Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

I'm not sure where to post this but I wanted to alert authors to a phony website. My interview with a legitimate website was altered severely and published on a website called "realrawnewstoday.com". They changed my answers to every interview question and even got the name of my book wrong. I have asked them to take it down but I doubt they will pay attention. Just be aware of this illegitimate website pirating interviews.

Julie wrote: "I'm not sure where to post this but I wanted to alert authors to a phony website. My interview with a legitimate website was altered severely and published on a website called "realrawnewstoday.com..."

How did they get the materials from the legitimate website? It is surprising you caught it.

I hope they are smart enough to remove the false data.
Thanks for sharing.
MK

I have no idea, MK. It almost looks like a robotic post, since so many of the words were changed, as in some kind of autocorrect. Or, it's from a foreign source who, clearly, does not read or speak English well. All I know is they got the interview and changed many, many words. I caught it because I google my book everyday just to see what's out there. In today's world, trying to participate in anything legitimate always brings out the phonies. Makes one want to just pull into their shell.

Well well, on the same day I saw this phony interview, I got hit with multiple, one-star ratings on both of my books. All of the so-called readers have private profiles and the majority of their ratings are one star. One says I am a racist and one says I am a misogynist. That's interesting, since I am a woman. One has to wonder if the fake interview and these reviews are related. I have also been getting the same offer to review my book as several others have mentioned. They said that one way these scammers get back at you for blocking them is to rate your book one-star. I haven't sold enough books or had enough kindle pages read for all of these people to have actually read my book. So, I am going to put my ego away and wait until REAL readers rate my book. Wow, what a bad day!

So sorry to hear of your multiple misfortunes! I'd definitely take up the 1 star ratings with Amazon. As you say, your sales results prove they must be false. It's tough enough out there, without having to put up with this.

Thanks, Rita. But, interestingly, none of these phonies have shown up on Amazon, only Goodreads. I know they are one and the same but I have never had this problem with Amazon, only Goodreads. And yeah, between the pandemic, our political situation and life itself, I surely did not need this. I have reported it to Goodreads staff, but they are not usually very helpful with these issues, as other authors have noted. Looks like they would realize that, if we writers get discouraged and quit submitting our books, they will have nothing to sell. But, I'm probably hoping against hope.

Definitely report the one stars to Goodreads. It’s spam. They have removed a bunch for me already. One of my books is not published so it definitely is not a valid review. I already submitted to Goodreads to remove.

Oh, thank you, MK. I didn't know if they would do anything for me or not, based on other posts I've seen here. I will keep you updated on how Goodreads makes this right. God, enough already!!!!!!

Well, folks, my book is sunk. I now have many, many more one star ratings, none of which have been taken down. They say the same things over and over. That my book is racist, full of misogyny and outdated. Once again, I haven't even sold enough books for all of these to be actual readers. Do they not know that we keep up with the number of volumes we have sold and that their ploy is transparent? Anyway, I just can't fight this battle right now so I am going to take it down. Two years of hard work down the drain. I probably won't see you again. With sorrow, Julie.

You should report the website to google. They are actually pretty good at looking into the sites reported.

OK, I will. I'm getting pretty mad right now. Also, I wanted you all to have an update. Yesterday, I reported this to the promo site that did my original interview, Written Word Media. They said they did not know these scammers were stealing their content. They immediately contacted "realrawnewstoday.com" and told them to take down the pirated content. Then, I got many more one-star ratings. I have also found my interview on another website and have told the promo site. So, I may win a prize for the most one-star ratings ever on Goodreads. What amazes me is that I, a gray-hair that these 20-year-olds make fun of over our computer literacy could find all of this merely by Googling the name of my book, but they couldn't? I must say, with my first book, which the scammers have also trashed, calling it racist and misogynistic as well, Written Word Media was a great help. This time, not so much. The only thing I would fault them with is not being diligent enough. But, in my two years of experience with self-publishing, it's the wild, wild west, with more interest in making money than protecting self-published authors. I will keep everyone updated on future developments.

Guess what. Just now when I checked my author profile, I found an unsolicited offer from a company who "noticed I had a lot of bad ratings" and would "fix" them for me for a fee and provide good ratings. So, is Goodreads allowing shakedowns now?

I got the same offer. I forwarded it Goodreads.

I would hope that most readers on goodreads would be savvy enough not to trust those 1* ratings. All have no photo and are ‘private’ and they all appeared on the same day - not suspicious at all! Many readers will want to read it just to see what could be so bad, even if they don’t realise they are fake. I am disappointed in goodreads if they are doing nothing when we can all see they must be fake.

Still nothing from them, Jane. I would love to think that readers would see that this is a scam, but I just don't know. I have now downloaded the Consumer Complaint form from my state's attorney general and will file a complaint against Goodreads and Amazon in 24 hours if I have no response. The fact is, Goodreads is not trying to protect authors. Their thrust is readers. I guess they simply can't make the correlation between the two. I will try to help them understand. I also have to wonder if somewhere in the vast Goodreads network, someone is making a cut on these shakedowns? They are allowing my book to be held hostage to ransom demands, much like ransom ware. I am going to ride this out until I see how Goodreads and Amazon respond to my legal pressure. I'm just a little fish, but with my attorney general's help I can surely make some ripples. This is so wrong for authors to be treated this way.

Maybe contact Amazon support? Forward the scammers offer to them as well! They own Goodreads and have the data on how many books you've sold. They might help!

Thing is, this does effect readers too - they are being misled. I wish you good luck.

I have contacted Amazon and they said contact Goodreads. I reminded them that Goodreads was a wholly-owned-subsidiary of Amazon and any legal action I undertake will be against both entities. All of these phony reviews are still up this morning. So, today I will file a complaint with my state's attorney general and Monday I will be talking to my lawyer. These behemoths think they are too large to be legally culpable. We'll see. Meantime, as Jane says, readers are being misled, authors are being shakendown and my reputation is being libeled. And, Goodreads doesn't care. Their lack of oversight is appalling and I am going to do everything in my power to expose it. It is so very clear that Goodread's only concern is money, money, money.

It's shitty that neither Goodreads nor Amazon take action to protect the authors, though I'm not sure your legal action should be against them, it may be better to focus on the scammers instead.
What I've noticed is that on this thread alone there are at least 3 authors affected by the scam (1 star reviews from hidden accounts with a subsequent offer to "fix" it), so I'm pretty sure there are more. What if instead of sending your individual complaints to Goodreads / Amazon that they seem to ignore, you found more authors like you and sent a collective complaint? It might be more effective and might prompt them to take decisive action because this is basically ransom.

Alina, you are absolutely right. I am a researcher by profession. What I have learned, thus far, is that "review bombing" by groups who target you, for whatever reason, is very common on all types of platforms. I have also read several articles on these issues, specifically regarding Goodreads, about how bad it is and how Goodreads doesn't stop it. I have discovered that many authors no longer use Goodreads because of this issue. Apparently, Goodreads and Amazon have some legal protection from third party posts. And, all of these review bombs are posted by people with "private" profiles so that the author doesn't know who they are. I still intend to file a complaint with my attorney general's office, and I will talk with my attorney. In the meantime, finding out how widespread this is on Goodreads by reaching out to other authors is a very good idea. I will post on another thread specifically targeting those authors and see what happens.

It has happened to me several time in the last month. Each time Goodreads removed those accounts. I am waiting for them to remove this last batch.
But what I am looking for a more permanent solution.
The problem is to stop this they would have to add some controls like, you must be a member 30 days to review or have x number of books read in a time frame. Or only allow a certain number of reviews per day.
Any of those will limit valid people from doing reviews or rating.

Yeah, Amazon itself has a pretty annoying review policy where you have to spend 50$ in the last half a year to leave a review which has prevented some of my readers from reviewing my book, but it surely makes it hard for scammers like the ones we are talking about here. But maybe Goodreads doesn't need to introduce new rules, it would be enough if they were more responsive to author complaints, especially when the scam falls into a common pattern.

Hm, I've just had an idea. What if you engaged with the people offering you to 'fix' the issue? Tell them you'd love to get it fixed and ask how they'd do it. If you had an email from them with the sum of money they demand saying they could take the reviews down, it would be pretty strong evidence (assuming you could get them to admit they'd take the reviews down for a fee).

I need for someone to send me the solicitation they got to remove the bad reviews.

MK wrote: "It has happened to me several time in the last month. Each time Goodreads removed those accounts. I am waiting for them to remove this last batch.
But what I am looking for a more permanent soluti..."

Authors should not have to handle this. This is Goodread's problem and they need to correct it. Legitimate reviewers, I think, would be willing to comply with reasonable restrictions in order to facilitate authors not leaving the platform, which they are in growing numbers. In addition, it is so glaringly obvious that getting 36 reviews on the same day, within minutes of each other is not normal. Goodreads could alter their algorithms to catch these problems and eliminate them immediately. The question is, why don't they? Do authors mean that little to them? If so, why are they in the book business at all?

Now they've hit me as well :D I can't see the new reviews and ratings yet, but there there are lots of new ones, and my book rating has fallen from 4,5* to less than 2.

Alina, when they send you the ransom note about fixing them, take a screen shot and give it to me please.

Absolutely!

The reviews are hilarious, two of them are even absolutely the same, and one says 'Full Misogyny" just like yours, no creativity at all :D

I just got hit again, under different names. So, when the scammers see Goodreads taking down one set of bad reviews, they set up a new account and start again. At this rate, exactly what is the point of even trying to list your book on Goodreads????

I hope we'll get Goodreads to take preventive action ;)

Alina wrote: "The reviews are hilarious, two of them are even absolutely the same, and one says 'Full Misogyny" just like yours, no creativity at all :D"

I think the reviews are probably computer generated, since they are all using offensive keywords they know will turn people off. More and more authors are getting hit and sharing. That's what we need.

I’ve been hit too. 10 1* ratings today, no reviews from them. How do you actually contact Goodreads about this issue?

Yep, but it seems like they've hit everyone on this thread, so people who haven't commented yet, don't do it. If you've been hit by scammers, contact Julie privately.
EDIT: I thought better of it: comment publicly if that has happened to you to show everyone the full extent, but don't comment if they haven't hit you yet because you might be another victim :)

Jane wrote: "I’ve been hit too. 10 1* ratings today, no reviews from them. How do you actually contact Goodreads about this issue?"

Go to your author dashboard and go to the "Help" section. Click on privacy and security and, to the right of the screen, you will see "Contact us".

Alina wrote: "Yep, but it seems like they've hit everyone on this thread, so people who haven't commented yet, don't do it. If you've been hit by scammers, contact Julie privately."

This was going on well before this thread. But, you can get in touch with me any way you want.

Julie wrote: "This was going on well before this thread."

I know, but I've checked a few profiles of the authors who've commented here (even those who didn't have the issue before), and all their books have a rating of less than 2 stars, so it seems like the scammers have decided to go after us because we've been talking about them.

Alina wrote: "Julie wrote: "This was going on well before this thread."

I know, but I've checked a few profiles of the authors who've commented here (even those who didn't have the issue before), and all their ..."

At this point, I have nothing to lose and will not be bullied. They have already trashed my books and continue to. So, I will keep on being vocal, publicly. I mean, what's the difference between 45, phony 1 star ratings and 140? All they are doing is giving me more legal fodder. Clearly these scammers are not the brightest stars in the universe. But, as I said, get in touch any way you choose.

No, you are right, I thought better of it: comment publicly if that has happened to you to show everyone the full extent, but don't comment if they haven't hit you yet because you might be another victim :)

Also, authors, write to Goodreads publicly on social media. They are on Twitter for sure, and I've already tagged them in a post about this, but they only gave a generic answer. Let's make this issue public and loud to prompt them to take preventive action instead of solving each case separately after the damage has been done.

I see Megan Boles hit you was well. Ratings are bad enough but hateful comments are worse. I won't even call her a she. It's a fictitious person.

I agree with Julie don't let spam bully you. My next email to Goodreads will include a request for a senior manager respond to me.
I think I was one of the first to to post and ever since I have been hit over and over.

Yes, M.K. you were. Here's the thing, if they can't make money by threatening us, they will dwindle like yesterday's ashes. If they are taking down their ransom demands, then what is left for them? If you read my books, you find them populated with strong women. Some of them are based on my actual ancestors. I come from very strong stock. No silly little fool in their mama's slimy basement, or in some hut in a third-world country should intimidate us. I am an old woman. I have fought many, long battles for justice in my life. And, after a certain age, you just don't give a shit. So, perhaps these scammers should listen to a long-time friend of mine to whom I related this insidious scheme. She said, "Well, they have clearly f***** with the wrong person here.

Good morning all. For now, my ratings have been restored. I am proceeding to speak with an attorney and my attorney general to hold Goodreads/Amazon responsible for their lack of oversight. Will keep you posted.

The original 8 ratings were removed by Goodreads but I have now been hit again (yesterday). This time it is the churned out, sexism, racism, misogyny reviews. Also ones calling it a disaster and bad grammar. Laughable - the main character is a strong female who is not white and I had it professionally edited!! Must be a bot that just regurgitates these things. I guess I contact Goodreads again.

Jane wrote: "The original 8 ratings were removed by Goodreads but I have now been hit again (yesterday). This time it is the churned out, sexism, racism, misogyny reviews. Also ones calling it a disaster and ba..."

Yeah, Jane, all the same language on all of our pages. Ridiculous redundancy. As I said, pretty stupid.

Do any of you get any response from support? The first time they quietly deleted fake reviews but responded nothing, even though I said it was an issue that affected many authors and that ransom was involved. This time, no response either, and the fake reviews are still there. Whoever runs Goodreads on Twitter has ignored me as well. Their attitude is really curios, but maybe I'm the only one they treat this way? Do you guys have a different experience?

The first couple of times they just removed the SPAM. But twice I have received an email back that they reviewed the SPAM and removed them. They never did answer any of my questions in my support ticket.

The first lot were removed without any response to me. Will let you know this time if I receive a response. I guess removing is quick, a personal message takes longer.

No, they are paying no attention whatsoever. I just spoke with my state's attorney general's office and explained the scam. I will be filing a consumer complaint against Goodreads and Amazon very soon. Perhaps someone at GR might pay attention to that. I don't know where their support is located, but it must be Mars by their lack of response.

All,
I just spoke with my attorney general's office and explained the scam. I will be filing a complaint against GR and Amazon very soon. Maybe then someone will actually pay attention. One can only hope.