In one of our previous posts, we showed you that despite what Goodreads claims about censorship on their site, they just recently censored the readers in the Mysteries and Crime Thriller group by deleting their comments and their accounts when they began a discussion about the bullying on GR and the false reviews/ratings that GR TOS allows.
Well, today we want to show you the email we received from Mercy Pilkington, the author of the Goodereader article published last week.
So, this is proof positive that Goodreads knows about the problems on their site and is clearly trying to cover everything up.
Well, we have news for them. And not good news, either. Because of the bullying and false reviews on the site, not to mention the libeling, defamation, and character assassination being done on authors or anyone who stands against the GR bullies, a HUGE lawsuit against GR is brewing right now. What is unfortunate for GR is that they think by ignoring the problem and trying to cover it up, it will go away. But problems don’t go away just because you ignore them. On the contrary, this whole thing is about to get worse.
Much, much worse.
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I hope they (GoodReads) DO get sued. I can’t think of anyone else more deserving, except for the bullies themselves.
Oh, I know it. GoodReads used their TOS against authors, while ignoring it when it came to the bullies and their behavior. Like you said, “if they’d actually enforced their TOS equally”. That what it boils down to, is that they didn’t enforce it “equally”.
I totally agree, if they’d just ban the damn bullies, it would stop. They’ve had too many chances, and they’ve only banned Angie H. and maybe a few others. Not much of an effort on their part…
I am still reeling from a truly horrendous Cyber-attack from the Goodreads website, and have only just discovered – in my naiveté – that other authors have suffered similar personal attacks. In brief, both my books were starting to move up the ranking in terms of garnering five star ratings from readers, placing them in the top 10 in several categories, which was extremely encouraging: every day about 10 or 12 more people were added to the list of those who indicated they wanted to read them. I then noticed that an anonymous reader with “librarian” status (in other words one of the Goodreads team) started rating both books as one-star (lowest rating) on a regular basis so they slipped down the rankings again. I know for a fact this person had obviously not read either of my books as they can only be bought via my websites, and I have a complete record of who has paid for them via Paypal notifications and completed transactions. I wasn’t unduly worried at this point as you have to take the rough with the smooth, and just put it down to jealousy: Goodreads appears to be run by a small cabal of writers who routinely trash anything which isn’t about angsty teenage vampires whilst actively promoting their own publications such as 3rd rate chicklit etc. However, one morning I logged on to find that every single one of my reader reviews/ratings accumulated over a period of time were suddenly wiped out, and had vanished overnight. Naturally I contacted GR to complain, because the only people who can access my author account with edit and delete privileges – apart from myself – are the assholes who run the website and who have “librarian” status. An ordinary user would not be able to touch an author’s reviews so I smelled a rat. I received a very unpleasant email telling me they deemed the reviews to be “illegitimate” (they were all quite genuine, as far as I am aware) which is why they had removed them, and that henceforth I would be banned from using the site. I was so incensed I instructed them to remove my books from their website with immediate effect, as I wanted nothing further to do with them. I was then informed in gloating tones that it was not their policy to remove any books ever and that they would remain on the website permanently – even though I own the copyright and they belong to me! Since then it has gone from bad to worse. The hyperlinks to my websites have also been deleted so that no-one can purchase them, and they have actually gone out of their way to cause me as much upset as possible by placing my novels in a category called “Books which should be burned”, “Authors Behaving Badly” etc. so as to influence readers against me. They have also arbitrarily removed them from categories in which they were legitimately listed so that no reader searching in these categories is ever likely to come across them. In other words, they are now at the bottom ranking and completely invisible, making any future sales impossible. Because I have been prevented from logging in to their site and removing my own books I now have no control over what they are saying or writing. I have never come across this type of unprovoked persecution before from complete strangers, for no other reason other than that someone at GR clearly felt very threatened by me, and has deliberately and methodically set out to destroy my reputation before I’ve even got off the ground.
As you can imagine I was pretty depressed and down about the whole thing, as this is not just an attack on my livelihood but my reputation as a writer. After Googling GR I discovered that I am by no means the only innocent victim, and that many other authors have suffered similar experiences: one author has accused them outright of being “corrupt” and “evil”, and is also trying to get his novels removed from their site to no avail. Ironically, I am in good company as I have noticed that several other reputable authors whose work I admire have also had their work categorised as “books that should be burned”. Presumably these authors have had similar run-ins with the GR team, and dared to challenge their fraudulent activities. Meanwhile vote-rigging on a massive scale continues to flourish on their site e.g. the trashiest novels – stuff you’d have to be really desperate to read – have mysteriously achieved No. 1 rankings accompanied by the most obviously fake reviews such as “Awesome..”, “Wow!! That’s all I can say about this book, Wow!” “You’d have to be crazy not to read this book”, “The author is a genius”, “This book really kicks ass!” I think you get the picture – the site is run by total assholes who lack sufficient imagination to write anything remotely original, even when it comes to reviewing their own garbage.
The moral of this story is DO NOT ever use Goodreads – they are corrupt through and through. Oh, and if anyone ever mentions Goodreads please put them straight. The content is untrustworthy and the website owners are vindictive liars, who actively promote their own material at the expense of other authors who signed up in good faith like I did, and who are now trapped in a nightmare from which they cannot extricate themselves.
I couldn’t believe it. This is almost exactly what happened to me. I can’t add anything other than a guess. The librarians provide GR-Amazon with free labor. In return they are minimally, if at all supervised. Some are jealous old nuts. I think the problem exists because GR-Amazon has been allowed to become monopolies in the book industry. If there were another site available at 5% of GR supposed size, I’m sure many would flock there. At this point GR’s only trustworthy information is that which can be found on Wikipedia.
Last July, two well respected groups filed papers with the US Dept. of Justice asking them to look into the monopolistic and monopsonistic violations. One stresses the financial considerations and the other stresses a negative effect on freedom of speech. Justice is apparently sitting on this, at least until we get a President who’ll give them a kick in the ass.
Sorry for what happened to you. Its a little easier for me because I’m retired and writing is just a hobby for me. But, the fact that this kind of garbage is allowed to go on gets me mad as hell.
I should add that my 23 books are all available of free pirate sites; I stopped counting when I hit 30. I found out that five other writers complained to Amazon about the same thing, and each was told it was a result of hacking and they couldn’t do anything about it. In one instance they went on to say how it didn’t matter. So, being the bright fellow that I am I asked a different question. “Why is it that indie books get hacked, while those of the big sellers do not? Are the hackers stupid?” This went unanswered. I sent two more e-mails and when finally answered I was told that if I asked any more contentious questions that my community “priviliges” would be cancelled.
I know that this is technically an issue with Amazon rather than GR, but they are more alike than Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The point is that I wonder how much of this “hacking” is done by librarians.
Yes, I know that there is a lengthy procedure one can undertake to get one’s book off a pirate site. Unfortunately, even if successful, the book will appear on a site with a different name operated by the same people.
I fully agree with your recommendation of “Do not ever use GR.” And it is eminently unfair that these companies are allowed to list your books, say whatever they want about them, delete positive commentaries; all without your permission. Yet, if you just mention it you get deleted. I used to think that I lived in a place called America.
I have been reading the reports of bullying at Goodreads, and am relieved to know that I am not the only author who has experienced this, but disappointed that nothing is being done to stop the ongoing corruption, and the illegality of continuing to list book titles without the copyright owner’s consent. I have to agree with one commentator that – if I had to guess at who actually runs Goodreads – I would say a small group of very mediocre writers who routinely trash the reputation of any other authors whose fiction threatens their own output, whilst manipulating the lists and rankings to promote their own writing. The site is inherently untrustworthy, and the heavy-handed approach of the website administrators towards anyone who complains smacks of a police state. The sheer nastiness and vindictiveness of the GR clique has to be experienced to be believed: what happened to the lawsuit against them, and why are they still allowed to destroy the reputation and livelihood of so many good authors with impunity? I do not support hacking per se, but I am at the point where I – and many others – would actively applaud anyone who has the requisite skills to crash this toxic site and take it down for once and for all, so that there are no more innocent victims. There is a massive cover-up going on and something needs to be done about it urgently.
We sent you an email regarding this. We hope it helps.
Max, the reason you don’t see many lawsuits against Goodreads-Amazon by authors and publishers is because there is a clause within Amazon’s publishing agreement that requires binding arbitration in the case of grievances and disputes. If you don’t know what binding arbitration is, read this.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Binding+arbitration
Grievances and disputes against Amazon get settled outside of court which is why a certain author — who was banned from this website and who can’t bring himself to believe that a certain group of individuals didn’t want him in their group because he is untrustworthy — couldn’t find any record of the dispute settled between this group and Goodreads-Amazon. If you need more information on this, I suggest seeking the counsel of an attorney. He or she will be able to explain it in more detail.