Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

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

qte
Hello! I updated my book's description on Amazon last night, and I'm hoping to have the Goodreads default description match. I tried doing it, but it said I wasn't allowed because I'm not a librarian. Can this be resolved for me?

I was under the assumption that approved GR authors were able to perform certain edits to their existing books, a.o. update the blurb, but could not find the needed info here: Goodreads Authors: How to edit your books

Is there more info available what a GR-approved author can and cannot do?

They can, but I don't think they can set the default.

Because upto now there has not been a satisfactory answer, I contacted Support this morning, quoting msge #1.

This was their reply:
Thanks for writing in! Authors are able to edit/update majority of their listings however it's worth noting that certain book data cannot be changed, including the book's page count, format, and cover images, even if they've re-published an older edition.
"

I commented back:
"Thank you for your quick reply, [name].
So from what I understand the book's description should in fact be editable by the (primary) author... Can you explain why in this particular case the author was unsuccessful in doing so? "I tried doing it, but it said I wasn't allowed because I'm not a librarian. Can this be resolved for me?"

Reply from Support:
Authors are able to edit/update majority of their listings however it's worth noting that certain book data cannot be changed,""

That does not really help a lot :(

Copy/past answer. They don't talk much.
Scott is right. Looks like the author clicked "set as default"+ save and got this message. Instead save button.

Sounds like support has been replaced by A.I.

Yeah, typical AI answer.
Desription... edit.. Author... The answer without answer is ready.

Scott wrote: "They can, but I don't think they can set the default."

They should also be able to do that; see https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...

EDIT
I've been told by many authors that they can't set a default description.

See here: ( https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/... )
The primary (or default) edition of a work is automatically set as the one that has been shelved/rated/reviewed by the most Goodreads users. There is no way for a librarian to change the primary edition of a work manually. Only Goodreads staff and authors who are members of the Goodreads Author Program may manually set an edition as default from that edition's edit page.

If you are correct, several Help-pages need updating.

Oh, no. I mixed up the words. And you too :)
#8 It's correct. The word is default edition
We are talking adout default description

Ah yes, you're right. These are two different things.

Only librarians can set a default description;
only authors can set a default edition.

Yeah, it seems so. I haven’t seen anything about default description. Only feedback from authors.