My hamster wheel has been spinning since the recent blog post regarding book reviews when you're a writer (http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2020/01/posting-reviews-when-youre-writer.html).
It got me thinking about Goodreads. I have a Goodreads page in my personal name. When I'm published I assume I will need to be there in my professional (pen name) capacity. I can't manage two accounts so I'd been thinking I should restart. But as you said in that recent post, writers shouldn't be reviewing other writers. So what do you do about Goodreads? Should you just shelve and not review?
I think you CAN keep two Goodreads accounts; one for your personal stuff with reviews, and one for your author stuff.
My understanding (secondhand) is that Goodreads users like authors to stay in their own lane as much as possible. Post stuff about their books, answer questions, be friendly, but NOT also behave like a reader.
The thing to guide these kinds of decisions is the sure and certain knowledge that if you put it on the internet someone will find it and usually the last person you want.
You don't want to create problems for yourself if you can help it.
13 comments:
Ah, Goodreads. Yes, authors need to stay in their lanes and not offend. I've had fairly good luck there until this week when someone 1-starred four of my books on the same day. A look at their profile revealed only initials and the fact that they've rated over 4000 book for an average rating of 1.05 stars. Either I've attracted the attention of an assassin, or this person just randomly 1-stars books that look interesting. It's tempting to message and inquire, but no, that's just asking for trouble.
Yes, I have both on Goodreads. That's one of the reasons why I don't use the star rating system, except for books I can give the full five stars. For everything else that ranges from three to four, I'm careful to explain what I really liked about the book and a bit about what didn't work for me. I don't post reviews of books I'd only give one or two stars.
I think I will get a second GoodReads myself. I have a new email for my querying and author self. Might as well split myself on Goodreads. Might do same on Twitter although I think my current twitter is fine. Unless you're an Man U or Everton fan. Then, ah well. Maybe get an Instagram or something.
However, I do not have and will not get a Facebook account. Which leaves me out of the query support group for February. This makes me sad but incredibly persistent and evil stalker chased me off Facebook. I am not going back.
It's easy to have two Goodreads accounts. I have one that I've had since 2007, and a second that's my writer profile. It's easy to keep them separate! I don't really review books on my author profile, although I do have a few five-star books.
Wait, E.M., are you a Man City fan? Or Liverpool?
Sleepy One, Liverpool since 1985. Best team in the world. Only this year they will finally prove it. Again. After thirty years.
Beth, sounds like they like to cause problems. I wonder if Goodreads watches out for people like that. There's no problems if people genuinely vote 1 star, but to have an average of 1/4000 would seem extreme.
It's so easy to game Goodreads ratings that I don't think I trust reviews there at all anymore unless I know the person posting. There's been a troll problem in SFF recently (people making dozens of new accounts every day to one-star-review bomb their targets, even impersonating authors or authors' relatives).
I did make an author page so I could have a site librarian disentangle my search results from another author with a similar name, but not sure if I'm going to do anything else with it.
I have a Goodreads account, just to have my couple self-pub books listed, but I almost never go look at it.
If anyone is looking for a way to track books you've read (I think I've heard people use Goodreads for this?), this (free) spreadsheet might be an alternative for you. I started using it half-way through 2018 and continued in 2019 and now 2020. I LOVE IT. So helpful for keeping track of what I'm reading.
I did edit a few things to customize it for me (for instance, I added a column for KU prices to see whether that monthly fee was worth it for me) (I also added a "notes" section where I can make remarks like, "Best book of 2020 so far!" and "Who the fuck ghost-wrote this crap?"), but that wasn't difficult:
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/01/track-your-2020-reading-with-this-nifty-spreadsheet/#2020sheet
[deliberately not a live link, as I'm not sure Janet is okay with that for something like this]
I've heard that people think that using a one star rating is a good way to keep track of books they want to read. They don't understand that they're literally giving a book they haven't read a one star rating.
There was a twitter thread about this a while back with a lot of very frustrated and upset authors/agents.
I barely have a presence on goodreads. I always review books from authors I know and always give them 5 stars. If I didn't like the book, I keep mum.
Many Goodreads reviewers are just so awful. Some of my friends write historical novels, and the reviewers will give them a low rating because they got a historical detail wrong even though the book is a good book. Often it just feels like it's people wanting to prove they're more knowledgeable or smarter than the author. Sometimes reading Goodreads reviews makes me hate humanity... That was the main reason I made a deal with myself to not leave bad reviews. It's just my opinion after all. Why should I make some author feel terrible only so I can express my opinion?
I never look at stars to decide if I want to read a book. I do often read written reviews, and can tell even before I read it if I will agree with the reviewer.
Beth, sorry to hear about the strange "assassin". I'm most curious about the ".05" of that number. If there are few five-star reviews of books among the 4K, all by the same author, you might have your mystery person. Not that that REALLY helps you.
E.M. -you could create a FB profile under a fake name, and only post in the Writer's Room. It's just Reiders there, and the outside world can't see any of your comments there.
Lennon, there were 3995 1-stars and 61 2-stars, which leads to to guess it's a system like 1 star for books that look interesting and 2 for books I want to buy. Or something...
I'd been thinking about getting a second account for a while, and that post finally prompted me to do it. I have a TON of history on the main account (I've been using it to catalog my rather large home library), and it was under my real name and the handle I use on all other social media. So first I changed the name and email address to pseudonyms, and ditched the custom URL. Then I created a second, brand new account using my real name, main email, and the handle. Took like 10 minutes.
The only real issue with having two accounts is making sure you're logged into the correct one. You wouldn't want to post a scathing review as Rando Calrissian only to find it actually published under your real name. And even doing little stuff like shelving books under the wrong account might get annoying. (I mess this up all the time when I'm on Tumblr mobile, saving stuff to the drafts of my writing account rather than main, and it's a pain.)
Post a Comment