'It's unhinged': is the book world turning against Goodreads? | Hacker News Reader

'It's unhinged': is the book world turning against Goodreads?

theguardian.com

29 pointsmindracer12 comments

That Goodreads accepts reviews for books that have not yet been published tells me almost everything I need to know about them.

“Publishers frequently send advance copies to readers in exchange for online reviews that they hope will generate buzz.”

That seems reasonable to me. I’m sure newspapers would do the same.

Reviews of advance copies lose their value when the book is swamped with fake reviews that were written years before publication. How many of Goodreads’ reviews of The Winds of Winter do you think are “reasonable”?

Newspapers and reviewers published in them have exposure to their reputations. Readers who get advance copies may have no reputation to care for or defend. Book publishers could send a few one-time codes with each advance copy if they wanted attributable reviews instead of astro-turfed buzz. Knowing the various incentives, I won't hold my breath.

Sounds like a great reason to ignore the reviews in both GoodReads and newspapers.

Not to single those things out. User-created reviews have been thoroughly poisoned by marketers and other scammers for many years now. They all deserve to be ignored.

I really don’t understand GR’s popularity. The community is toxic, and the app is almost unusable.

How do you propose one generates buzz for something before it's released? Is this not the norm for music, film, television, etc. as well?

Some might find BookWyrm[0] to be of some interest, as an alternative to Goodreads. No affiliation.

[0] https://joinbookwyrm.com/

Similarly, https://thestorygraph.com/ has recommended several good books to me.

In a word, "yes." The reader reviews from polite, smart people are great, but there are enough haters in the mix that it makes the site hard to take.

Isn't Goodreads just another Amazon advertising platform at this point?

the book world is so toxic. so of course software for the book world will replicate that.

another win for indie bookstores and the booksellers who are passionate about handselling their favorite new titles.

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