Amazon is Adding Goodreads Ratings to Book Listings

[cfrizz]

That's good enough for me Jon.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Same for me, I never pay any attention to ratings, I simply read the blurb and if it sounds good, I download, if not, I skip it. I am perfectly able to determine by myself whether or not I like a book.

I've mentioned this before a few times, but personally I skim the 1 and 2-star reviews just to avoid a repeat of Stardoc.

Spoilered for not very family friendly content:

Spoiler:

There was no indication from the blurb that there would be an explicit sexual assault scene in the middle of a novel about providing medical care to various aliens, and it disturbed me enough to have to put the book aside for a while.

[Kusuri]

here in germany i don't see this ratings yet, so i guess its not rolled out yet / won't come to germany.


but ratings from goodreads aren't really affecting me anymore anyway. at the first few weeks i tried to look for good books based on the reviews.. but found out quickly that this is a horrible idea. the reviews are full with complete bs reviews. people who say that books a "sexist", even if they aren't.. people who complain about complete bs that has nothing to do with the book or writing self (more about the autor and what he does outside of writing books), people spamming their review text with 100s of annoying images, people who think reviews are a place to write lyrics for songs or poems, people who just vote the book good because "it's from autor xyz" or similiar..

actual reviews who are actually about the books are almost not existing. and if they do, the people writing them have zero knowledge about the book or imagine stuff that isn't existing.

the review section on goodreads is just utter garbage. everytime i found good rated books with good reviews, it was most of the time a complete horrible book. everytime i found people complaining about the book, it was usually a "okay book" or one i liked. it seems really random.. you can't reliably see based on the ratings and reviews if a book is good or not.

for me, goodreads is only a way to track books and to find out the book text that describes about what a book is so i can see if i could like the book or not. the recommendations are okay too. but except for that, goodreads isn't worth it for me.

[JSWolf]

Usually the US Amazon gets all the new stuff first and even then the other Amazon's may not get the new stuff. Amazon treads it's customers outside the US as third rate.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I've mentioned this before a few times, but personally I skim the 1 and 2-star reviews just to avoid a repeat of Stardoc.

Spoilered for not very family friendly content:

Spoiler:

There was no indication from the blurb that there would be an explicit sexual assault scene in the middle of a novel about providing medical care to various aliens, and it disturbed me enough to have to put the book aside for a while.

Ha ha, that scene is *by no means* the most disturbing thing to happen to the poor damn protagonist in that series. (Nor the most disturbing thing she sees. Immortality: not always a plus.)

This is definitely an author who is horrible to her characters!

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by NullNix

Ha ha, that scene is *by no means* the most disturbing thing to happen to the poor damn protagonist in that series. (Nor the most disturbing thing she sees. Immortality: not always a plus.)

This is definitely an author who is horrible to her characters!

Yeah, someone told me I'd probably be better off avoiding the rest of the series because it got more disturbing. It's a shame because up until that scene I was really liking it.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Yeah, someone told me I'd probably be better off avoiding the rest of the series because it got more disturbing. It's a shame because up until that scene I was really liking it.

Never read anything by Iain Banks

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by NullNix

Never read anything by Iain Banks

And you're better off for not having read any of the books. The first book is terrible.

[Pyjam]

With Goodreads, you have to choose your "friends" carefully and then read their reviews and ignore the ratings.
I am sick of fantasy books with 4.50⁺ ratings...

Iain Banks has written some good books but the 1ˢᵗ in the Culture series is below average.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Pyjam

With Goodreads, you have to choose your "friends" carefully and then read their reviews and ignore the ratings.
I am sick of fantasy books with 4.50⁺ ratings...

Iain Banks has written some good books but the 1ˢᵗ in the Culture series is below average.

The first book is 1-star. It's that bad.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The first book is 1-star. It's that bad.

Goodreads needs to add half-stars so you can rate it at 0.5 stars.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Goodreads needs to add half-stars so you can rate it at 0.5 stars.

StoryGraph allows partial stars.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The first book is 1-star. It's that bad.

Are you talking Banks, or Stardoc? If the latter, well, I treat it as "read while ill" stuff: it's definitely not high art. But saying that about Banks is sacrilege, y'know.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by hleo12

Your post reminded me of this author who also had a similar problem with his goodreads. He casually mentioned that he was considering writing the next entry to his series. After that someone added that planned book to his series on goodreads. He only noticed when he was actually in the process of publishing the book. He contacted goodreads and goodreads basically said they couldn't do anything about it, and they couldn't remove the false book from his author profile.

I think maybe this author's problem was assuming that the Goodreads author profile attached to his name "belonged" to him. It doesn't, any more than reader reviews belong to the author or are for the author (a not uncommon error leading to authors interacting with readers in toxic ways). The database, listings and reviews aren't for authors nor are they owned or controlled by authors.

And as you have now learned, there are ways of having a never-published book removed from sight. There are also ways of having the existing entry amended to show the updated details of the book, which I would assume would have been the preferred option depending on the exact circumstances.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I've mentioned this before a few times, but personally I skim the 1 and 2-star reviews just to avoid a repeat of Stardoc.

Spoilered for not very family friendly content:

Spoiler:

There was no indication from the blurb that there would be an explicit sexual assault scene in the middle of a novel about providing medical care to various aliens, and it disturbed me enough to have to put the book aside for a while.

I glance at 1 star reviews for the same reason. IMO, Goodreads reviews are even less relevant than Amazon reviews, and that's a pretty low bar.

I rarely read 5 star reviews, especially for "book-a-month" type authors.