Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
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Goodreads Review problems: What do you know?
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Hello William, I’m new here, so I don’t know about bashing good books as read in the article you provided. However, I have noticed while trying to connect with new people on here to talk about books that a lot of accounts do not appear to be authentic. I hope I don’t get into trouble for writing the above, it’s just been my finding, and also, I understand that not everyone is going to like the same book, but when substantial authors get downvoted in favor of unknown whose books are awful, one has to wonder.
Sorry my comment is all over the place, but was writing from my heart, and not my brain.
Take care,
Sam
William wrote: "Back in July, various news sources reported on problems with GR book reviews, this one from NPR this past December being one of the more recent examples. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/17/121959......"I do not have firsthand experience of that incident, but from what I've seen, getting ARCs out through NetGalley or other similar ARC review sites generates more genuine reviews because there are far less fake accounts on there. In addition, the readers from those sources will also often post their reviews on Goodreads as well, so you can rest assured knowing that your book will get reviewed on here by more reliable people.
As for that specific incident, if you read into it, most of the fake accounts were created by the author of The Crown of Starlight herself and she was review bombing authors of color who were writing in her genre (mythological retellings). While I know some people on here are needlessly ruthless to debut authors, this has been the worst incident of review-bombing in Goodreads history and I think it's not super likely to happen to a lot of people, especially since this has brought attention to the issue.
To add my two pennith worth to this article I want to say that my Goodreads Account has been affected by this incident. I had two books on goodreads and both had good reviews. The first, Masquerade had three 5* reviews. The second, The Spyrian had three 5* and one 3*. Then somehow, someone posted their book on my account. Goodreads couldn't untangle this so they started me a new account and all my reviews vanished. They told me they would sort it out. That was almost two years ago. After several complaints from me, they then said they had removed several reviews due to some accounts being swamped with fake reviews. I have since added a new book and even the reviews for this one, four 5* and one 3* are not showing. I have offered to send them copies of my reviews which I have kept, but they ignore this and keep fobbing me off with multiple excuses as to why this isn't fixed, but as I said, nearly two years later my reviews haven't been reinstated.
I to lost many reviews and ratings somehow and got the same story from Goodreads staff as you did! I've given up waiting for them to "sort it out"! I don't know the answer to this issue other than the staff don't know much about the computer world and how to fix issues! I only know that this is just a money making scheme and they really don't care much for authors and trying to help them. I feel your pain!Two If By Sea is my title.
Wow! As a debut author, after reading this I am hesitant to be involved with Goodreads.
Good reads is good for people to connect, but relying on reviews is not necessarily a good idea. Reviews are difficult but sometimes adding a note in your books can help and connecting with other authors in your same genre can help.
Thank you for your reply and good advice. I do appreciate it! There is a note in my books, but connecting with other authors is sometimes hard. I feel like we get lost in the crowd.
Interesting. Ofc it's par for the course. Traditional publishing has been engaged in generating fake Positive Reviews for many years. E-books just make it much easier. `Goodreads allows reviews to be posted before a book has been published.' (AMAZON also does this to generate Pre Orders).
`George R. R. Martin's seventh book in his phenomenally popular "A Song of Ice and Fire" series has already generated thousands of reviews. He hasn't yet finished the sixth book.'
How is that possible? Martin hasn't even FINISHED Book #6 and they are already generating `THOUSANDS of Reviews for Book #7'?!
A recent article stated that CHAT GPT was being used to generate fake Positive Product Reviews on Amazon.
As soon as you create a Goodreads account and list a book you can also expect to get dozens of scam emails offering reviews for pay.And the review problem is rampant - anyone can (and does) post one star ratings (not even bothering to write a review) for no other reasons than they don't like you or something you posted. A few weeks ago someone created 5 fake accounts from the Czech Republic and each of those accounts posted hundreds of one star ratings - including every one of my books.
My advice is to join groups and get to know the members in them. The groups are better policed than Goodreads as a whole.
Ed wrote: "As soon as you create a Goodreads account and list a book you can also expect to get dozens of scam emails offering reviews for pay.And the review problem is rampant - anyone can (and does) post ..."
So this is where the scam book review solicitations are coming from? I've been befuddled by this for over a month. Don't people and organizations have something better to do with their time?
Donna
https://rb.gy/b7fwne
Interesting. Is there any way to know where questionable ratings without review (I've had a couple) are coming from, and is there any way to remove them?
Kit wrote: "Thank you for your reply and good advice. I do appreciate it! There is a note in my books, but connecting with other authors is sometimes hard. I feel like we get lost in the crowd."It does seem that we do and connecting with the right authors is another problem, considering that even in your genre, there are other divisions. I.E. Fantasy Fiction, there is urban fantasy, high/epic fantasy, etc. Just don't give up. It is a long hard progress.
I am in the early stages of promoting my new book, likely ready for publication in early to mid summer. Prior to learning of the controversy, I planned to do that on GR as well as elsewhere.
Before I do, I'd like to hear what some of you reading the NPR or similar stories think.
Do you have any first hand knowledge of what has happened and what GR is doing to address the problem?