How Review-Bombing Can Tank a Book Before It's Published (nytimes.com) 46
The website Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building readership, but the same features that help generate excitement can also backfire. The New York Times: Cecilia Rabess figured her debut novel, "Everything's Fine," would spark criticism: The story centers on a young Black woman working at Goldman Sachs who falls in love with a conservative white co-worker with bigoted views. But she didn't expect a backlash to strike six months before the book was published. In January, after a Goodreads user who had received an advanced copy posted a plot summary that went viral on Twitter, the review site was flooded with negative comments and one-star reviews, with many calling the book anti-Black and racist. Some of the comments were left by users who said they had never read the book, but objected to its premise.
"It may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment," Rabess said. "People were very keen not just to attack the work, but to attack me as well." In an era when reaching readers online has become a near-existential problem for publishers, Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building an audience. As a cross between a social media platform and a review site like Yelp, the site has been a boon for publishers hoping to generate excitement for books. But the same features that get users talking about books and authors can also backfire. Reviews can be weaponized, in some cases derailing a book's publication long before its release. "It can be incredibly hurtful, and it's frustrating that people are allowed to review books this way if they haven't read them," said Roxane Gay, an author and editor who also posts reviews on Goodreads. "Worse, they're allowed to review books that haven't even been written. I have books on there being reviewed that I'm not finished with yet."
"It may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment," Rabess said. "People were very keen not just to attack the work, but to attack me as well." In an era when reaching readers online has become a near-existential problem for publishers, Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building an audience. As a cross between a social media platform and a review site like Yelp, the site has been a boon for publishers hoping to generate excitement for books. But the same features that get users talking about books and authors can also backfire. Reviews can be weaponized, in some cases derailing a book's publication long before its release. "It can be incredibly hurtful, and it's frustrating that people are allowed to review books this way if they haven't read them," said Roxane Gay, an author and editor who also posts reviews on Goodreads. "Worse, they're allowed to review books that haven't even been written. I have books on there being reviewed that I'm not finished with yet."
Good way to remove the trolls from the platform (Score:5, Interesting)
Update Users set ban=1 where bookid=123 and review_score=1 and review_date '2023-Jan-31'
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It is driving me way too crazy how much you need a sub query in this statement, or Goodreads has a really terrible schema. Presumably users and reviews aren't in the same table, and more than one review can be associated with each user.
It would be something more like:
UPDATE users SET ban = 1 WHERE uid IN (SELECT uid FROM reviews WHERE bookid=123 and review_score=1 and review_date '2023-Jan-31')
Anyways, I know it's a joke, thank you for accepting what years working with SQL did to my brain. Move along.
Re: Good way to remove the trolls from the platfor (Score:1)
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This is technically correct. (The best kind of correct.) There's most definitely an index on the id column in both tables.
This is mostly making me very happy there are more years between me dealing with SQL than there actually were of me dealing with SQL . . .
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In all seriousness, what kind of a crap website is Good Reads if they even accept reviews before the publisher tells them that the review embargo (for pre-release copies) has ended?
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simple fix (Score:2)
Simple - bucket reviews into 2 categories: "people who didn't read the book" and "people who may have read the book" based on whether the review was before the publication date. Hide "didn't read" by default.
More complex - add a checkbox as part of the review; checking it means "I read the book, I promise". And then have 3 categories: "didn't read", "may have read", and "from people who have lied about reading books before reviewing in the past"
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That's the thing though, "the critics" generally have access to these books long before the official release date. So generally the pre-release reviews are by people in the industry and these days, that's a ton of people for every tiny outlet on the web that the publisher may want to advertise through.
Reviews are relatively accurate though, if you've written a shit book with a shit premise, people are going to rate it as shit. Most people will agree the last few Star Wars movies were absolute garbage, yet t
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*shrug* If the reviews work for you, so be it. I frequently find them inaccurate, at least in terms of predicting whether I will like it. For example, I enjoyed all the Star Wars movies.
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Me too. I don't really get the hate the prequels got, I think all 6 are awesome!
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I like Steam's approach that shows overall reviews, and trends in the reviews. It can make review bombing stand out a bit more when overall reviews seem positive or non-existent, while there is a massive and sudden trend of negative reviews.
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Fair point. But for the simpler approach, the detractors need only wait until it's been released before making their opinion known.
Re: simple fix (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:simple fix (Score:4, Insightful)
Another comment on this, this sort of thing has been around for decades and quite probably centuries, with a proud tradition of self-appointed censors calling for the banning of something they've never read, heard, or seen.
I remember morality watchdogs in the 1980s telling everyone who would listen that the "unspeakably violent" A-Team should be banned. "How many people are killed in each episode?" "No idea, I don't watch it". "How much blood or injury is shown?". "No idea, I don't watch it". "How much actual (not cartoon) violence is there?". "Don't know, I don't watch it". "So you're calling for something you've never even seen, and which has zero of any of the things I've just mentioned, to be banned because it's too violent?". "Yes".
Same problem with Amazon Reviews (Score:2)
Most of the Chinese sellers have tons of purchased reviews (how else does a product that's been purchased 5 times have 1000+ 5 star ratings...). When a competing product enters the store, they pay the same review farm that writes their fake "good" reviews to write fake bad reviews on the competitors products.
I feel like major platforms should just turn reviews off. They are 100% meaningless in todays world.
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obviously shady Chinese goods.
If only it were that easy. Let me explain...
You know how all these TikTokkers shop discount stores and black Friday sales? They find a piece of clothing, book, or toaster that's super cheap. Then they ship that product to Amazon FBA and sell it for retail prices and pocket the difference? Amazon doesn't check to see if that product is real? All a Chinese seller has to do is print the same shirt, copy the toaster, etc. and ship it to Amazon as the real thing. Its up to the brand to police copies of th
Not uncommon ... (Score:5, Funny)
Some of the comments were left by users who said they had never read the book, but objected to its premise.
Some people do this with indictments.
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Some people do this with indictments.
You won the internet today! hahaha
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Some of the comments were left by users who said they had never read the book, but objected to its premise.
clearly these people have never seen the 1988 film "Working Girl"
Re:Free speech for me, not for thee (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think the author is male, white, conservative, and bigoted? Do you know the author and her personal political views? Have you read her book? How do you know it's bigoted trash? Are people of a specific race the only ones allowed to address certain topics (inter-facial marriage, racism, and race relations)?
You didn't even read the summary, let alone the article.
It's dishonest goodreads users to publish a review, particularly a critical one and one critical of the author ("don't publish bigoted trash") of a book that one has not read. Full stop. You or I may never read this book, which is fine. But I certainly have no right nor reason to have an opinion on this book just on the basis of what others who have not read it say about it.
Only a handful of people have actually read her book at this point, and some of those took offense at the very topic. Now we have a bunch of people jumping on the bandwagon who know nothing about the book other than the plot summary, who are posting fake reviews---they have to be fake because they haven't read the book. This is a real problem for the industry. Maybe it's self-inflicted problem by granting advance copies to critics. But it's still a problem nonetheless.
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My mistake. I got all the other stereotypes in that you used, though.
You read a review. Great. So you can decide whether or not to read the book. But the author being bigoted? Sorry. You haven't made any case for the story or the author being bigoted. Plus you're the one saying publicly that she's a bigot, so you are the one who needs to produce the evidence, not me. I never said whether she was or was not a bigot, only that you have no right nor cause to declare that she is.
You ask me to read the re
Re: Free speech for me, not for thee (Score:2)
Re:Free speech for me, not for thee (Score:5, Informative)
Dishonesty is a right-wing'ers bread and butter and can't understand why anyone else could ever be honest. Only the scoreboard (conquests) matters to them. It's the old scorpion and frog story.
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This is a joke, right? Your post precisely fits the dictionary definition of bigotry.
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Right wingers? Don't you mean the author is complaining, whose livelihood depends on sales? You don't think this is just human nature? To complain when you're review bombed? Leftists complain over being censored too, it's just that they get away with being bigoted racists. I mean they can riot, commit theft, and block traffic. Rarely are they punished, especially for racism on platforms that supposedly ban racism. In California, thieves and drug addicts are practically rewarded. Politicians on the left know
Re:Free speech for me, not for thee (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is, they didn't review the book, they reviewed the plot. Actually, not even that. Their rejection is based on them thinking that writing about something should not be done. Not that the book is badly written, not that the story is not interesting, not that the characters are implausible, not that the progress of the story is illogical and could not happen that way, not that it's some pipe dream fantasy that is impossible to happen the way depicted...
They just don't want the story to be told. In other words, they want to deny the author the exact free speech you're demanding here.
Re:Free speech for me, not for thee (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't think I'll ever understand this American custom of becoming a card-carrying member of a political party. If you want your politicians to deliver for you, then they need to understand that you're ready to stop voting for them if they put a step wrong. And you do that by being as "on the fence" as possible. By welding yourself to a party, they _are_ going to take you for granted.
We treat politics like we do sport: you cheer for your team when they're winning, and doubly when they ain't doing well.
Old saying: There's no such thing as bad publicity (Score:1)
Play your cards right and you may generate a stir so that people buy the book to see what the fuss is all about. Or cater to the crowd reacting to all the 'correctness' going on.
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What kind of time do we live in that people are buying a book as some sort of political statement rather than to read it?
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It isn't necessarily a political statement. It can be genuine curiosity. The notion that there's no such thing as 'bad' publicity is that people hear about something through any kind of publicity, and they've got to know about something before they can decide to buy it. Also, someone sick and tired of everything having to fit a particular form, be it political correctness or some other requirement, may just be looking for something different.
There have been people buying books they never read for a long
I tried Goodreads (Score:2)
Since Amazon recommendations are mostly crap now after getting increasingly worse, I tried Goodreads as an alternative. I found it to be essentially worse than the Amazon recommendations I currently get. Yes, with Amazon, I have to remove a lot of "urban harem litrpg" crap, but it is pretty easy to do so, just look for the scantily clad women with big tits on the title. Those basically never work out for me. But the rest is still relatively reasonable.
Thought Police (Score:3)
People aren't complaining about the quality of the writing or whether the story is good or not. They can't since they haven't read the damn book. They are objecting to the very existence of an idea. It's these ignorant reactions that give the entire woke movement a bad name. If you think the premise of the book could never happen, you have been living in a bubble.
A blast from the past! (Score:2)
I do recall something of this order happening in 1989 or so.
A fellow by the name of Rushdie cranked out a volume by the title of "The Satanic Verses."
Another chappie by the moniker of Khomeini was not at all thrilled with book and placed a death sentence on the head of the aforementioned author.
Seems he didn't read the book either.
I hope Ms. Rabess avoids the same fate.
Always, always, always... (Score:2)
Start your community-based forum with the clear and explicit understanding that people are a fucking travesty. Not only can they fuck your ecosystem, they inevitably will. You must even plan to revel in it, or invest significantly in monitoring and prevention.
People will absolutely work to destroy your platform for the momentary pleasure they derive from being jackasses. They do not care one whit for the preservation of the basic goodness of your offering, any more than robocall scammers care for the basic