Assistance with a complex and unusual case

[Eve]

I need help with a number of connected issues concerning two separate books.

Background: In 2014 I co-authored the book More Than Two with Franklin Veaux. From 2018–2022 we went through a messy breakup and multi-year legal battle, which culminated in him assigning full copyright of More Than Two to me in January 2023. That copyright assignment was registered with the US copyright office. Also, in 2019, Franklin experienced significant reputation damage, which has since been mentioned in many of the reviews of the first edition.

With the copyright in hand, in 2024 I co-authored More Than Two, Second Edition with Andrea Zanin. The book was fully rewritten—about 90% of the original content was reworked, chapters were deleted, new chapters added, etc.—and had a new foreword.

We did not want the new book connected to the old book's reviews, or to the previous co-author's name. In order to prevent them from showing up together, we gave the book a unique title (including Second Edition in the title). On Goodreads, we got the assistance of a Goodreads librarian in annotating the new book's Goodreads page asking people not to merge it. The correct Goodreads page is linked from the publisher's webpage.

Unfortunately, since the first edition has so many reviews, it still shows up first in searches. More Than Two, Second Edition, is way down the list. So reviews of the second edition are showing up on the page of the first edition (and in turn, are continuing to boost the search ranking of the first edition). I have tried the following (all on the advice of the same librarian):

- Leaving a review on the first edition with a link to the second edition
- Having some friends edit their reviews on the first edition to include a link to the second edition
- Attempting to edit the description for the first edition with a sentence at the top directing people the new edition page. Unfortunately, I keep getting an error message saying I can only link to Goodreads pages, even though I am linking to a Goodreads page, and my edit gets the same error message even if I don't include a link at all.
- Editing the description in the core ONIX data for the first edition (distributed from BooksONIX to Ingram, Amazon etc.) to directly mention the new edition—somehow this is not showing up on the Goodreads page.
- Commenting on new positive reviews that clearly state they are of the new edition with a link to the correct page and asking them to leave their reviews there instead, and commenting on new positive reviews that don't clearly state what edition they're of to ask what edition they reviewed, and to move their review to the other page if it was of the new edition. Unfortunately these comments were flagged by Goodreads as author interaction with negative reviews and deleted (even though I was only commenting on positive reviews).
- Directly sharing the correct Goodreads link everywhere I can.

I don't know what else to do. The new book is obviously getting readers and positive reviews, but they're accumulating on the wrong book. I consulted again with the librarian who helped me before, and they said this is beyond their experience level. Merging the editions would allow people to scroll and find the edition they read before leaving their reviews, but that would still aggregate those reviews with reviews of the old book, and link the new book to the former, discredited co-author. It would also keep that co-author's name linked to the new book (and link my new co-author's name to it, which they don't want).

There is a separate, but connected issue concerning quotes. Because my former co-author was the first author on the first edition, all of the quotes from the first edition on Goodreads are listed only under his name (which is a terrible practice on its own, but a separate issue). Now that I own copyright, those quotes are mine, too.

So in general, I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to solve this. Here are some ideas of things that would help, if they are technically possible with a librarian's help—and of course, open to any others you may have:

- Somehow tweak the search results so the second edition comes first, or at least next to the first edition.
- Update the book description so that the first sentence includes a mention of the second edition with a link to that book's page.
- Somehow manually move reviews that very obviously state they are of the second edition to the second edition's page.
- Change the authorship of all quotes from More Than Two to be in my name.
- If all else fails, possibly merge the two editions, but only if the name of the removed co-author can also be removed from the listing. (I assume it's not possible to remove reviews that mention him.)

I can provide a copy of the copyright assignment if needed.

Thanks to anyone who can help with this!

[Scott]

Revised editions should be combined with earlier editions. It doesn't matter if some of the authors have changed. The author's personal issues are not relevant here.

Eve wrote: "On Goodreads, we got the assistance of a Goodreads librarian in annotating the new book's Goodreads page asking people not to merge it. "

The only librarian note was from you.

As the editions are now combined, new reviews will show under the new edition regardless of where they are posted. Users are free to post their reviews wherever they like.

Librarians cannot move reviews or alter search results, but as the primary author, you can set the default edition. The editions should not be merged, as we retain all editions so that readers may log them.

In general, readers do not appreciate authors trying to micromanage their reviews. I'd advise against that, as you will likely get an unfavourable reputation from it.

[Eve]

Thanks for the information. I can see that it is definitely helpful that now when people search for "More Than Two," it seems they'll go to the new book—even though they now will also see a bunch of reviews for a different book, and from what I can see, there's no way they can tell which review is for which book. That was the problem we were originally trying to solve.

I do want to clarify that the removal of the co-author isn't just a "personal issue"; he assigned his copyright, including an explicit waiver of moral rights, meaning he no longer has the right to be associated with (any edition of) the work. This is the legal reality. Likewise, that the new edition is so completely rewritten that it's effectively a new work, albeit with a similar title and one of the same co-authors, isn't a personal issue; it's just fact. I had hoped there was a way to give people direct access to reviews and a rating for the book they were considering reading, but it sounds like that isn't Goodreads's priority. I appreciate your doing the best you can to help under those circumstances.

It appears that there are two listings each for both the Kindle format and the audiobook of the first edition. Can these be merged?

Kindle first listing
Kindle second listing

Audio first listing
Audio second listing

There also appear to be three listings for the audiobook format of the second edition:

First listing
Second listing
Third listing

Finally, there is still the issue with the incorrect attribution of the quotes:

There is a separate, but connected issue concerning quotes. Because [at the time of publication] my former co-author was the first author on the first edition, all of the quotes from the first edition on Goodreads are listed only under his name (which is a terrible practice on its own, but a separate issue). Now that I own copyright, those quotes are mine, too.

Is there anything that can be done about this? By the statement on the quotes page that "All quotes on Goodreads are added by members of the community and are not verified by ​Goodreads," I am guessing not, but wanted to double check since it wasn't mentioned.

[Scott]

I meant that whatever he has done to tarnish his reputation isn't our concern. If there is a legal issue, you would need to contact support.

If users click to see the review page itself, they can see which edition was reviewed.

It is difficult to tell whether any of those editions are true duplicates now that GR/Amazon assigns an ASIN to every book record.

I imagine quotes are attributed to whomever is the primary author on the work chosen. The primary author should be the same on all editions, and listed as on the cover, but I am not sure how this works when the original primary author has been removed from later editions. You might want to ask support about that as well.

[Eve]

Yeah like I said, it's a pretty unusual situation. Thanks for the suggestions.

Do you know if there is any way to remove an author? I tried it but got an error.

Finally, if those Kindle/audio editions can't be merged, then the two that don't list me as author at least need to have me added (then I can try to correct/update the rest of the information myself, e.g. adding the missing illustrator and foreword author). Is that something you're able to do? Those are:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

Again, thanks for the help!

[Eve]

Sorry, there is just one other thing now. Even though the new book was set to be the default edition, in the search results for "more than two," the other book is the only one that comes up, even if you add my name to the search. People looking for the new book aren't necessarily going to know that they need to look under the other one in order to find it. Is this a caching issue—will the search results update eventually? Is there some other setting that needs to be changed?

I do note that if you search directly for "more than two second edition," it does come up, which makes it seem especially weird that it wouldn't come up at all in the search that includes my name—especially since it also comes up when you search "more than two andrea zanin" (the new co-author).

By the way I am on the review page and it doesn't say which book was reviewed.

[Scott]

The search takes longer to update. Try again in a couple days.

You need to be on the individual review page to see the specific edition. Click on the date on one of the reviews and you'll see.