adding new books

[Grupa]

Dear Goodreads Team,

I represent a publishing house operating in the Polish market, and we are eager to ensure that our books are available on Goodreads. This presence is highly desired by both our authors—who value the opportunity to build a visible profile—and our readers, who seek a platform to review and catalogue their reading.

Our titles are written exclusively in Polish, and we are repeatedly experiencing difficulties when trying to add them to the platform. Threads we open to request book additions are often rejected by librarians. We understand the rule allowing only one book per thread, but with around 30 new releases every month, following this process is physically impossible. Moreover, we’re concerned that submitting a large number of separate threads might be perceived as spam or abuse.

We’re looking for a solution that would allow us to submit titles efficiently, consistently, and in accordance with Goodreads guidelines.

[Bruno]

Hello Grupa,

I'm a librarian, meaning, I'm a simple GR user with a priviledge. In no way my opinion represents GR view on this, it's just a user's opinion.

The Add new books sections has more than 4000 requests. And some hundreds coming in every day.
So it's very hard for a librarian to keep motivated to help here in a long term basis.
One of the things that help is imagining a light at the end of the tunnel. Looking at 4000 requests and imagining that if we add 4000 books, this will be done.
If users request more than one book per thread, then we loose confidence in this estimate. And 4k open requests may represent 5k or whatever number of books to be added.
This may be hard to understand, but I know some librarians care about this (having a good estimate).

One other thing, that may be easier to understand. When I stumble on a request that consists of 3 or 4 books to be added, I just skip it. I preffer to add 4 books and help 4 users, that to add 4 books to help a single user.
So, your requests tend to be skipped by almost all librarians. In fact, you're hurting yourself by putting multiple books in one request.

I know there is a limit for putting requests in the group, but, one thing is, requesting 3 books, in 3 separate threads, and then you can't request a 4th book. In that case it's understandable that the 3rd request contains the 3rd and 4th books.
Another different thing is putting 4 books in one request. And I don't hink you save all that time and work by doing that.

One other problem with your requests is that you always provide the link for your Publisher, which, most of the times, is not an accepted source in GR.
I understand you don't want to give visibillity to your competitors, but you must understand that librarians must follow the rules, at risk of loosing their book adding and editing priviledges.
When you request a book to be added and provide your company link, either you are giving unnecessary work to librarians, that will have to find the book Publisher, will have to find the book details over there, all this navigating through polish pages, which is not a language that most librarians understand.
On the other hand, you may induce a distracted librarian to add the book using your link, and potentially putting them at risk of not being able to help anyone else in the Group.

So, my advice here would be providing a link to the accepted source in GR, the book Publisher. You may also share the link to your own company, that is not forbidden, but you also must provide the link to an accepted source, otherwise we won't get out of this problem.

One other thing. Publishers (and authors) can't be librarians, but, taking into consideration the amount of books that you request, the best solution would be you becoming a librarian. As I said, Publishers can't be librarians, but the person behind that account can.
Of course, if you don't understand what I wrote above, you wouldn't be a good librarian, but what I'm saying is that would be the most practical solution. Especially because there aren't that many librarians who understand polish, so your help, even if just to add 'your' books would be appreciated.

I'll leave this thread 'open', so that other librarians may express their view on this, but sooner or later this will be closed, as this doesn't involve a request to add a book.
I'd advice you to move this thread into one of the Questions/Discussions folders