How do you feel about GR being bought by Amazon?

[Tana]

So I am wondering how everyone is feeling about goodreads being bought by Amazon.

here is what I've read so far.

http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/41...

I'm not sure if it's exciting news or bad news!

[Somi]

It will be nice to post a review on Amazon and have it show up immediately on Goodreads, to buy a book and have it added automatically to my Goodreads books, and to publish a book and have it added to Goodreads immediately - with the book cover. :) Aside from that, I dont think the experience will change very much for Goodreads users.

Amazon however will be able to sell their book directly to the biggest community of readers in the world, it's a very astute business decision, and one more step closer to edging the other book retailers out of the market.

[Justin]

I heard about this and I must say I think its seems like a good idea I dont see why its bad other than Amazon tryna become a powerhouse.

[A Voracious Reader (a.k.a. Carol)]

I'm an optimist, but I feel this will be bad news. Amazon already censors books on their site and removes reviews arbitrarily. We might get some nice changes, but at what cost? I signed up here for an impartial site to come to for book talk and buyer links. I seriously doubt Amazon will keep its fat greedy fingers out of the equation that has worked so well here.

[Justin]

As long as they dont make any major changes then I dont see any bad to it.

[Dean]

Why would you pay millions for a company you aren't going to change or make millions on? Unicorns do not exist.

[Richard]

I find myself torn.
Being a lover of books I lament the loss of the many small book stores that had for years been a part of every town and my life.
However, as a self published author, I appreciate the freedom Amazon gives me and the many other independents.
As far as Amazons purchase of goodreads? Like most things in life, all I can do is keep reading and hope for the best.

[Melissa]

I'm not sure about this either. Amazon seems to have their fingers in everything as it is.

[Andrew]

I am with Dean on this one, although rather dissapointed to read that Unicorns do not exist...

[Tony]

Amazon will want to mine the huge GR database for sure. I do the same thing on a smaller scale - see what my friends are reading, what they're talking about - that's the whole point of GR, right? I work in a school, and the last three books I suggested for the library were all books folks on GR were talking about.

I didn't know that Amazon censored reviews. Will they allow reviews for books that aren't available through their Amazon storefront? Books, say, that are only available on Kobo. Will they allow giveaways? Read-to-reviews?

I can see changes to the front end: Log in with your Amazon account, for instance. Nothing wrong with that.

As an author, I can't see much wrong with it. As a reader, it bothers me more.

I left the Amazon boards and came here when they shoved all the authors into the ghetto of the "Meet the author".

I tried talking about the books I liked in the boards, but when people discovered I was an author, they immediately somehow assumed I was there to plug and not talk and reported my comments as spam. Hope that doesn't become an option here. I like it on this site.

I told my unicorn she didn't exist. She was going to talk to her union about it.

[Justin]

I dont mean change any small thing i mean like major changes, a unicorn without a horn is merely a horse.

[Tana]

[L.F.]

Another attempt by corporate greed to control the world. I'm just waiting for the mothership to come back so I can leave the madness behind.

[Andrew]

The mothership has already called, you just dont know it, yet...

[Heather]

I sort of feel that 'if it's not broke don't fix it' applies here - Goodreads is awesome as it is and doesn't need Amazon to make it better.

I am intrigued about the possibility of Kindle/goodreads integration though - being able to favourite quotes and write comments while reading would be great.

And the publicity it offers goodreads is well deserved.

[Cherene]

The first thing that I predict changing is a layout change. This website is a hobby website and Amazon is a corporate website. This means, Amazon has a goal to make it more aimed towards sales. Meanwhile, GR has a goal to aim towards a user interface, something is going to give.

Also, with a growing promotion of GR to Amazon users I fully expect to see more "trolls" and otherwise ignorant people - as is frequently seen in the Amazon community.

Since this is my favorite hobby website, I'd say this is the worst news I've heard, but I'll stick it out until it becomes too much.

[Phyllis]

Here is a guest blog post I just wrote about Amazon acquiring Goodreads -- http://budurl.com/AmazonGoodreads

And I'm excited that today I've just uploaded a new Kindle cover for MRS. LIEUTENANT: A WOMEN'S FRIENDSHIP NOVEL:

[L.F.]

Andrew wrote: "The mothership has already called, you just dont know it, yet..."
They forgot me again?!

[Cynthia]

I'm happy about it. I did my first novel on KDP and own two Kindles and love Amazon.

[Tina]

I joined GR b/c I didn't like Kindle's conditions (and didn't like Amazon's review posting policy). Right after I joined, GR stopped its ebook promotions, which I assume was in anticipation of the Amazon deal. I have to hope that GR will bring out the best in Amazon, and not vice versa.

[Justin]

Well so far so good right? Haven't heard anything bad happening yet and no drastic changes have taken place. One good thing about it is now books published through Amazon can have their images posted back on because before Amazon had GR take all copyrighted images that were on Amazon down, so thats good they can go back.

It's just another way Amazon can try to top Google and all the other big time websites. It's good cause it may be easier for someone unfamilar with GR to find us authors and our work on Amazon. Maybe I don't know Im just throwing that out there. Overall, I say its good.