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/

[usonian]

1. I recall that Ayesha Curry opened a restaurant in Houston and got scathing reviews before it opened.

Not predictive. Vindictive.

[Waterguy]

2. So very, very, very, True

The Wrath of GOODREADS makes so much sense,
even to me, a non-writer.
I'm more like a distant fan of good reads, and I do not even contend be a good one at that, since my actual list of
read novels, short-stories and poems thus far has been somewhat limited so to speak.

I'm just like the casual reader or fan of any art that can easily grasp greatness by taking a small bit of "It" in, even from afar.
What will be, published, or perhaps what will go viral, and why?

Will it be good or bad, what will it be --- I can imagine there are a myriad of great writers in the world today,
and by that I mean talented crafters of literature that is enduring to readers in such a way that it makes them
think, expands their minds and hopefully promotes beauty.

Your definition of beauty may not be entirely easy to express, but you recognize it when you see "It", however simple,
it might seem to be.
Somehow words written in the right order inspire imagination. A realness in reality, juxtaposed with an opening of
culture, emotion, and truth/ like an object, Art of any kind, changes in nature when focusing in on one place,
an attempt to illustrate beauty in its most complete form.

I think I know it when I see it, and it gives me chills, I feel it in my gut.
And I have no idea how or why.

But I should, at least try, to one day learn.