thanks for this great piece, Kathleen. I'm loving your coverage of the industry!
Yes, disallow reviews for books that haven't been published. Amazon won't post customer reviews until publication day, so why can't Goodreads? It can't go on like this. Thank you for the kind words!
Then you would have to get rid of NetGalley and ARCs. I get books in advance to post reviews in order for people who are my friends can view. This whole post is anti reader and just authors complaining. I’ll avoid a bunch of you from now on.
“Currently, an army of volunteer “librarians” monitor content on the site, and you can see how well that’s working (it’s not)”. Oh my goodness.
Thanks for this in depth piece on Goodreads and its connection to the actual sale of books! You always get right to the point, Katherine. I’ve never spent much time on Goodreads as a reader or a writer - I can’t say why other than it seemed like a whole lot of work with little return.
My question is - what is the mission of Goodreads, as a business, I mean? Is it simply Ad revenue for Amazon, its parent company? Or is there another business goal? If it was simply a way to connect readers with authors, books and other readers, why would Amazon want to purchase it? If we know their business goal perhaps we will uncover the reason for their failure to properly vet the content? Just musing here…
Kathleen - thanks for this insightful article. I am not a published writer but I am a voracious reader. I was an early adopter of Goodreads when it first came out and was active on the site for 15+years. A month ago I made the decision to delete my account (part of a broader move to leave social media) largely due to the issues you discuss. Other than being a place to keep track of what I read it had lost most of its value and had become unreliable as a source of information. I felt that ratings and reviews couldn't really be trusted. It was sad because in the early days, Goodreads was a great place for readers to congregate and share thoughts.
Outside of all that is going on with Goodreads, I really love that you hit on the point of how important it is to seek self-care, however that may look for you. As a first-time author whose pub date is less than 30 days away, I had no idea the amount of pressure I would put on myself or feel was necessary in order to feel like I've given this my all. It's been important for me to voice what I feel to fellow authors, those that have already gone through the entire process and those who are at the same part of the journey as I am. It can feel very lonely, but it shouldn't.
This was the reminder to cancel my Goodreads account that I needed, thank you. I only signed up because it seemed like something I should keep up with as an editor, and then at some point when I wrote my own books, my publisher wanted me to do a Q&A or some feature for marketing, and I can’t imagine it moved the needle at all. Add to that: I don’t review books there because I feel weird about it (knowing so many editors/authors personally, I’d hate to give someone’s book a review they weren’t happy with), and I also never look at it for my own books because I just assume it will be a shit show 🫣 I can already see on my Amazon listings that my GR reviews average a full star or more below my Amazon ones, so I can only imagine there must be a QUANTITY of 1-stars dragging everything down, and who wants to dive into that?! Good riddance to GR, I say.
Goodreads rankings are consistently lower than Amazon rankings. Why, I don't know -- nor do I know which one is more accurate, if that's even possible to measure -- although I have read and seen that GR readers are less likely to give 5 stars. So your lower GR ranking is probably consistent with the platform overall and may be the result of fewer 5 star ratings, not a bunch of one-stars. That's my experience and that of a lot of mystery and crime writers.
I also really appreciate that you wrote supportive comments about mental health and supporting fellow authors. That is kindness and so important!
It’s not taken into consideration as much as it should.
In some respects, Goodreads is a victim of its success: too many readers recommending and reviewing too many books (even among the well-intended); too many book groups; and way, way too little moderation of any sort. Nothing works quite as advertised. I've purchased several Goodreads Giveaways--but came to recognize that the thousands of readers who signed up for a freebie have no intention of every buying or reading my books, and of course an author cannot capture them for mailing list purposes. I think Goodreads' day has come and gone. Thanks for saying out loud what many of us have been thinking!
Thank you for reading it!
Thank you so much for sharing this! What you wrote here is so informative; thank you so much for sharing that. It's always important to make environments safe for the community and you're right that if the unwelcome comments are still up, then the moderation needs more support. Thank you for sharing and for raising awareness.
It makes me so sad that a platform that united others through something as wholesome as books is being used against those whose voices need to be heard the most. Thank you for writing such a great article.
Thank you for reading it.
Couldn't help myself. You're a great writer.
I don’t have the self-control to avoid looking at Goodreads so I actually blocked the website in my web browser. Would highly recommend
Very smart.
I know this is impossible for nearly everybody, especially the very online younger generations, but I stress this again and again when I talk to aspiring writers: Do not online search your name and book. Don't do it. Let your publishers sift through the muck and send you coverage that is fair, sane, and helpful.
I agree with you.
Feeling very seen by this. (First thing I did when I arrived on Substack was write a cathartic essay about my Goodreads experience as a debut author - https://katebrook.substack.com/p/not-quite-shakespearean ). Everyone has the right to dislike a book, but internet reviewers seem to hold a disproportionate amount of power over that book's chances. It takes years of energy, care and attention to write a book and five minutes to write a careless review that can do genuine damage.
You wrote: " One simple fix would be to allow reviews for books that have already been published" - this doesn't make sense - isn't that what is already happening? Did you mean NOT to allow reviews for books that have not yet been published?" (which I would argue then just makes it a clone of Amazon) Frankly, I go to GoodReads a LOT to check out books I might be considering reading and would hate to see it disappear. I hope you and others with clout in the industry will work with the platform to address the issues and get them corrected, rather than just throw the platform away. Indie authors have few enough ways to get word-of-mouth buzz and I, for one, want to see GoodReads improve but not implode.
That’s a Grammerly error. I’ll fix.
I am one of the authors who was review bombed on Goodreads. It remains to be seen whether they will do anything about this. Thank you for your support here.
I’m sorry that happened. I hope something is done.
Your final paragraph is right on point. My novel (my 6th) is now being bombed by dozens of anti-Semites.--prior to its 1/30/24 release. It is a concerted attack that is being egged on on TikTok and Instagram, using GoodReads as the convenient platform to air their hatred-- anonymously. The ferocity of the attack on my upcoming novel has drawn media attention in an article published this week in the Forward. GoodReads removed one 1-star "review" but allows 15 to remain. The problem is that ratings without text cannot be flagged, and there are over 50 such 1-star ratings for my book that hasn't yet been published, and clearly these people had not received an ARC.
GoodReads hasn't even acted in light of this weeks media write-up about it.
I agree with all of this, though I would love to point out that disallowing book reviews pre-publication excludes booksellers (like myself) who are genuinely reading and reviewing books that they have read. If it were possible to have tiered accounts - like on Edelweiss or Libro.fm where I have a bookseller account - so certain options are allowed for me that aren't for people with non-bookstore-sanctioned accounts.
Generally I dislike Goodreads and I only begrudgingly use it as a place to count my reads for the year, but I do use it (for now - I do also have a Storygraph account) and it would be frustrating to not be able to track what I've read and what order I read them in. (I rarely write reviews or even provide star ratings unless I'm absolutely moved by how good or terrible a reading experience was.)
I think Goodreads needs to be revamped so it is useful and has better moderation. The way it is now isn’t working.
Well yes, for sure. One would hope that specific tiered accounts would be one step toward that, as well as a million other improvements that could be done. It just feels icky to use it in general since it’s owned by every independent bookstore’s main competitor.
Just a point of clarification—do you mean: one simple fix would be to *disallow* reviews for books that have not yet been published? I'm a publisher and I hate Goodreads. We had an incident last year where one of our authors attacked someone for leaving her a good review on Goodreads. It was insane, and we do so much author education. You're so right that publishers need to do more/more/more, but competition, jealousy, and immaturity is going to lead to this kind of behavior no matter how well a publisher does at author education because the authors being terrible out there are not listening to their publishers. There's something about the combo of getting your book published plus social media that creates monsters among the less-mindful. I love your suggestions for Goodreads to do better, though. That said, I think Amazon just doesn't care. My own experience with Amazon is that they're so antagonistic to publishers, so when bad things happen to publishers, better for them. Thanks for this great piece, Kathleen. I'm loving your coverage of the industry!
Yes, disallow reviews for books that haven't been published. Amazon won't post customer reviews until publication day, so why can't Goodreads? It can't go on like this. Thank you for the kind words!
Then you would have to get rid of NetGalley and ARCs. I get books in advance to post reviews in order for people who are my friends can view. This whole post is anti reader and just authors complaining. I’ll avoid a bunch of you from now on.
“Currently, an army of volunteer “librarians” monitor content on the site, and you can see how well that’s working (it’s not)”. Oh my goodness.
Thanks for this in depth piece on Goodreads and its connection to the actual sale of books! You always get right to the point, Katherine. I’ve never spent much time on Goodreads as a reader or a writer - I can’t say why other than it seemed like a whole lot of work with little return.
My question is - what is the mission of Goodreads, as a business, I mean? Is it simply Ad revenue for Amazon, its parent company? Or is there another business goal? If it was simply a way to connect readers with authors, books and other readers, why would Amazon want to purchase it? If we know their business goal perhaps we will uncover the reason for their failure to properly vet the content? Just musing here…
Kathleen - thanks for this insightful article. I am not a published writer but I am a voracious reader. I was an early adopter of Goodreads when it first came out and was active on the site for 15+years. A month ago I made the decision to delete my account (part of a broader move to leave social media) largely due to the issues you discuss. Other than being a place to keep track of what I read it had lost most of its value and had become unreliable as a source of information. I felt that ratings and reviews couldn't really be trusted. It was sad because in the early days, Goodreads was a great place for readers to congregate and share thoughts.
Thank you for reading it. I think a lot of people feel the same as you. It's gotten so toxic on there that authors are starting to avoid it.
Outside of all that is going on with Goodreads, I really love that you hit on the point of how important it is to seek self-care, however that may look for you. As a first-time author whose pub date is less than 30 days away, I had no idea the amount of pressure I would put on myself or feel was necessary in order to feel like I've given this my all. It's been important for me to voice what I feel to fellow authors, those that have already gone through the entire process and those who are at the same part of the journey as I am. It can feel very lonely, but it shouldn't.
This was the reminder to cancel my Goodreads account that I needed, thank you. I only signed up because it seemed like something I should keep up with as an editor, and then at some point when I wrote my own books, my publisher wanted me to do a Q&A or some feature for marketing, and I can’t imagine it moved the needle at all. Add to that: I don’t review books there because I feel weird about it (knowing so many editors/authors personally, I’d hate to give someone’s book a review they weren’t happy with), and I also never look at it for my own books because I just assume it will be a shit show 🫣 I can already see on my Amazon listings that my GR reviews average a full star or more below my Amazon ones, so I can only imagine there must be a QUANTITY of 1-stars dragging everything down, and who wants to dive into that?! Good riddance to GR, I say.
Goodreads is busy work when there’s not a big marketing budget for a book. It doesn’t matter if an author is on there or not.
Goodreads rankings are consistently lower than Amazon rankings. Why, I don't know -- nor do I know which one is more accurate, if that's even possible to measure -- although I have read and seen that GR readers are less likely to give 5 stars. So your lower GR ranking is probably consistent with the platform overall and may be the result of fewer 5 star ratings, not a bunch of one-stars. That's my experience and that of a lot of mystery and crime writers.
Interesting. Either way, I’m not going over there to find out for myself 😂
Wise!