Goodreads Should Be Weighted Toward Readers and Not Writers

I was thinking about this the other day when talking to a writing colleague. This is not to say that we should insist that writers are not readers, or vice versa, but it is the role we play on GR that matters.

Given the rise of self-pubbed authors, I know the literary market becomes drenched in the martial metaphors of competition and battling to be on top of some numerical scale, to accumulate the most five-stars, and all the rest that has the look and feel of a gamified environment where it might seem pardonable to engage in underhanded or mercenary tactics to "win" at the game of approbation and the "attention economy." But does it have to be that way?

It is as disingenuous of me to say that writers need not fight so viciously for attention (and royalties) as it was for Socrates to pan the sophists for getting paid to teach when he never took a drachma in payment (Socrates was living on a nice inheritance). For me, writing and publishing is not my sole source of revenue or else I would have dried up and withered away long ago. So, for me it is not a matter of jockeying for position because my income depends on it, and I think that gives me a kind of freedom. Praise or higher rankings are just supplementary benefits.

When I think about the aims of GR's site (even despite its software platform incentives to get authors to market themselves), the site seems to me to be indexed on readers. So what ought to be the ideal role of the author?

From purely a personal opinion perspective, I believe that the author's role on GR should not be heavy-handed, or in assuming that the site is really just an ego temple for authors where readers can gather round and give tribute. At most, the author on GR should simply make her- or himself available to readers, to interact and discuss the work(s). Sure, it is nice when we receive additional attention, but I don't believe authors should be pushing themselves on readers.

In fact, authors should cultivate the skill of reading their readers. That is, a reader's profile tells an author so much about that reader's taste in reading. I'll give an example:

Many months ago I had organized a giveaway which resulted in over a 1,000 readers adding the book to their "to-read" lists. I understand the basic premise of the giveaway where one maximizes on the probability of winning *some* book if one enters as many of those as possible. So, from the standpoint of judging the popularity of the book in terms of actual interest, this cannot be inferred by this metric for there may be a lot of readers who indiscriminately enter as many giveaways as possible regardless of the book's actual content and intended audience. So, I could not assume that there were 1,000 readers interested in my book despite having over a 1,000 people adding it. Let that stand as any author's ego check.

Every once in a while, I like to conduct an informal giveaway that does not make use of the in-built giveaway function. I see who has put the book on their "to-read" list and visit their profile page to see what books they feel are their favourites. So, if a reader's reading habits and most favourite author is Sophie Kinsella or J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, then I can be reasonably sure that my book would not be an ideal match for their particular reading tastes. However, if the reader's favourite books happen to fall in the "genre" I am writing in, and we share several literary influences, I might send a message offering if they would like a free copy of the book with no obligation to accept, or even review it.

That is only one way a GR author can contribute to a community of readers. Yet in any way GR authors choose to participate in the community, it should be kept fairly clear that this site is about the readers, not the authors. It is not a place for authors to dominate with a colossal ego to browbeat readers in telling them what the book meant, nor is it really the venue for shilling books as though this were a parallel sales page for Amazon.

Ultimately, I take the very name Goodreads in a specific way: it is a place where good readers find good books, and the way they do so is done through friend recommendations and a little serendipity (if not also through a little algorithmic assistance). Authors have plenty of digital spaces where they can swagger, breast-beat, and proclaim their literary genius, but Goodreads is - and should be - more about the readers and their community. We authors need to take a backseat and be happy when a reader wants to ask us about our work, or want to discuss some aspect of it.

Yes, I am a GR author, but when I am here I am a reader first. Just as I tell students that the mission of a university is not to be so fixated on strategic acquisition of some numerical grade, and to focus on the experience of learning and discovery as its own intrinsic value, I think the same applies to us authors. It is not about how many readers add our books, or give them textual praise, or even in the royalties we earn. We all know how easy it is to set up sock puppets or purchase vacuous reviews of praise from several sites that host said services.

There is an intrinsic value to writing and sharing that need not be muddied by peripheral games of popularity and profit.

The purpose of this site, to me, is that it is for the readers. We authors should really only make ourselves present when asked, and even then to listen to the readers and not dictate what the book means, or tell them that their interpretation is wrong. Interpretation has such a wide latitude to begin with, and readers come to our books with varied contexts, understandings, and experiences that it is the height of arrogance to assume a direct relation between authorial intention and reader interpretation.

Sure, we need to take some degree of pride and ownership over what we create, but once our books go public, it is the public that will take pride and ownership over a book's most important function: its reading. Readers are all that stand between what we create for reading, and a diary buried in a locked box in the ground. Even if I don't personally like a reader's impressions of my book, I am obliged to respect their opinion just as I hope respect works both ways.

Given such a widespread decline in the time or desire to read books overall (matched with a proportional rise in published books), I think we should be grateful that there are readers, that they congregate on sites such as these, and continue the powerful legacy of the joy of reading. Writers are not multi-million dollar pop stars, nor are readers simply passive and uncritical fans.

So, as a writer here on GR, I'm going to engage more as a reader. As an author as well, I'm here, but only if you need me.