Funny, right? I've tried to be a good sport about it, too. Until yesterday, when I got a very real, serious offer from a European publisher for the translation and publication rights for Forget-Me-Knot.
I thought exposing the fake reviews would shame the host site into taking down the phony listing. Hasn't happened in the two years since I wrote that post. So now I have to persuade the pinheads at this site to take down the listing for real. They wouldn't take down my blog content even after they agreed to, so I'm not especially optimistic.
Updated: My thanks to those who offered helpful advice. Due to the large volume of trolls who have been trying to use my blog to vent their spleens, I'm now shutting down comments. For more information on my comments policies, please see the About PBW page on the sidebar.
Pretty much as soon as an author mentions a title, someone will put a listing on Goodreads - whether or not the title will actually eventuate into a publication. (See the sequels listed for Stephenie Meyer's THE HOST, which will likely never eventuate.)
ReplyDeleteI'm an ordinary Librarian there (as opposed to a "superlibrarian", who is actually employed by Goodreads, rather than just a user like me). But they only let me delete listings that have five or FEWER adds to people's shelves. Yours has been shelved 188 times, so I can't help you.
But I'm contacting Goodreads about your situation, along with a link to this post. No guarantees it'll result in any action on their behalf, but I tried. I used this contact page: https://www.goodreads.com/about/contact_us
Thanks for the effort and the link, Tez. I'm e-mailing them as well, and hopefully they'll do something about it this time.
ReplyDeleteI deleted my Goodreads account a long time ago now. I got tired of all the sniping wars on books and authors, the favoritism and everything else that went on with no response at all from them when there was a legitimate concern. While I appreciate the comment by Tez and the desire to help, I wouldn't hold my breath. I'm sorry.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to deal with them either, Theo. I'd go on ignoring the idiocy if I could, but it will just cause the same problems in the future.
DeleteThe current policy is that goodreads staff (staff, not librarains) will remove a book if publication was cancelled -- not sure that applies since you will be publishing; they may see the takedown request as an attempt to remove reviews versus a work never going to be published.
ReplyDeleteIf they do take it down, there's nothing to prevent the publisher data feeds goodreads subscribes to from adding it back if your new publisher participates in any of the ones used. It's also possible for any one of 20+ million goodreads members to add it back (including the ones that reviewed it ).
Once a future publication was mentioned (and now this current post about future publication is also out there) on the internet somewhere, it's pretty persistent. Even if you deleted the posts, still cached somewhere a reader could point to to insist to goodreads that publication mention was not imagined nor was publication cancelled.
That's the thing. I planned this story as a self-published, free/promotional e-book for the print series, so there was no publisher involved. I think I mentioned it a couple times on my blogs; that's all. After I saw the fake reviews I decided not to write it. Now I can guarantee you I will never write this story.
DeleteAs to "They wouldn't take down my blog content even after they agreed to, so I'm not especially optimistic. " -- you should be able to take that down yourself by editing your author profile and deleting the regular URL or the RSS feed link used. Once a goodreads author profile is claimed, no one but the author can make changes (unless author specifically requests staff intervention).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice, Spurts, but I believe I would have to join Goodreads in order to claim edit my author profile. That can't happen because I don't want to be associated with this site or the company that now owns it.
ReplyDeleteclaim edit should read claim and edit, sorry.
DeleteThat sounds too bizarre to even be real, though I remember that post from way back when.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I don't have any helpful ideas.
It's going beyond ridiculous. I'm now getting e-mails from people accusing me of trying to take the listing down solely because it got bad reviews. Because you know I only want 5-star reviews on all the stories I never wrote. One even threatened to start a boycott of my next release because that will show me the power of readers, which shows you exactly how much they know about me (for those of you who are mystified, there won't be any new releases. I quit Publishing back in 2014. I'm a full-time ghost writer now. Good luck finding my next release.)
DeleteFor any Goodreads fans who assumed I was calling them idiots: The idiocy to which I refer is the listing for a story that doesn't exist. If you click on the words, it will take you there.