A look at review-bombing campaigns on Goodreads that can derail a book's publication long before its release, frustrating both new and established authors
Authors — new and established alike — can see a book's reception poisoned before publication day, since pre-release ratings shape early sales momentum and publisher marketing decisions.
Second-order effects
Goodreads' neglect under Amazon becomes a competitive opening: The StoryGraph and other challengers can pitch better moderation and community tools to readers and authors burned by campaigns they cannot contest.
Third-order effects
Review-bombing is not unique to books — Apple Podcasts hosts faced coordinated one-star campaigns with no recourse back in 2019 — suggesting that any dominant user-rating platform without active stewardship becomes structurally vulnerable to manipulation.
The trend: Coordinated review manipulation is spreading across rating platforms faster than incumbent owners invest in defenses, eroding trust in user-generated scores and handing challengers their strongest selling point.
“It can be incredibly hurtful, and it's frustrating that people are allowed to review books this way if they haven't read them,” said Roxane Gay, an author and editor who also posts reviews on Goodreads. “Worse, they're allowed to review books that haven't even been written. …
this seemed to me astonishingly cruel but also stupid: attacking a book no one had read. surely Goodreads/ Amazon could protect writers from such organized troll-attacks for after all, writers are the ones who write the books that are sold on Amazon to profit Amazon. https://twit…
a very disturbing article for those of us who knew little about the situation until the Elizabeth Gilbert incident. so sad that a first-time novelist would be attacked in this way. Goodreads/Amazon are essentially excellent services if fair-minded & could easily be reformed. http…
“It may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment,” Rabess said. “People were very keen not just to attack the work, but to attack me as well.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
This piece kind of skips over the reality that, regardless of whether you've actually read a book, bombarding a NOVELIST's work with negative reviews because you find his/her characters appalling is a remarkably dumb thing to do. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Spoke to the NYT a bit about this. IMHO, Goodreads' problem is the general social media problem: sites are incentivized toward engagement not accuracy. Organized one-star review bombing campaigns is good for Goodreads even if bad for authors and readers. https://www.nytimes.com/.…
If you ever find yourself online trashing a book that's not been published or isn't even completed, you need to ask yourself some hard questions about your life's direction. There is no world or circumstance where this is healthy or okay behavior. https://www.nytimes.com/...
I'm coming around on the 1800s idea that the act of reading novels leads to ruin and depravity. The hardcore “reader” identity is the most toxic crew on the internet https://www.nytimes.com/...