When you’ve got not stored up with the newest scandal on the earth of younger grownup publishing, it’s a doozy. It involves a debut writer with a whole lot of buzz, lies, clumsy alibis, “evaluate bombing,” an extended and sordid confession — and, in fact, Goodreads. As a result of every time there’s a meltdown in publishing, Goodreads, the Amazon-owned website that bills itself as “the most important website for readers and ebook suggestions,” is reliably on the middle of it.
You would possibly marvel if Goodreads isn’t simply an enabler of scandal, however the issue itself.
However first, the scandal: Web sleuths found out that an writer named Cait Corrain, whose debut novel was scheduled for 2024, had created faux accounts on Goodreads in an effort to review-bomb different books — overwhelming them with unfavorable one-star evaluations. When confronted on-line, she concocted a faux on-line chat to divert blame to a nonexistent pal; when that hoax was uncovered, she confessed, citing a “full psychological breakdown.” Her writer and her agent dropped her; the deliberate publication of her novel was canceled. As typically occurs in these scandals, the use and abuse of Goodreads — a website whose cheery title masks a current historical past of abhorrent person conduct — has left many individuals damage and no less than one particular person’s profession in ruins.
Goodreads is damaged. What started in 2007 as a promising software for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers has turn out to be an unreliable, unmanageable, near-unnavigable morass of unreliable information and unfettered sick will. After all, the web presents no scarcity of dangerous information and sick will however at its inception Goodreads promised one thing completely different: a gathering area the place ardent readers might join with writers and with each other, swapping impressions and sharing suggestions. It’s an concept that’s each apparent (the web is nice at serving to like-minded individuals assemble) and important (studying is a solitary exercise however there’s nice pleasure in speaking by a ebook afterward). Actually, Goodreads continues to be a necessary thought — a lot in order that it’s value combating to repair it.
Once I joined the location in 2007, I felt like I had lastly discovered my place on-line. On the time, I used to be nonetheless utilizing a bodily pocket book to maintain an inventory of the books I’d learn or wished to learn — so discovering a spot to trace, price and evaluate books felt fully, should you’ll pardon the phrase, novel. After Amazon’s acquisition of it in 2013, Goodreads appeared primed to both sink or soar. Whereas Amazon had received few followers within the ebook neighborhood due to its predatory enterprise practices, it’s also the foremost on-line market for books, and so a companion website devoted to discussing books appeared like an apparent and doubtlessly useful complement.
