Amazon's Goodreads Is Forgetting Why It Even Exists
The site is built on the backs of authors, yet continues to do almost nothing to shield them from review bombing.
You can’t have books without authors.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/AFPFor contemporary authors, one of the most necessary of evils is Goodreads (owned by Amazon.com Inc.). The book review site for active readers can be a real benefit to writers, particularly those without big publicity machines behind them — which is most authors. On the platform, with a few clicks on the keyboard by enthusiastic audiences, word-of-mouth can translate to potential sales.
Alas, like many such user-powered recommendation engines, it is also easily manipulated— thanks not only to unethical consumers but also to Amazon’s unwillingness to take responsibility for the site’s oversized reach and institute common-sense guardrails.