36 Comments
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BadRedhead Media (Rachel)'s avatar

I HATE Goodreads with a passion. It's old, clunky, and rarely works the way it's supposed to...ugh. Giveaways are good if you can actually get them to allow you to sign up for one. It's much more difficult now.

Thank you for the info, Marcin! I've dipped my toe into BookBub ads... learning.

Mauricio Simões's avatar

Goodreads' deterioration becomes more evident every year. Operating essentially as a marketing arm for Amazon, its algorithms are engineered for commercial manipulation rather than genuine curation. However, the true failure lies in the Choice Awards. The platform's transparently ideological bias overtakes the selection process, disproportionately filling the vast majority of nominations with female and LGBTQ+ authors. It is a display of profound intellectual dishonesty.

Carolyn West's avatar

I hate those sneaky LGB books. I won one that was not advertised as such. It was a kindle version. I said regift it bc I won’t read it. Also I didn’t appreciate that it was not labeled as such. Yuck

Mauricio Simões's avatar

I'm not going to waste my time (or my stomach) on this kind of thing either.

Nick McPherson's avatar

I’ve loathed Goodreads for a while now, but didn’t know where to go. Thanks for this!

Annie Jackson's avatar

Bookhype is the gem for readers (rather than writers). Log rereads. Rate with half stars. Nice statistics and graphs. Excellent search and filter in all the places you want it. It’s the perfect personal library.

A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Interesting article. Then I saw the description at the bottom of your site. Totally spoiled it. NO AI EVER!!!

Denise Shelton's avatar

I never got into it. I don’t care what some rando reader thinks about a book.

Marion Pandora's avatar

I like that name "the screw Goodreads movement"

I don't want to condone a platform that don't erase bullying law bombing attack stars but erasinf true reviews , yes , sending me a mail to accuse me of manipulation yes 😅.. I sent them a mail recently to show them the evidence of who's the one that organized it. I know, they probably, won't do anything, but I also know they don't like to receive thosd mails so detailed with the evidence on PDF. And I want to write an article on here about all the story.

Gail Bergan's avatar

Thank you for this. I've never been a fan of Goodreads either - that platform only recommends books I never read: lightweight chick lit, romance novels, sci fi, only best sellers of course. Being on the consumer end is no fun; being on the author end is even worse. Thanks for offering some great alternatives.

Rebekah Mallory's avatar

This is so interesting. Glad I stumbled upon it!

ScaryLarryPants's avatar

Goodreads who?

Angela Yuriko Smith's avatar

Wow! I've always ignored Goodreads since before it was owned by Amazon, but these are all interesting platforms to explore. Thank you!

Tedd Hawks's avatar

I had no idea about all these alternatives! Thanks for sharing.

Graham Bloodworth's avatar

Certainly for me the rot started when Goodreads started charging authors.

Hamilton Kohl's avatar

Well you have me curious about some of these... nice write up. Thanks.

Tom Dell'Aringa's avatar

I've had little to no luck with StoryGraph, and they spam me constantly. The reader group thing is being used by people to scam authors, too - we all get the emails. So that worries me a bit. I do wonder if starting a reader group with the ARC team might make them feel more 'together.' I'm going to try the BookBub ad approach, though. Cheers.

Bryan Beal's avatar

I have joined Fable and Bookbub to check them out. Like many others, Goodreads is a cesspit for me. I have Storygraph, but that stays strictly personal for me. Thanks for the recommendations!