“Well, this is really 2022 on Goodreads, but I can’t seem to locate that no matter how I search. I found it yesterday, but GR wouldn’t allow me to shelve and “review” it.
This all checks out. I decided that for 2022 on Goodreads, I would rate Goodreads rather than my own reading. Because
A)I rated my own reading all damn year, just click through, it’s not that hard, people!
B)There are some things about Goodreads that could use…I won’t say “complete overhaul,” but maybe “A little sprucing.”
1. Loading Banner Ads
When you search a book on the desktop version of Goodreads, the results load, and maybe a half-second later, a top-of-screen banner ad loads, pushing everything downwards. What this means is that I often end up clicking banner ads I don’t mean to, and/or I wait around for the stupid banner to load before clicking the thing I actually want to click. This may be the result of a scam or a bad technical practice.
It MAY be a scam. If banner ads are sold/priced based on the number of clicks they get, on average, a great way to boost that click number is to have a shitload of people click on them on accident.
It MAY be a bad technical practice, and the page should be set to load from top to bottom instead of loading results first and pushing things down, OR the load area could have defined parameters, and therefore wouldn’t change size once it was populated by the content.
Either way, this is annoying for users, and kind of screwing advertisers out of money, claiming clicks that are accidental as “organic reach” or some other tech nonsense.
2. Goodreads Giveaways
I didn’t win a single Goodreads giveaway this year. In fact, I haven’t won one in quite some time. My suspicion is that this is because I have an author profile, so maybe my entries get tossed or something. I could see it, I imagine most authors are smart enough not to review a lot on Goodreads because you never know who you might work with. But I’m stupid, and I want my giveaways. If my stupidity isn’t rewarded, I might just have to get smart. And nobody wants that, trust me. NOBODY wants a Smart Pete running around.
3. Goodreads Giveaways II
I hosted a GR Giveaway this year, two, actually. Or…maybe it was last year. You know what? Doesn’t matter.
I found out that these giveaways don’t really work for unknown authors self-publishing. Allow me to explain:
I gave away two very different books, one a goofy heist book, one a very short, graphic horror story. I’ve got range, baby!
What I discovered is that the sets of people who entered the giveaways were almost identical, and it became pretty clear that the people who entered just go down the list of Giveaways and enter ALL of them. They don’t actually look at the items and select those that they’re interested in, they just enter everything.
Which makes no sense to me. Who is that hard-up for reading material? There aren’t enough things out there you’d CHOOSE to read, you have to go through and be randomly assigned some shit?
The problem with folks entering every giveaway comes when you get some lousy reviews because people who don’t want a gory horror story are handed a gory horror story…
I’m all good with getting bad reviews because my books are bad, but getting bad reviews because the books deliver on their promises, and those promises are not what the reader is interested in, feels like a bad use of a couple hundred bucks. That person shouldn’t have clicked on that book, but the real issue, as I see it, is that Goodreads shouldn’t select winners whose reading tastes are not remotely aligned with the material.
I think Goodreads should work on the backend a little and tilt giveaways towards readers who are more likely to enjoy them. Not because it’ll inflate reviews, but, like, you wouldn’t give a graphic novel to someone who NEVER reads comics, and I think tastes can work the same way. This would be pretty easy to do, I think, if posting a giveaway allowed the author to select similar titles, very popular ones, that would favor a recipient getting a book. For example, if I could say, “You know, I think people who liked Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would like this book, maybe,” then I could select that, and those folks who have read and reviewed HGTTG would shoot up to the top of the list.
4. Facelift
Goodreads got a minor cosmetic change this year. I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t really address the problems I have. It’s putting lipstick on a broken door hinge. Yes, I’m aware the saying is about putting lipstick on a pig, and I stand by what I said.
5. Goodreads Choice Awards
I’ve long held a grudge against these awards because they ALWAYS go to things that really, really don’t need the signal boost, you know? Like, I get it, maybe the winner IS the book that the largest number of users enjoyed the most, but what’s the use of that?
Non-fiction is the worst with this, the memoir/autobiography category is always dominated by celebrity. Poetry is also kind of a crapshoot. The books that win in poetry aren’t necessarily bad, but you can guarantee which will win very easily: it’s whichever one most people have heard of.
Comics and Graphic Novels also kind of sucks. Problem 1 is that they far too often go to volumes after 1 in a series. I think that’s kind of silly, it’s not like volume 5 of something is THE ONE, it’s a beloved series, and volume 5 just gets all that emphasis put on it because it came out this year. But it’s really not about that particular book being great, it’s about a longer series being really good, and I don’t necessarily love that, especially because a comic that makes it into multi-volume territory is doing alright. Problem 2 is that the offerings make it pretty obvious that the nominees and winners are, by and large, the product of non-comics-readers making selections in comics. This year’s nominees had ZERO traditional superhero comics nominated, and while I don’t think a superhero comic needs to win to prove anything, the fact that that HUGE sector of comics is rarely in the mix demonstrates to me that comics readers aren’t generally taking part in the voting.
I understand that the awards go to certain books, and it’s sort of like the Oscars: there are just certain sorts of movies that win that award, and Best Picture needs to be understood as “Best Picture in Terms of What Oscar Voters Look For.”
However, I think the Goodreads awards afford an opportunity to honor some books and highlight some new shit that people don’t really know about. Add some stuff to the to-read list.
I would suggest Goodreads strive to add at least one indie press book to each category. I would suggest they also have a self-published book category. I think they should have a superhero comics category. I think biography and memoir should be delineated into famous and non-famous categories (or famous for writing and famous for something else).
I do understand that the awards are a popularity contest, and I’m not normally opposed to popularity contests because I am VERY popular. But the GR awards feel like the high school class president election where the most popular person wins, even though the nerd is who we should elect. I thought we’d be done making that mistake after high school, but GR gives us the chance to do it EVERY YEAR!
6. The App
Kinda janky. And not in a way I like.”