What measures does Goodreads put into place, to protect the dignity of its authors?  Apparently none.  That’s why publishers often warn writers not to follow Goodreads, because it can be devastating!  Thank goodness as a new author, I made other author friends quickly who warned me about it and sure enough, someone who has never rated another book in English, gave mine a 2.  Really?  I admit it, that hurt!  Do they understand how hard we work as writers just to get someone to rate us?  Goodreads, come on, let’s screen a coupe, huh?  I guess it’s important to remember Goodreads is named such for a reason, otherwise it would be called Goodwrites, huh?

Authors, wouldn’t it be nice if Goodreads required readers that were giving out a score of one of two stars, to write at least a 200 word post about why they didn’t like the book?  Then it would be easy for the writer to understand the validity of the readers dislikes it would help them to better their writing or to fire their editor-not to mention it would allow readers to vent, though I’m not sure that we want them to vent all that much, right?  (Just kidding, I love the opinions of my readers, though if they started making negative comments about my work, I’d have to keep telling myself this, over and over.  🙂  )

Goodreads is good because it gives writer’s an immediate idea of how good or bad (let’s just say good) their work is.  The important thing to do as an author is to weed out ratings from people that didn’t actually read your book and are just rating you to, I don’t know, get their “book read” scores up?    Seriously they do this.  New authors, it’s important to remember never to stalk your reviewer.  (It’s a joke, for those that haven’t read up on the infamous author who actually stalked her one star reviewer.  My ABFF Tamara Philip told me about it!)  (No it wasn’t me or her and we don’t even know the author and support our reviewers comments.)

Stalking people based  on their reviews is not cool.  Seriously, it’s happened to me.  I actually gave someone (famous) a five star review and was stalked on Facebook by one of their critics.  That was very odd and even a tad bit scary because I posted the review on Goodreads, meaning they actually researched me to find my Facebook page.  CREEPY!  Why is there so much negativity in the world?  Can’t we all just encourage each other to do well?

Perhaps in the future we’ll see “Goodread” lawsuits, as we have with Yelp.  Seriously what happened to Freedom of Speech?  I’m down with whatever readers have to say, just please don’t look for me.  Seriously, I live in a bad neighborhood and I’m more worried about your safety than  I am my own.  Hopefully one day, I’ll get like 5000 great Goodreads reviews and then be able to move to the other side of the railroad tracks.  (The Good side)  I’ll invite all my top star raters over for cocktails while we roast marshmallows over my bad reviewer fire pit as we discuss our favorite authors and books.  (It’s ok, I’m a nerd-I know it.)  Small dreams, I know…  Ok that’s all for now my Monday Bloggers.

Enjoy your week and if you’d like, here is my Goodreads page:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8507331.Author_Neva_Squires_Rodriguez

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