Debut author Cait Corrain has “reviewed” other authors on the platform.
For the last week I've been watching the Goodreads drama in slow motion. Debut author Cait Corrain admitted to spoofing at least six Goodreads accounts and leaving negative reviews (including one-star ratings) of books by other debut authors – many of whom were authors of color. On Monday, she The publisher dropped her book Crown of StarlightAnd Corrain posted a mea culpa on X (formerly Twitter)..
The coordinated efforts of fans and writers helped expose Corrain's review bombing. Last week, Iron Widow author Xiran Jay Zhao tweeted a thread noting a series of one-star reviews on the Goodreads accounts of debut science fiction and fantasy authors, without naming names. They also shared a 31-page document of unknown origin (which Polygon reviewed) with screenshots of accounts adding Crown of Starlight to a number of highly anticipated lists and leaving one-star reviews for upcoming books by Kamilah Cole and Frances White, Bethany Baptiste, Molly X. Chang, RM Virtues, KM Enright and others.
This brings Goodreads' moderation issues back to the forefront. When asked for comment, a Goodreads spokesperson sent a statement to Polygon: “Goodreads takes very seriously the responsibility to maintain the authenticity and integrity of reviews and to protect our community of readers and writers.” We have clear reviews and Community Guidelines and remove reviews and/or accounts that violate these guidelines.” The company added to Corrain's one-star reviews: “The reviews in question have been removed.” Goodreads' Community Guidelines state that members should not provide any “false information”. [their] Identity or creating accounts to harass other members” and that “artificially inflating or degrading a book’s ratings or reputation is against our rules.” But it does not explain how these policies are enforced.
Goodreads also pointed Polygon to an Oct. 30 post on “ratings and reviews authenticity,” which said the company had “strengthened account verification to block potential spammers,” expanded its customer service team and provided more opportunities for Members added to report “problematic content.” The company cracked down on review bombing and “introduced the ability to temporarily limit the submission of ratings and reviews of a book during times of unusual activity that violates our policies.”
These measures are said to have been taken after several particularly high-profile bombings of the platform this year. However, these new tools did not stop Corrain from checking bomb plot authors in November and December. The policies, including the October one, encourage users to “report” content that “violates our rules,” seemingly shifting responsibility to the user base. It's high time for Amazon-owned Goodreads to consider implementing more comprehensive internal moderation – or at least more sophisticated internal tools – if not for the benefit of its users, then for the benefit of the authors who are at the mercy of the platform.
Goodreads is extremely influential. There are over 150 million members on the platform, 7 million of whom took part in this year's Reading Challenge. There are hardly any hurdles on the platform against this type of review bombing campaign, as any fully authorized user can post a review on the platform, even before the book has been published. Pre-publication reviews are part of the marketing cycle and are explicitly allowed on Goodreads. Publishers encourage authors to seek reviews for their upcoming books on Goodreads, including during the pre-publication phase. Readers can access advance copies of books through official channels such as NetGalley or by receiving an advance copy from the publisher. However, there is no way to know whether a reviewer on Goodreads actually received an advance copy or not. (Although Goodreads' review guidelines require readers to disclose whether they received a free copy, not all users follow these rules—in essence, you can still post your review.)
This is obviously not a new problem for Goodreads, but many other platforms require some form of verification before reviewing. Etsy allows users to rate a product after purchasing it. Steam only allows users to write reviews of products in their Steam library and includes “hours played” in the review. The best comparison to Goodreads I can think of is Yelp, which allows people to leave reviews of restaurants and other establishments and which also has to deal with waves of negative reviews – often with complaints about things completely outside of the company's control lay. As far as fan review platforms for entertainment go, there is Letterboxd, a platform that allows users to track and rate movies. But it can't hold a candle to the cultural stranglehold of Rotten Tomatoes, a platform that aggregates review ratings from professionally published critics (while it also aggregates audience ratings, those are listed separately). Rotten Tomatoes has its own problems, but its system means that reviews typically don't come from people who haven't even consumed the media in question.
As a casual Goodreads reader looking for a book to read, how do you know if a reviewer has actually read the book? I think the answer, at least for now, is: it can't be done. And the more demanding and coordinated fans are online, the harder it is to take the platform's reviews and ratings seriously. In July, “Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert withdrew her upcoming book “The Snow Forest,” set in Russia, after one-star reviews from about 500 users who had not read the book had left behind. Gilbert is much more established and has better resources than the debut authors targeted by Corrain. Nevertheless, she decided to withdraw her book.
These debut authors didn't have the same power or prestige, and it's painful to imagine what impact Corrain's negative reviews could have had on these authors' book sales – and subsequently their chances of writing more books Corrain's actions would have gone unnoticed. Publishing is already fraught with hurdles, especially for authors of color, without this huge hurdle so close to the finish line.
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