Goodreads faces further criticism from authors over trolls and 'homophobic reviewers'
More authors have hit out at Goodreads following allegations that the reviews site does not effectively protect authors from review-bombing, including one author commenting on “notorious homophobic reviewers”.
Last month, several novelists, including Milly Johnson and Jo Furniss, told The Bookseller that the Amazon-owned website does not clamp down effectively on trolls who slam books before review copies have been circulated. Furniss wrote a comment piece for The Bookseller on the subject.
Now, additional authors have come forward with similar allegations. One writer, who preferred to remain anonymous, contacted The Bookseller following the report. The author said: “There are homophobic reviewers who give books one star before ARCs [advance review copies] are out. One such reviewer [...] is notorious in the sapphic/queer-author community for giving thousands of sapphic/queer books one star. A number of sapphic authors have complained to Goodreads about him and unfortunately they have never taken action.
“More recently this has happened to another queer author friend who writes gay romance – a different reviewer gave them a one star before ARCs were out. It is really disappointing that Goodreads doesn’t do anything when a person is giving ratings based on discriminatory views rather than having actually read the book.”
American author Diane Billas told The Bookseller: “My debut book, Does Love Always Win? (Creative James Media), a sapphic young adult romance, was set to debut in June 2023. I received a one-star review from [a Goodreads user] in February 2023 before any of my advanced reader copies were released. I found out from my debut Slack group that [this user] targets queer books and rates them one star, just because the book is queer. This was devastating to me, on many levels. My Goodreads ranking dropped and I was worried that people wouldn’t want to read my book when it actually released because of my lower rating but I also was upset about the fact that someone, who couldn’t have read my book at all, just rated it poorly because they don’t agree with the content. I reported him to Goodreads and nothing happened.
“I learned from my debut group that this has been an ongoing problem for many years and Goodreads never resolves it. I’ve stopped using Goodreads personally to track my reading and have moved to Storygraph because I don’t want to support a platform that doesn’t address homophobia and bullying.”
Indie literary website Book Riot wrote in 2020 of the impact of reviews like these: “Fewer people want to pick those books up, because they think the low ratings are a red flag. Here are marginalised authors, people who are already susceptible to more barriers in publishing, a smaller marketing budget and a less-receptive audience, and this is just one more hurdle.”
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Other writers shared their stories of difficulties with Goodreads more generally. Author Helen Jones commented on the original report in The Bookseller: “Goodreads is awful. My book received star ratings before ARCs went out but when I contacted them to say there was no way these reviewers could have read the book, and explained why, they replied that ‘people are allowed to review a book before it’s published’ and wouldn’t engage any further. I do not know a single author who’s had a positive experience with the site and now stay away. It’s not a space for authors.”
Fellow writer and editor Mo Fanning commented: “My current book was given a two-star review a full year before I wrote the last few chapters. I assume due to ISBN registration. Goodreads stood by it.”
Adam Gomolin, chief executive of US publisher Inkshares, which recently launched in the UK, commented: “Our forthcoming novel A Pretender’s Murder by Christopher Huang also received an inexplicable two-star rating before any review copies had been released.”
Nancy Peach, who is published by One Chapter, said: “This happened to me a few months ago. My book The Night Shift didn’t have proof copies, it was only at the structural edit phase but a two-star review appeared on Goodreads, clearly a review of another book with a similar title. I can’t get it taken down so have to hope that nice reviews drown it out when my book is eventually published."
Fellow author N Cunliffe complained of an Amazon review. He commented: “This happened to me on Amazon, where a customer left a one-star review clearly for a film under my book (The Wake). They were unhappy with the acting and running length. Despite reporting it, Amazon still haven’t taken it down. I would have thought Goodreads would be more understanding to authors.”
While Goodreads does have review guidelines and community guidelines, it declined to comment when contacted by The Bookseller.
