Goodreads bought by Amazon

[S.E., Gray Mouser (Emeritus)]

Most have probably heard (members should have received an email about this), but Amazon is buying our Goodreads. Not sure what this means yet longterm. There are many news releases: here is a link to one.

Interesting to ponder is the future of Shelfari.com, which is a Goodreads competitor already run by Amazon. One of it's unique strengths is providing indexes to Kindle books (i.e. readers can fill in information in Shelfari's book profile...like character descriptions...and the Kindle will underline the character name and allow readers to read the description).

[Periklis, Fafhrd (Emeritus)]

It's ironic that Goodreads librarians were forbidden to add book descriptions based on Amazon. One nasty effect I can think of is, Amazon restraining authors from promoting and/or reviewing their work.

[S.E., Gray Mouser (Emeritus)]

Periklis, Forrest had the same concern...as he mentioned on his blog: Forrest's Blog; I copy/paste some his words:

My [Forrest's] concern is that Goodreads, which has, up to this point, remained largely aloof from any one corporate interest, suddenly seems to be in the pocket of an organization whose censorship policies I am forced to live with. And as I've said many times before, I love Goodreads.
Another question I have: Will Goodreads, then, only allow reviews of books available on Amazon?

[Periklis, Fafhrd (Emeritus)]

Thanks for posting this. I wasn't aware of Forrest's blog.
I'm not afraid that Amazon (the Corporation) will censor reviews like it does on its site. For one it may make Librarian Status more difficult to obtain which is not such a bad thought, as there have been a number of times where books added, have disappeared. Worse case senario, it'll probably keep the social platform aspect of GR but make it more difficult for indie authors to promote themselves. Like the Amazon PoD branch, Lulu press.