Check your Goodreads Dashboard.

[TimothyEllis]

I just checked my Goodreads for the first time in a while and found 5 low content books on there with my author name on them.

I had them removed, but of course, any low content spammer can use any author name they want, and now that low content isn't visible, they might be using high visibility author names to get their books listed on Goodreads where they can be seen.

So check Goodreads, and ask a librarian to remove anything which is not yours.

I had 4 "My Journal" titles on there. And 1 named for one of my books, which the librarian thought was an audiobook, but wasn't.

All gone now, but we need to be checking regularly now it seems.

[Bill Hiatt]

Much to my relief, everything listed for me is mine. But it occurs to me that people actually making a living at writing, such as Timothy, probably have higher profiles on GR and thus make more obvious targets. The price of fame...

I did notice a few quirky things. For instance, one person is listed as currently reading a title I unpublished years ago. Clearly, Goodreads has created a hole in the time-space continuum (as I have often suspected)!

[TimothyEllis]

I did notice a few quirky things. For instance, one person is listed as currently reading a title I unpublished years ago. Clearly, Goodreads has created a hole in the time-space continuum (as I have often suspected)!

I haven't changed mine in a long time. Could be that reader hasn't been back on the site in years.

[alhawke]

It's good you caught it, Timothy. Especially being that some writers are reporting reviews/ratings being moved over from Goodreads to Amazon. Unfortunately I think a lot of writers ignore Goodreads so this could be an easy forum to play these nasty shenanigans.

[Bill Hiatt]

A lot of readers love Goodreads, but it is not always a great place for authors. I hadn't logged in in years until I checked in response to Timothy's post.

There's something about my old covers haunting me that I find disturbing. And then there's the fact that someone felt compelled to give a two-star rating to a reader magnet of mine that's only available for mailing list subscribers. Despite the two-star, three intrepid souls intend to read it. Well, good luck, since they probably won't be able to find it.

As I said, hole in the time-space continuum...

[alhawke]

Someone added a book with a false ASIN and cover on my dashboard today. I just alerted Goodreads.

As Amazon is starting to transfer over reviews, they might want to tighten up the shenanigans going on at their sister site. The trouble with trusting this site is anyone can add books, reviews, ratings, or whatever with very little oversight.

[alhawke]

I received a quick reply from them.

It turns out there is some kind of glitch where a "proof" shows up as a duplicate with some books. It was from their own system. They deleted it.

[Hopscotch]

I'm not sure of the value of GR to a prawn like me but can see its value to major sellers like Timothy.  Just updating covers thru a librarian proved such a nuisance I walked away from GR long ago.  Should a prawn reconsider?

[TimothyEllis]

I'm not sure of the value of GR to a prawn like me but can see its value to major sellers like Timothy.

I'm not sure I fit into the 'major seller' category. I call myself solidly mid-list. Without really knowing what that is.

GR is pretty useless to me.

The strength of it is when you can get added to it's lists and openly discussed. That's not me.

I go there about every 3 or 4 months just to check if the last few books were listed right, and I guess from now on to check if something which shouldn't be there needs to be removed. All of the reviews there are duplicates of what is on Amazon. It's rare to see something that's not.

[LilyBLily]

Nothing exciting on my Goodreads page. Various people post reviews there who don't buy from Amazon and can't post on it. Does anybody read those reviews? No idea.

There's no evidence that any of the Goodreads-only reviews or ratings have populated on Amazon, either.

[Bill Hiatt]

Nothing exciting on my Goodreads page. Various people post reviews there who don't buy from Amazon and can't post on it. Does anybody read those reviews? No idea.

There's no evidence that any of the Goodreads-only reviews or ratings have populated on Amazon, either.

I saw them briefly, and then they disappeared.

Normally, I wouldn't care whether the GR reviews were on the product page or not. But since the rating system is different--which you can be sure Amazon won't explain in any obvious way--the GR average is almost invariably going to be lower.

Or maybe it won't because of the incredibly obnoxious way Amazon weights its own reviews (again, without making it clear to customers what's going on). I had a book that had nine review, all four or five-star. Along comes a one star rating (10% of the total) which Amazon has decided to weight as 51% of the total, making it look as if half the book's ratings were one-star. Sigh! Yes, that rating is by far the most recent one, but seriously? Interestingly, the book hasn't sold in months, so where the one-star rating came from in the first place is another mystery.

As far as I can tell, GR reviews will just be another way of shrouding books in the impenetrable mist of Amazon's desire to interpret data for customers instead of letting them interpret it for themselves.

[alhawke]

I had a book that had nine review, all four or five-star. Along comes a one star rating (10% of the total) which Amazon has decided to weight as 51% of the total, making it look as if half the book's ratings were one-star. Sigh! Yes, that rating is by far the most recent one, but seriously? Interestingly, the book hasn't sold in months, so where the one-star rating came from in the first place is another mystery.
As far as I can tell, GR reviews will just be another way of shrouding books in the impenetrable mist of Amazon's desire to interpret data for customers instead of letting them interpret it for themselves.

That's crazy! A 5 star book dropped from one review? I didn't know Amazon wasn't averaging some of their ratings/reviews.

Another thing that bugs me is it always seems that the lowest reviews/reviews seem to rise to the top--particularly with Goodreads where major bestsellers have a lot of 1 stars at the top.

I have a love/ hate relationship with Goodreads. I even blog announcements and have garnered followers. But I'm, on average, 0.5 stars lower with all my books there. So I'm on the side of not migrating reviews to Amazon.

[Bill Hiatt]

for themselves.

That's crazy! A 5 star book dropped from one review? I didn't know Amazon wasn't averaging some of their ratings/reviews.

Another thing that bugs me is it always seems that the lowest reviews/reviews seem to rise to the top--particularly with Goodreads where major bestsellers have a lot of 1 stars at the top.

I have a love/ hate relationship with Goodreads. I even blog announcements and have garnered followers. But I'm, on average, 0.5 stars lower with all my books there. So I'm on the side of not migrating reviews to Amazon.

It is crazy, but the issue is not that Amazon omits some ratings or reviews from the average. It includes them all, but it weights them differently. For instance, reviews with the verified tag (purchased on Amazon) weigh more. Reviews are also weighted by how recent they are (which might make sense for tech but doesn't as much for books).

I learned to live with the idea that the average wasn't really an arithmetic average. What irks me is that on the bar chart that's supposed to reflect the number of reviews at each rating point, Amazon distorts the numbers to make it appear that the average is arithmetic. A customer who bothered to look closely at the math would see something was wrong with it but not be able to decipher what--or care.

The book in question has nine reviews and one rating (the one star). The correct percentages would be 30% five-star, 70% four-star, and 10% one star. But Amazon displays it as 24% five-star, 24% four-star, and 51% one-star--which I just realized doesn't even add up to a 100%. A strict arithmetic average would be 4.4. Amazon's average is 2.7, which is roughly the result one would get using the (incorrect) percentages that Amazon provides. Having a weighted average is one thing. Misrepresenting the number of reviews at each rating point to make the weighted average look arithmetic is an entirely different thing.

The problem exists with all books to some extent, but it isn't as obvious with books where the number of reviews is larger.

As far as GR reviews are concerned, it occurs to me that I don't know whether the average is arithmetic or not. But I do know the scale is different, which would be enough in my mind to suggest that they shouldn't be put side by side with Amazon reviews unless there's an explanatory note, which I'm sure there wouldn't be.