Not A Good Read

So I’m currently in a metaphorical battle to the death with “Tevin” from Goodreads. For anyone who is blissfully unaware of what Goodreads is, let me enlighten you. It’s a website where people can read a book and then post a review about it. I’m on there as an author—authors can have a “dashboard page” where all your books are listed, and this is where the fun began. Last January, the publisher of both my short story collections apparently had a chat with God, who advised him to stop being a publisher and “unpublish” all his company’s titles (and I’m not sure why “God” told him to do that—if I was having a conversation with an invisible deity, it would tell me that if I wanted to stop publishing, I should at least keep the active titles available instead of crushing people’s hopes and dreams, and also drink some wine and get a therapy kitten). Anyway, the one particular book is still on my author dashboard and I don’t want it there because it NO LONGER EXISTS. In addition, I WROTE IT and I HOLD THE COPYRIGHT. But try telling any of this to “Tevin” who has been insisting that it’s impossible to remove my own book from my own author page. His rationale? It is “crucial that our members are able to find books they may have read or been interested in reading.” No, Tevin. It’s “crucial” that homeless people don’t freeze to death in parks, or that we take care of the environment before climate change kills us. It is NOT crucial that “Danger Kitty” can read my non-existent book and post a random review. And that’s the other bizarre thing about Goodreads—there is no consistent system for book reviews. It’s a free-for-all, with everyone and their brother/sister reviewing other people’s writing in the most nonsensical way. Here’s an example:

Book That Was Written By Someone

Review 1: Bob gives this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars and says “It was a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Review 2: Frank gives this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars and says, “I didn’t enjoy this book. It was poorly paced.”

Review 3: Danger Kitty gives this book a rating of 1 rubber duck out of 5 slices of cake and says, “This is the best book I’ve ever read in my life.”

(Side note: Danger Kitty reads and reviews approximately 1 book every 2 ½ days, so I have my doubts about the integrity of their opinion).

Another example: my first book, Smile, was a Young Adult novel. It has two 5 star reviews, and a 1 star review. The 1 star review is from a man in his 70s. Did it occur to him as he began to read the story of two weeks in the life of a 16-year-old girl struggling to come to terms with her father’s death that he perhaps might not be the target demographic for this novel? Yet, he persevered, and went to the trouble to give it a bad rating. Also, his profile picture is right there next to the rating, and it’s SOMEONE I KNOW. One day, I might mention it to him, but honestly, given the random nature of Goodreads, it could mean that he adored it. Who the hell knows?

But back to “Tevin”, who claims to be a Goodreads Expert and who simply cannot delete my non-existent book from my author page because “it wouldn’t be fair to the readers.” So I went in and edited the book description to “This book no longer exists.” And now I have to wait for a “Librarian” to approve the change and you just know this person will NOT be an actual librarian, just like a “Pet Detective” is a dog food salesperson (I found this out the hard way when I saw the job ad, got super-excited, and clicked on the link, only to be bitterly disappointed.)

At any rate, just for the record, I give Goodreads 0 out of 5 llamas.

Update: I kind of won. It’s a bitter victory though.

33 thoughts on “Not A Good Read”

  3. Well, we all know God is in the publishing business, as that’s why The Holy Bible is on the top of all the best sellers lists, and the most published book in the history of the universe. Obviously, He saw you as a threat to His stranglehold on readers in the Christian world and had your book smited (or smote?) out of existence via his disciples.

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  4. I suppose it’s not so much the book no longer exists as it’s just out of print at present. What Tevin should have said is that Goodreads is a database of all books that have ever been published, regardless of whether those titles are currently available or in print. (Same way IMDb is a database of all movies and TV shows ever produced and released, many of which aren’t/have never been available to view on any home-video or streaming format. That they’re presently — and perhaps permanently — inaccessible doesn’t mean they don’t “exist.”)

    If a new edition of At the End of It All were to be released by a different publisher, the book page would be updated with a “More editions” subheading, linking it to all the versions that have ever been released (much the way any given Stephen King title has multiple versions, from reprints to anniversary editions to movie tie-in releases to foreign-language translations). The book may yet find a home again, Suzanne, and the listing for the earlier (now out-of-print) edition is just a record of its publishing history. I wouldn’t get too distressed about it!

    Happy New Year! Here’s to your creative prosperity in ’25…

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  5. I’ve resisted creating a Goodreads account for many reasons but now I want to make one just to add a positive review of Smile. I honestly enjoyed it in spite of not being the target demographic. And speaking of that a professional Young Adult writer came to my local writing group a few times. He’d complain about teenage girls on Goodreads. His target demographic and he’d talk about how awful they were. I never said that they might not all really be teenage girls, which is another downside of Goodreads.

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    • Aw, thank you! And it just got released in Georgian and I wish I knew someone who could read Georgian so they could tell me what the Appendix they added at the back says! I never understand writers who denigrate their target audiences–that would be like me saying the people who like my blog are silly (well, maybe they ARE as silly as me, but I mean that in a good way!)

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  6. Goodreads once credited me with ILLUSTRATING a book that an actual ARTIST wrote because her name was spelled exactly like mine. I had to get in contact with a “librarian,” who did eventually take it down, but it turns out that there are LOTS of authors with my exact name and spelling, so I wouldn’t be surprised if more books that aren’t mine suddenly pop up on my Goodreads account. Honestly, I just don’t even check out my Goodreads profile/page anymore. I’m pretty sure I’d be enraged, so I just drink wine.

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  7. Indie vs Goliath. Maybe after the apocalypse, the one where a CME destroys the net, your print versions will be found by the survivors and read around future campfires. In the meantime, fight on as you may; the End is just around the corner.

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  8. if the devil is in the details, maybe it wasn’t actually god who spoke to your publisher? sorry for all the aggravation – I’m on Goodreads, but only in the most casual way – anything I’ve ever heard about it is dwells on how out of date it is & easily hacked it is. in addition, I recall something about the reviews wherein since amazon owns i — I forget how this ties together — but a weird thing that happens with reviewers consistently giving less stars to the same book on GR vs Amazon. so very many of the friend invites I get are from obvious spammers, more so than on facebook. are you thinking of re-publishing it yourself? would love to hear how that works & goes – off to 2025 with a bang – a good one, I hope, for all of us

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  9. So this dudes name is Tevin, not Kevin? That alone is hilarious 😆. And someone with such a name should not be trusted. It’s good you were able to take action on your own and take your book off of Good Reads. Man what a weirdly funny encounter to end the year. I hope you have a great New Year Suzanne 🎊🎉🥳🎊🎉🥳!

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    • Yes, I’m pretty sure he was a chatbot. The book is actually being republished with new stories and a new name, and I’ll be announcing that soon, so I really want the other one off my site! Happy New Year to you too!

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  12. I have read a few reviews on Good Reads for the Book Club that I belong to for info about books for choices. The reviewers that I encounter are full of praise and details about the books. I haven’t used it often, but as weird as the set up sounds for you, it’s not good news about being in control of your books. Hmm. Chatbot eh? Figures.

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