The Wrath of GOODREADS

[mainer]

When Megan Nolan published her first novel, fellow authors warned her in “ominous tones” about the website Goodreads. The young Irish writer looked at the book’s listing there in the winter of 2020, the day the first proof copy arrived at her house. “Nobody but me and the publisher had seen it,” she wrote recently. “Despite this, it had received one review already: two stars, left by someone I had inconsequential personal discord with. It was completely impossible for him to have read the book.”

The terrible power of Goodreads is an open secret in the publishing industry. The review site, which Amazon bought in 2013, can shape the conversation around a book or an author, both positively and negatively. Today’s ostensible word-of-mouth hits are more usually created online, either via Goodreads or social networks such as Instagam and TikTok.

(I have a novel coming out late this fall, and Goodreads ratings starting popping up even though no galleys had gone out. So this is a maddening issue for authors.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/goodreads-review-bombing-amazon-moderation/674811/