Why so hard to write a Goodreads review?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but there's something not quite right about Goodreads's review-writing workflow.

I wanted to review The Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (wonderful book, BTW), but I couldn't figure out how to do that. I looked all over the book's page, clicked around, searched the page for relevant keywords, and still couldn't find any way to do it.

Finally I clicked on the five stars I wanted to give the book, and only then was I prompted to write a review. If I hadn't done that, I never would have been able to do so!

I suspect that if Goodreads made it easy to write a review, they'd have about twenty times as many of them.

Anyone else experienced this problem?
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Published on August 29, 2015 10:24 Tags: book-reviews, goodreads, workflow
Comments Showing 1-6 of 6 (6 new)    post a comment »
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message 1: by Dharma (new)

Dharma Kelleher I don't have this problem. Any time I change a book to my "read" list, it automatically pops up a window prompting me to write a review.


message 2: by Paula (new)

Paula Berinstein Dharma wrote: "I don't have this problem. Any time I change a book to my "read" list, it automatically pops up a window prompting me to write a review."

But that's a popup, right, Dharma? You have to take an action to make that happen. What if you want to come back at some later time and just write a review? Or am I missing something?


message 3: by Paula (new)

Paula Berinstein Dharma wrote: "I don't have this problem. Any time I change a book to my "read" list, it automatically pops up a window prompting me to write a review."

Okay, I see what's going on here. If you add a book to your shelf, say you've finished it, then you get that popup. That's not generally how I do things. I usually do a helicopter thing where I swoop in and find a book I want to rate. Most of the time I don't add the books to my shelf first.


message 4: by Wendy (new)

Wendy I was confused by the set up at first as well Paula and like you stumbled onto their process. I also found I lost the screen when I was writing the review so prepare it in "Word" then cut and paste it in. Saves on time and my stress level.

Only my currently reading list prompts me to write a review...my to read list would be too long.


message 5: by Paula (new)

Paula Berinstein Wendy wrote: "I was confused by the set up at first as well Paula and like you stumbled onto their process. I also found I lost the screen when I was writing the review so prepare it in "Word" then cut and paste..."

I used to be a systems analyst, Wendy, and I honestly think workflow could be improved about a million percent in just about every system. It's not that difficult, really. It's just a matter of awareness.

I guess I just don't use Goodreads the way it was designed. Oh well.


message 6: by Wendy (new)

Wendy Nice to know others suffer the same problem.


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