To help GR find those nasty, author-bashing shelves, we visited the books of a few authors who’ve been severely attacked on GR and compiled a list. The list is unbelievably long, but far from comprehensive. We invite all of our readers to notify GR management of these shelves so that they can be removed from the site:
http://www.goodreads.com/genres/bba
If our readers have their own lists, feel free to send them to us so we can publish them on our blog and help GR clean house!
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I’ve taken all my publications down, so I can post here freely. I’m no longer publishing anything, so I’m using my own name. There are a ton of others, but they’re usually one or two that were just created to insult or threaten people.
Meaning tons of other “shelves” — sorry, I shouldn’t post this late at night. lol
Oh you should not give up writing and publishing because of the trolls. That is so sad. This is a step in the right direction by Goodreads.
Melody,
I hope you will republish (whether under a pseudonym or otherwise). Don’t let these small-minded haters (GR Bullies) stop you from your dream. So many authors have been bullied at Goodreads that it is almost cliche. You’re not alone. Don’t take it personally. The bully-trolls on that site are the dredges of society, only interested in spreading hate under the guise of “free speech.” They should not be taken seriously, even though they have done serious harm to many careers and lives. If enough people see them for what they are, they will lose their power to do harm.
Continue with your dream.
Best wishes and hugs. You have our support.
I’ve been dealing with these people on the Web for 15 years. A lot of them migrated from fan fiction circles. They’re the grammar Nazis (I love grammar myself, but I don’t capitalize e.e. cummings lol) who can’t tell a story to save their lives. A large number of them are boring writers who can’t break through.
My dream is merely to get my stories “out there” — I’m making so little money on my fiction (I’m not very prolific … I took seven years to write one novel), I’d just as soon give it away. I’ll probably recover and relaunch at some point, but, at this point, I’m just disgusted.
Thanks for the support, though!
“Boring writers who can’t break through” –sounds like “Uncle” James MacDonald on Absolute Write. His books don’t sell, and his bitterness is apparent. It’s why he hides behind an “expert” persona (HA!), when really he’s just a tired old hack.
Johnny, I’ll only believe that the trolls and their ‘shelves’ have gone for good when Amazon, as the parent company, makes a public apology for condoning the activities of these low life cowards, and fire those at the top of Goodreads, and not before!!!
Same here.
It might be hard to fire the technology officer, Patrick xxx, if he has developed the site. It will take months for a new person to wade though the code and get to grips with the development.
And this Otis chandler person might hold some intellectual property rights that they cannot do without.
I hear Patrick xxx is one of the bullies; so at least one will stay.
Oh come on. It’s just a poxy web company. What, a LAMP stack and a high level Java or C++ codebase, maybe a newer web server and a more scalable database like Oracle. I doubt there is even a single Linux kernel module or driver. I could do a system takeover in a week.
It’s pretty obvious to everyone in the community that Patrick is a HUGE part of the problem and always has been. Amazon, take note! Time to get an extra heavy-duty Raid fogger…
This may just be me misunderstanding–is each of these shelves a shelf that only a specific user uses specifically for author-bashing, or do they encompass everything shelved under this label across the entire site, because while the vast majority of those listed above are obviously used to abuse the author, I picked out a few which could in theory just be used to refer to characters in the book or something like that– ‘asshats’, ‘snowflakes’, ‘your hypocrisy is showing’, ‘llamas’–?!?… maybe on the harsher side of a critique (I myself have a few harsh shelves, though they’d never refer to the writer), but not necessarily bullying the author?
Those shelves came directly from books by authors who were severely attacked and their books demolished. Trust us, they ARE referring to the author. That is certain.
Anne, Linda Hilton, a self-proclaimed writing maven shelved one of my books under “homophobic dickwad”. I’ll give you a hint, it has NOTHING to do with the book she shelved. I know, I wrote it. You tell me, was she telling herself that or calling me that?
That Linda Hilton seems so completely unhinged. I would hate to know her in real life. I wonder what drives such venom and hate in some people. Truly shameful that a human being would use her energy and time in such a manner.
“snowflakes” refers to their mocking author nickname “speshul snowflakes” and “asshats” is also usually used to refer to authors.
That said, HOW, exactly, does one report shelves? I don’t see a flag button, so do we have to e-mail GR support?
You can contact Goodreads and give them either the list above and/or your own list if you have one.
(To this and the two above) I did understand that these shelves were used to attack authors, what I meant was does this mean no one on GR can now create a shelf under any of these titles ever again? (Not that it would be a big loss if they couldn’t, I was just wondering for the sake of clarification)
I think GR will review them on a case by case basis, taking shelves in context. That is, they’ll look to see if the author was attacked or not. If yes, then the shelves are probably referring to the author.
authors-behaving-badly shelf
This is actually the first time I’ve really seen the magnitude of all this in an actual list form. Mind blowing that they could get away with this for so long.
Oh, there are more! Many, many more. We’re still compiling them.
I’ve been watching reactions from a distance since GR posted the changes and it’s like authors, readers, and publishers are all celebrating. And talking about it openly on social media for the first time…without fears now.
We’ve got a screenshot of Hugh Howey on Kboards saying, “Bitchin’ news!” Ha!
Here’s a few shelves I didn’t see on the list :
Forgot one:
How do you report shelves that are marked ‘private’ but appear on the book’s page?
I’m referring to Book’s shelves ‘stgrb flea infested’ ‘supports stgrb’ and ‘melissa dumbshit is not your friend’ (among many others, no doubt)
Thanks! We’ll compile those, too. We missed those. To get the url, you just click on the shelf name on the top shelves page.
To report them, you can contact Goodreads and give them either the list above and/or your own list if you have one.
Did you guys read this? This is awesome!
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/goodreads-modifies-user-terms-to-prevent-author-bullying-reviewers-outraged
Some interesting points made here:
http://thelookingglassofcarrollbryant.blogspot.com/2013/09/goodreads-smoke-and-mirrors.html
It’s really too early to tell what their real motive is. This could be genuine or not. Time will tell.
I agree.
My books have collected around nineteen 1 star ratings and shelves since I posted in the comments section of Goodreads Feedback group regarding the new policies. I guess the readers decided to hate my books because they didn’t agree with me that removing bully reviews and shelves was a good thing.
How on earth they justify doing this and claiming it is about the book defies even their own logic.
So have mine Gail. It is predictable behavior, unfortunately.
Hate is a nasty motivator for such things.
Yes, they don’t seem to have any conscience about actively harming authors’ lives and incomes and families. Their actions truly do have repercussions, but they don’t seem to care about that. I can’t tell you how much my life was negatively affected (and those of my husband and children) when a group of trolls set out to one-star my book. My sales went from flourishing to zero. The trolls did a happy dance when they saw they’d killed my book… and lifetime dream. People who do that are truly without souls or hearts. It’s very disheartening that people like that exist.
How about these?
books-by-disturbed-people
author-should-be-taken-out-and-shot
Actually I believe that it is the author who is paid 70% (or 35%); that’s his royalty. Amazon keeps the remaining 30% (or 65%).
Of course that doesn’t change your main point, though, that these saboteurs on Goodreads are costing Amazon money (and not just the authors).
They need to do away with the star ratings. That’s inane anyway. If you make reviewers write reviews of a specific number of words, they’re still going to post crap, but at least they’ll have to work to do it.
Another thing Amazon should do is require that reviewers show their true names and identities on the site. That would stop 99% of these sicko headcases hiding behind the anonymity of their flickering computer screen.