Thank you, Lenny. As always, you’ve made some excellent points. No platform is perfect, and I don’t see a viable alternative on the horizon. Goodreads was created for readers, and I don’t expect it to cater to authors. That said, I do believe it’s time they revisit their community guidelines. At a minimum, reviewers should be required to read the book and provide a written explanation before assigning a rating below three stars. Authors—and other readers—deserve more than a drive-by judgment.
I'm not a fan of Goodreads either, though my novel and blog links are listed there. I found it frustrating to set up my author account, since I already had a reader account. It took weeks for the Goodreads librarian to straighten out the kinks.
In my humble opinion, the site isn't being monitored properly. No one should be able to hide their identity and give authors one-star book reviews. It's evil.
One time, I went into a thread that was for readers of young adult books to tell them about my review campaign on Booksprout. For those who don't know, Booksprout is a site for readers to read books free in exchange for writing a book review. Someone reached out to me and asked me to email the file directly to him. I declined and told him he must register on Booksprout to download a file. I told him it wouldn't cost anything to set up a reader account. Later, this person found my email and sent me a nasty message. I blocked him from email and Goodreads. I reported him on Goodreads, but never heard anything about it. It seemed like no one cared that this encounter started on Goodreads.
Ooh, a long comment, but people should know. And everyone should read Kay's post, Goodreads is Broken.
I'm starting to explore bookbub.com/ for secondary reviews and see how that goes. I didn't mention them in my post. The only good thing about Goodreads is that the librarians are nice. Yes, Goodreads has quite a few people who want things for free. As you mentioned, they hang out there wanting ARC's, but like you, I won't work with people that I don't know. I'm with you, you don't know who these people are, whether they are scammers or what. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thanks for your post, Kay. This is a tricky topic, on which I shall offer some comments as both an author and a reviewer.
(1) I have periodically "hit the wall" with Amazon and found that reviews I write will not get published. On one occasion, roughly three to four weeks after I had ordered over $130 of items from Amazon, I was advised that only people who had purchased at least $50 within the past year could review products. Go figure!
On the other hand, I have never had problems reviewing on GoodReads. It remains my "fall-back" platform when Amazon denies me access.
(2) Your points about the vitriol are well-taken. In fact, reviews on GoodReads generally run lower (with some exceptions). A score over 4.2 on Amazon is generally not as good as the same 4.2 on GoodReads, where so many people will offer a rating of 3-stars even when they seemed to like the book.
(3) The problems with ratings from people who did not read the book also arise on Amazon. A novella of mine has a handful of reviews and an average rating of 3.8, which would be over 4.0 but for a 1-star review. The "gentleman's" ONLY comment, posted more than SEVEN years ago: << Wouldn't open on my fire tablet. >>
Duh? That six-word "review" states that the book file did not open. If it did not open, he did not read it. I have contacted "support" (both Kindle and Amazon) at least seven times, calling this to their attention. Whether I spoke with someone or wrote, I was always told that someone would get back to me and address the problem in near future. I'm still waiting!
(4) I agree about the lack of response from GoodReads, and -- more to the point -- that the reviews there are LESS useful than those an Amazon, if only because potential readers can order on Amazon.
*****
All that said, my biggest "problem" with both Amazon and GoodReads is that they allow "ratings" without an actual review. It is far too easy for a vindictive individual to put up a "1-star" rating without having read the book. However, the question remains: on what "credible" site can we get reviews that may actually convert to sales? The price tag on Kirkus Reviews ranges from $425 to $575. Publishers Weekly requires a $25 "submission fee," with no guarantee they'll actually review the work in question. Needless to say, self-published authors can hardly expect reviews from *The Guardian*, *The Los Angeles Times* *The New York Review of Books*, *The New York Times*, or *The Washington Post*!
Again, thanks for your thoughts, and let us hope that a solution will arise (some day!).
Thank you, Lenny. As always, you’ve made some excellent points. No platform is perfect, and I don’t see a viable alternative on the horizon. Goodreads was created for readers, and I don’t expect it to cater to authors. That said, I do believe it’s time they revisit their community guidelines. At a minimum, reviewers should be required to read the book and provide a written explanation before assigning a rating below three stars. Authors—and other readers—deserve more than a drive-by judgment.
I'm not a fan of Goodreads either, though my novel and blog links are listed there. I found it frustrating to set up my author account, since I already had a reader account. It took weeks for the Goodreads librarian to straighten out the kinks.
In my humble opinion, the site isn't being monitored properly. No one should be able to hide their identity and give authors one-star book reviews. It's evil.
One time, I went into a thread that was for readers of young adult books to tell them about my review campaign on Booksprout. For those who don't know, Booksprout is a site for readers to read books free in exchange for writing a book review. Someone reached out to me and asked me to email the file directly to him. I declined and told him he must register on Booksprout to download a file. I told him it wouldn't cost anything to set up a reader account. Later, this person found my email and sent me a nasty message. I blocked him from email and Goodreads. I reported him on Goodreads, but never heard anything about it. It seemed like no one cared that this encounter started on Goodreads.
Ooh, a long comment, but people should know. And everyone should read Kay's post, Goodreads is Broken.
I agree, Goodreads isn't the most positive place especially in their groups and with spam.
I'm starting to explore bookbub.com/ for secondary reviews and see how that goes. I didn't mention them in my post. The only good thing about Goodreads is that the librarians are nice. Yes, Goodreads has quite a few people who want things for free. As you mentioned, they hang out there wanting ARC's, but like you, I won't work with people that I don't know. I'm with you, you don't know who these people are, whether they are scammers or what. Thank you for sharing your experience.
So true!
Thanks for your post, Kay. This is a tricky topic, on which I shall offer some comments as both an author and a reviewer.
(1) I have periodically "hit the wall" with Amazon and found that reviews I write will not get published. On one occasion, roughly three to four weeks after I had ordered over $130 of items from Amazon, I was advised that only people who had purchased at least $50 within the past year could review products. Go figure!
On the other hand, I have never had problems reviewing on GoodReads. It remains my "fall-back" platform when Amazon denies me access.
(2) Your points about the vitriol are well-taken. In fact, reviews on GoodReads generally run lower (with some exceptions). A score over 4.2 on Amazon is generally not as good as the same 4.2 on GoodReads, where so many people will offer a rating of 3-stars even when they seemed to like the book.
(3) The problems with ratings from people who did not read the book also arise on Amazon. A novella of mine has a handful of reviews and an average rating of 3.8, which would be over 4.0 but for a 1-star review. The "gentleman's" ONLY comment, posted more than SEVEN years ago: << Wouldn't open on my fire tablet. >>
Duh? That six-word "review" states that the book file did not open. If it did not open, he did not read it. I have contacted "support" (both Kindle and Amazon) at least seven times, calling this to their attention. Whether I spoke with someone or wrote, I was always told that someone would get back to me and address the problem in near future. I'm still waiting!
(4) I agree about the lack of response from GoodReads, and -- more to the point -- that the reviews there are LESS useful than those an Amazon, if only because potential readers can order on Amazon.
*****
All that said, my biggest "problem" with both Amazon and GoodReads is that they allow "ratings" without an actual review. It is far too easy for a vindictive individual to put up a "1-star" rating without having read the book. However, the question remains: on what "credible" site can we get reviews that may actually convert to sales? The price tag on Kirkus Reviews ranges from $425 to $575. Publishers Weekly requires a $25 "submission fee," with no guarantee they'll actually review the work in question. Needless to say, self-published authors can hardly expect reviews from *The Guardian*, *The Los Angeles Times* *The New York Review of Books*, *The New York Times*, or *The Washington Post*!
Again, thanks for your thoughts, and let us hope that a solution will arise (some day!).