THE Group for Authors! discussion

There seems to be a new policy which forbids recommending my own book. Why? This was one of the more useful features of goodreads.

Alex wrote: "There seems to be a new policy which forbids recommending my own book. Why? This was one of the more useful features of goodreads."

I've only recently become a GR member (a bit over 3 years), but I have the impression that it's always been impermissible to recommend your own book. For example, you belong to X genre group. And a new member says he/she is looking for recommendations for "abc" type stories.

Your book is "abc" and you think it's brilliant (teasing smile). But promoting yourself is not what that thread/discussion is for. It's for objective/disinterested recommendations.

There are threads/discussions designed for self-promotion. But outside of that I think it's generally considered spamming to use a discussion on another topic to promote yourself.

Just my USD .02.

Eric

Alex wrote: "There seems to be a new policy which forbids recommending my own book. Why? This was one of the more useful features of goodreads."

Are you referring to the inability to add your own books to listopia lists? That is a fairly recent change that was made because authors abused the lists by adding their books indiscriminately.

That's not what I meant. I marked a book I wrote as "read" because obviously I read it. Then I hit the "Recommend It" button, and it tells me "Sorry. You can't recommend your own book." This used to work. What's the point of having friends and followers on goodreads as an author if you can't tell them about your own work?

Alex wrote: "That's not what I meant. I marked a book I wrote as "read" because obviously I read it. Then I hit the "Recommend It" button, and it tells me "Sorry. You can't recommend your own book." This used t..."

I'm amazed that they ever let you spam your list of friends this way. Sounds like a good change.

You are completely missing the point. I have FANS on goodreads. As an author, how do I tell them I just published a new book? If I can't, of what value is your platform to me?

Your followers and friends, who elect to do so, get notices of your blog updates. If you want to tell them about a new book, do it there and add it to your profile page. Sending blanket recommendations to everyone on your list is spam.

Alex wrote: "You are completely missing the point. I have FANS on goodreads. As an author, how do I tell them I just published a new book? If I can't, of what value is your platform to me?"

Alex,

Most Goodreads discussion groups include a thread specifically designated for author self promotion. That is the place to promote any book you may have written in the past, present or intend to write in the near future. The presumption is that an author would think highly of their work and recommend it. Constant self promotion in threads not intended for it often irritates readers and is considered spamming by many.

Let other readers recommend your book. If it is worthwhile reading, others will eventually obtain a copy and express their own opinion.

I wish you success.

It used to be possible for authors to use the recommend function to recommend their own books; but some authors misused it badly, and spammed people. So authors can't do it anymore. (This is also why authors can't vote for their own works on Listopias; it was an ability badly abused by some authors.)

How to get the news out to readers of your books that you have a new book coming out? I suggest linking your blog to your GR profile, as well as using the author self-promotion areas of discussion groups. (Many groups have these, though some don't allow any author self-promotion at all. Check the rules of the group first.)

Alex wrote: "You are completely missing the point. I have FANS on goodreads. As an author, how do I tell them I just published a new book? If I can't, of what value is your platform to me?"

Post that in an update on your goodreads author page -- all your followers will see it. As Faith said, they also will see any updates you make to a linked blog.

Your followers can also choose to get an email that tells them when a followed author releases a new book.

A not yet released book can be added to goodreads with a future release date -- at which point your followers can shelve (many do that onto wishlist shelves and sporadically sort b date to see what's out or coming out soon). I've seen plenty books that have a title of "Untitled (Book # of ABC)" with no release date or a release date just showing anticipated year of publication (and the date can be changed at any time to reflect actual publication or current intended publication).

As to the not recommending own books being a policy change -- no, it's not.

Goodreads always had a policy of prohibiting authors from recommending their own books. Always considered it commercial use and against site policies plus unasked commercial contact ( aka spam) and against site policies.

Goodreads kept repeatedly saying so in public posts and in response to flagging. Finally had enough of authors ignoring them so changed settings so authors couldn't do. The recommendations were getting useless so full of authors pushing own books whether fitting or not and whether to followers or not.

Ditto for spamming inappropriate listopias and gaming the voting. And authors ignoring site policy also is suspected as reason why a policy of "okay but comply with federal consumer fraud laws by first disclosing payment via service of a review on own product and if review copy/product received free" to outright prohibiting author review exchange, swap and assignment programs--those were getting really out of hand.

I'm sad about not being able to add your own books to lists anymore, that was a great way to help people who were looking for particular topics or themes to find them. But I can understand how it could be abused. I have started to be really specific in shelving my books now (both the ones that I write and the ones that I read) so that hopefully they will show up on the automatically generated Goodreads 'popular _______ books" if a user searches for a topic.

Alex wrote: "You are completely missing the point. I have FANS on goodreads. As an author, how do I tell them I just published a new book? If I can't, of what value is your platform to me?"

Hey, I'd love peeps to purchase my book too. It's got something for everyone, of that I'm convinced! But, somehow, recommending your own book just isn't cricket. I agree that this kind of self-promotion should not be permitted.

Do the blog thing, tweet a bit. Others who get around to reading your book and genuinely enjoy it will recommend it on its own merits.

Don't forget - if you really want to, you can give your book a five-star rating. That's better than nothing... In fairness I couldn't do that - Tuesdays with Morrie still wallops mine for six! Well, four I suppose - since that's the number of stars I gave mine ;)

I used to be on the fence about authors adding own books to listopias. Was fine if clearly really specifically matching a listopia creator's criteria (and not campaigning to followers and using sock-puppets to game the votes).

I eye-rolled a little but ddn't really mind -- if matching specified criteria -- when authors responded to recommendation requests with their own books. I mean, I did ask. But that only happened to me twice when requesting recommendations -- the other few hundred authors recommending their own books (a) clearly went thru spamming all recs requests with own book even if not a fit (b) apparently many rather fanatical authors felt I needed religious and improving books or to be converted to their political ideals. Very few folk other than authors seem to respond to the rec request features. So, now I don't really use the ask for recommendations feature.

I dud think it was wring and got completely out of hand when authors were bulk spamming every popular listopia whether or not appropriate for book, when putting book on "favorite" and "best" lists presumably wanting reader votes (those really gut spammed and gamed), laughable but again over-spammed and gamed when put on a listopia that maybe 3-5 readers voted on so the author's book could easily be voted into top ten and then falsely promoted as "Top 10 Goodreads best of listopia name " when really it was "Top 10 on a reader and his three friends' best of listopia name list that I personally added and voted my book onto."

That last was seriously being extremely widely advised for authors to do on lots of blogs, websites and how to books, i.e., add to little voted/used smaller Listopias (or make up your own) "best of..." ones to nite in book promotions. Widespread enough that readers were rather catching on and kind of laughing about the "top x goodreads y" when the closest goodreads actually has to that is the one annual "Choice" awards. And such a widespread issue that goodreads took steps to stop it because (a) were making listopias a joke and unusable for readers plus a headache for librarians stuck removing inappropriately added books and (b) weren't even helping authors trying to use to promote anyway.

How about this proposal for a goodreads feature. There are lots of readers who rated my books 5 stars. Can I reach out to them and notify them that I published a new book?

I suspect that that's considered spamming as well. Those readers may have liked your book well enough to rate it highly, but they didn't, by doing so, invite you into their world to any greater extent than the presence of your book on their ereader.

I think if a reader/reviewer contacts you and initiates a conversation, then you have a quasi-personal relationship and you're free to share the good news. But contacting them without an invitation is probably highly frowned upon.

Just more of my USD .02.

Eric

What if I paid for the service? Lord knows goodreads ads are a weak form of marketing. Targeting already happy fans of my work seems like a win-win.

Alex wrote: "How about this proposal for a goodreads feature. There are lots of readers who rated my books 5 stars. Can I reach out to them and notify them that I published a new book?"

This is from Goodreads Guidelines for Authors:

Don’t spam. Do not contact (via comments/messages/friend requests) all or most of the people who add your book or a related work. You should also avoid tactics like thanking everyone who has added your book. Do not send unwanted messages or friend requests. While well intentioned, these kinds of behaviors will result in people flagging you as a spammer, and we will have to take action.

Alex wrote: "How about this proposal for a goodreads feature. There are lots of readers who rated my books 5 stars. Can I reach out to them and notify them that I published a new book?"

In addition to the above quoted author guidelines -- when you signed up for a goodreads account, you agreed to no commercial use of the site.

If readers followed you on your author page, they should see it when you post a status update about your new book (and when you blog about it if you've linked a blog to your profile page). Readers thinking highly of your books are the most likely to follow you.

Readers can also sign up to receive an email from goodreads when a followed author releases a new book.

The key point being that they "followed" you or subscribed to email notices in order to see those specific updates -- not that you contacted them unasked.

If you want to offer readers a way to opt into receiving messages or emails from you -- put the instructions for that on your author profile. Some authors direct them to where readers can subscribe to a "newsletter" mailing list or to just message on goodreads (replying on-topic to a message from a reader is not unasked commercial contact aka spam).

Why did you join goodreads, just to promote your books to readers? If by "...what value" you mean what commercial value or return of investment from promotional efforts (again, you agreed to not make commercial use), maybe you should try one of the commercial use sites with different policies than goodreads (good luck finding ones that also reach or have even a fraction of the readers as goodreads). The platform here is of benefit to authors because readers are members and can find your book, review, comment etc. in a way that's shared out to presumably other reader friends/followers -- just like other social media sites except reaches potentially millions of readers versus posting out to millions of folk who are uninterested in books. Because many of the most followed reviewers review here. Because readers can choose to follow you for news like new releases. Because many groups and bookclubs are here which might choose your book as a group read or offer ways for authors to connect to readers. Because many authors also enjoy the site as readers. Because many promotional sites and opportunities offering "value" look at your goodreads reviews and presence before you can be approved. Because goodreads has lots of features that could make your book visible to readers ...

I suspect authors not publishing with traditional publishers ignoring goodreads is like a discussion of U.S. chocolate manufacturers ignoring Hershey's, Nestles and M&M Mars.

Alex wrote: "What if I paid for the service? Lord knows goodreads ads are a weak form of marketing. Targeting already happy fans of my work seems like a win-win."

To implement such a paid service, goodreads would at a minimum have to change their terms of service and get readers to agree to the new terms to signify opting into receiving such author contact (pesky U.S. Can-SPAM laws, eh?).

Why would you want to target happy fans of your work? They're already sold on you. Unless they go around rating every book 5 stars, why wouldn't they watch for more from 5-star book authors via existing features without you paying to message them? Wouldn't you prefer to spend the marketing budget to try and increase book's visibility to new readers?

If implemented, Goodreads should probably identify in the inbox message list when it's a paid/sponsored one (otherwise readers would just get bombarded with author messages that looked no different than the paid ad ones or even tried to mimic them).

Personally, if flooded with author messages I couldn't just flag away as spam, I just wouldn't use my goodreads inbox and not even bother when I see the I é stor that I have a new message. Followers, friends and fellow group members could still reach me by commenting on my posts and my friends have other ways to contact me.

I'm not sure how you'd convince readers to open sponsored ads in their inboxes any more than they are convinced to click on current ads and sponsored book links. Penalize them for not reading (with what penalty, deleting or suspending their account or review display yet expecting them to still stay on goodreads)? Have the paid messages show when goodreads is accessed until a certain time elapses or until readers dismiss each one (and will they bother actually reading before dismissing even if have to click to dismiss)? How many readers would leave goodreads for less annoying sites? How many would blacklist the books in the ads that annoyed them?

Far from wanting inboxes made more available to authors, many readers already lock them to friends only and make constant suggestions and requests to improve privacy controls and avoid being contacted by commercial interests.

I'm just suggesting a new revenue stream for goodreads. The fact is that the existing ad mechanism (which pays your salaries, btw) is in my experience reasonably ineffective. The click through rates are pathetic and the placement algorithm is retarded. This is very surprising for a company owned by amazon, but there you go. You have on your own site a vast amount of data which can be used to target marketing much more accurately, which means less wasted ad placements and more $'s for everybody. This is how the internet works, and amazon does it better than anybody. The mechanism doesn't have to be intrusive or spammy. I'm sure there is a way to make it work.

Whose salaries is the "existing ad mechanism" supposed to be funding? Because I don't believe any employee of GR has posted in this thread.

Goodreads has volunteers responding to "Ask Goodreads?" It seems I'm in the wrong place then. Sorry to waste your time.

You can be surer to address staff directly using the contact us form under help screen or emailing support @ goodreads.com. These are public forum help desks (and staff don't promise participation outside of business hours which is when much of this discussion took place).

Amazon bought an existing community of booklovers voluntarily providing a lot of the content -- including the data some would find useful to target marketing -- with members who joined under the still unchanged Terms of Service actually prohibiting commercial use.

"This is how the internet works" and Amazon doing it better than anyone else ? Some of us might think that applies more to retail and commercial use sites than non-retail sites for readers (with book cataloging of books even if not currently in print, consumer reviews, book discussions, social media style sharing of book activities).

How many readers you want to target would still stay if site went to being such blatant commercial use? If they now had another inbox to clean out and without the recourse of flagging the commercial contacts?

How many readers have already left, drastically decreased their participation or began also using other book sites once Amazon ownership was official (and again in mass exodus/slowdowns whenever that ownership was felt as commercial,interest versus reader/member interests)?

Just a consideration. Goodreads doesn't have a public statistic page where I can accurately judge those numbers other than by various thread posts, how much activity I see now in my groups and from friends and followed reviewers. And from contact where former or current group members and friends send me their new book sites. I know some group book of the month polls that used to see dozens to hundreds of votes now have books winning that only had three votes then no one discusses the thing.

Why would readers not responding to site ads respond to messaged ads (assuming they'd even open them -- particularly if cranky that something got past their locked to friends privacy settings)? Why would readers who wouldn't open your unsubscribed-to ads in their traditional email inboxes open them in their goodreads inbox?

That's the sort of author promotional needs versus reader activity needs like seen in discussions about groups/bookclubs restricting commercial activity to the promotion folders:

READER comments around gr seem to indicate: I'll happily visit those threads when interested. If not interested, I don't have to get annoyed by those posts interrupting my discussions and book activities.

AUTHOR comments around goodreads seem to indicate: Don't tell me to post on those threads. They're useless for targeting the number of readers I need to target. Goodreads needs to put a stop to all those awful spam taggers and let us promote freely.

NO ONE other than those doing it seems to think it's cool to interrupt Q&A author sessions or threads with fans discussing a book to promote outside the promotion folders with comments like "why are you stupidly duscussing this book when mine is so much better?"

I seem to have hit a vein. Allow me to give you the perspective of a struggling, independent author.

First off, the book business sucks these days. It is overrun with spammers and scammers. Tens of thousands of new books get uploaded every day, and most of them are terrible. Readers have to wade through an ocean of junk to find my work. I have to pay for all kinds of promotions just to stay in the game, and I'm lucky if any of them break even on sales. Many promoters are con artists in literary clothing. Some scams cost me thousands of dollars.

The successful authors find a niche and defend it with ruthless marketing tactics. They game the system any way the can. They spam every list and blog where a reader might be found. They tweak keywords and SEO scores. Every tweet is targeted at potential new readers. The days of authors playing nice ended years ago.

I'm sorry to hear the goodreads isn't such a nice place to play these days, but when amazon took over, what did you expect? The almighty dollar is what matters now. Click throughs pay the bills. Every bit of data on the site is a marketing resource, and amazon sees every reader as a wallet full of money. Volunteers are just free labor.

It's very sad, but I don't see it getting any better.

Alex wrote: "I seem to have hit a vein. Allow me to give you the perspective of a struggling, independent author.

First off, the book business sucks these days. It is overrun with spammers and scammers. Tens o..."

You might take a look at this thread.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

You should be aware of a couple of things. The people responding to this thread are just members, not volunteers. Also, members joined Goodreads for various reasons, but none of them included being treated like sitting ducks to be sold to. I know there are too many books and authors have a hard time clawing their way through the clutter, but spam is spam even if coming from an author.

It would be nice to be able to write a book that is a number one best seller. (Most are not) I joined this site and enjoy reading the comments. I too have written a couple of books which are free to read. I wrote them because I believed that I had story to tell and because I enjoyed the experience. If I make a few coins from it, then well and good. If not, then so be it - I still enjoyed the experience. All the best for those wanting their books to be read.

Goodreads might very well think your suggestion is a good one and implement. They could conceivably allow those paid promotions to get past prvacy settings like only allowing friends to message you. They could conceivably decide that even if we block an author account that those ads would get around the block and still be in our in boxes. They could reverse policies and lift the limits on how many messages can be sent and deactivate multiple protections against unasked commercial contact.

They could also conceivably look at their current workload for removing flagged author contact in inboxes, how much bulk spam their automated protections catch and balk at the very notion. Or they might try to judge by how many readers flag those just how receptive non-commercial-interest goodreads members would be to such things.

They or Amazon very well could decide that only readers willing to participate with book promotions are wanted here. Marketing targets only. Maybe we'd accept that, maybe we'd leave, maybe we'd stay but not cooperate or contribute as much ...

Goodreads recently announced messaging was down for changes. They could even currently be implementing some version of Alex's suggestion. No idea what maintenance or changes but group messages are rumored to be a piece of that. [off topic but a long, bad history of the group broadcasts and BOTM voting/polls being blatantly misused by spammers where we've been begging for more protections. An annoying amount of work continually kicking them out of groups when found and too often found because group was losing members who thought group was a spam one...].

ETA: if anyone missed the announcement about messaging outage it's at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Alex wrote: "...Allow me to give you the perspective of a struggling, independent author.

First off, the book business sucks these days. It is overrun with spammers and scammers. Tens of thousands of new books get uploaded every day..."

Well allow me to give you the reader perspective that many readers on goodreads do know that. The massive amounts of promotions we are inundated with -- including spam to our inboxes even though prohibited and rude interruptions of book discussions and book activities -- we know, we know. Lots of books. Hard for authors to be discovered.

We do know it's difficult for authors to effectively promote particularly if not traditionally published author (where are basically doing everything themselves) . Hard to find promotions that you can do or afford and even when you do find or create ones that are effective -- well here come those tens of thousands of other authors promoting the same way to your marketing targets.

Discoverability in such a huge glut of books is your biggest obstacle; it's not being blocked from advertising to readers who do not sign up to get those advertisements. On communities like goodreads you also have the difficulty of trying to promote to readers already inundated with promotions (even ones prohibited that can be flagged to goodreads staff for removal) and possibly already burned by less professionally behaved authors bulk spamming everyone, targeted or not.

I'm just not sure there's a lot of suggestions you or other authors could make that the other ten thousand authors wouldn't also jump on if even suspected of being remotely effective.

I find it even more unlikely that the answer would be promotions to the very inboxes many goodreads members complain already see too much author promotion (even though prohibited under current site policies).

Goodreads likley has an idea of how used/clicked by members the sponsored book ads on the updates feed and various advertising spaces are. (Members not paying for the ads that is.). How many members use ad block or know they can unsubscribe to sponsored book links on their updates feed *shrugs* not sure how well they can judge that. How much spam is reported by members. How much feedback from readers in emails and various group threads want more and how much want less promotions ...

If you do come up with a good way to promote to readers not subscribing/opt-in to the feature, maybe you should keep that quiet so other authors don't inundate. And quietly contact goodreads staff to see if readers can report that as a TOS violation even if no "flag" option is shown. For example, there's no flag when an author spams your friend request question with their book ad but we sure can report them for doing so to goodreads, can block them from future contact, can boycott them, ...

Alex wrote: "The successful authors find a niche and defend it with ruthless marketing tactics. They game the system any way the can. They spam every list and blog where a reader might be found."

*yikes* bitter much? Your post is so untrue I wouldn't even know where to start...

Do a few authors game the system? Sure. Do all "successful authors" do it? Umm... no. Care to back up your assertions with some hard facts?

Yes there is something like 4,000 books uploaded to Amazon every day.

Yes it is hard to gain visibility in that ocean.

But there's no need to lash out and call everyone else a spammer and basically a cheat. Many MANY authors work to gain one reader, one follower at a time. Many of us don't tweet or spam, we interact with readers like we're all people who enjoy books.

Goodreads is a fantastic place to interact with readers and talk about books you enjoyed. Maybe you need to approach it as a reader, rather than as a desperate author looking for people to spam with book links? One look at your profile tells me you see Goodreads as just another advertiser to flog your books. The only books you have shelved are your own. You have then 5-starred your own books (something readers frown upon). You don't appear to read any other books or engage in any book related groups. That's a shame, you're missing out on a lot of fantastic discussions. And here's the thing, if you engage with people as people instead of seeing them as potential sales, some times they check your books on their own.

My answer is to let us sign up for the promotions we want to see. Explore and discover books and authors in a kajillion ways here including by author participation in ways not interfering with activities and features we're enjoying.

Would it ruin goodreads for me if Alex sent a promotion to my inbox? No, although I'd flag it as spam and block him from future contact. Doubt I'm the only member who would. Would it be ruined for me if goodreads stopped considering such contact to be unasked commercial contact violating site policies and can-spam laws and instead allowed the 172,000+ authors already goodreads members to potentially do so -- for fee or for free? Yes. And I'd likely stop using my inbox here.

Again, we already can choose to get notified about things like new releases by genre, followed authors, etc. Many probably also have our own cataloging methods for keeping up with or checking out new releases.

Off topic but a promotional tip for Alex (and not something goodreads is good about explaining so not something he should have known) -- new releases may not show up on some features and emails readers use if not shelved in appropriate genre. Not all features use the crowdsourced genre info, but many do. I only see the three default shelves on your author profile -- consider shelves here the closest you'll get to what other sites call tags, categories or keywords.

Not necessary if enough of your readers already did so on their own shelves (you'll see "genre" on the righthand side book's page once assigned unless they've changed it again).

Unfortunately, (even in sections like this month's new releases by genre and the email lists of new releases by genre readers subscribe to) your books are still competing with other books for display postion. But it's not going to show at all in some places if not shelved appropriately. And doesn't cost anything to do.

Alex blogs announcing a new release book (not naming because, LOl, don't want my comment removed for promoting) -- that book definitely hasn't been shelved in a genre. I'd suggest waiting for goodreads to remove some against goodreads policy duplicated ratings so the shelvings aren't removed when the ratings are (or remove the duplicated ones yourself -- you can go to "My Books" from top menu and scroll down to click "Find duplicates" to check if you accidentally rated multiple editions of other books or accidentally shelved unwanted editions.)

ETA: I tend to ignore author ratings and reviews of their own book unless review is a humorous or interesting "author's note" sort of thing. Don't really care if they do or don't rate their own books (if they do rate it low, I find that much weirder than if they 5-star it and goodreads does give them that option) -- other readers see it differently and even find it offensive or laughable. Rating every edition of your book is against policy (gaming the system) and tends to turn off more readers. Something else I feel goodreads should make clearer.

Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely shelve my books in the future. I've ranted enough for one day.

Alex wrote: "Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely shelve my books in the future. I've ranted enough for one day."

Mea culpa on the ranting also.

Post back here, a separate thread, ask staff or message me directly if you need help figuring out how to create shelves.

A lot of things you do on goodreads usually can take between 10 minutes to 72+ hours to show everywhere on site (caching), including getting book into a genre by shelving accordingly (plus takes at least two people shelving it that way). But you can look on your own "My Books" and book's page to see if you at least successfully shelved it even if cache not catching up yet--those areas update almost immediately. Might help to see how books pivotal to genre you write in or similar to your book are shelved/categorized by also looking at their pages if not sure of what shelf names to use.

I'm an author and I hate having books shoved in my face. I never follow up on unsolicited suggestions anyway.

When I do check on an author's work is when he makes some intelligent and interesting comments in a group that I subscribe to, over and above the "You should check out my book which is ...."

I never rate or review my own books although I do post an "author's comment" which is clearly labelled as such.

I promote by making friends and participating in discussions. Participating in GR group writing events is a good way to get noticed.

I mostly ignore book recommendations that I get anyway. I don't know if I've ever followed through on one. They are generally not people who know anything about me or my reading habits, they have just spammed their entire list with a recommendation. I have very rarely used the recommend a book feature myself, and when I do, it is to recommend an excellent book to two or three people who I know would love it.

Occasionally, I will access the threads designated for author self promotion. If the blurb is professionally presented, concise and interesting, I will check the author's profile. If the information provided is specific and can be easily researched and verified, I may consider adding the book to my reading plans.

If an author spams and/or their posts within discussion groups are rife with misspellings, grammatical errors and typos, I ignore their comments and their work. If an author contacts me via private message, I delete it without reading it.

Spam is really bad when you use the "ask for recommendations" feature and get really specific on what you are wanting.

Don't get me wrong, many members here do give recommendations in that section that are great or at least remotely appropriate to the request.

But boy oh boy would many authors just bulk recommend their book to every request.

A part of goodreads decision to actually take away the option for authors to recommend their own books -- versus just prohibiting -- may be the bad reputation the recommendations features were getting.

(Asking for recommendations is at right when browsing recommendations section: https://www.goodreads.com/recommendat... )