Another Goodreads Fail ~ The "Did Not Finish" List

(the typical Goodreads reviewer) 

  

One of *my* most requested features? You know I'm an author, right, Goodreads?

Apparently, Goodreads readers have been asking for this feature for years. Why, I do not know. The claim is that it's for tracking purposes. Again, why, I do not know. Is it vital for readers to track books they didn't finish? Will they forget otherwise and start reading the same book again? Of course not. It's another way for passive-aggressive members to shit on a book---for all their friends to see.

Whenever I log on to my dashboard and take a quick glance at one of my book's stats, I see a lot of "currently reading", but that number rarely changes. I'm not such a dunce that I don't realize those people never finished the book. A novella, for example, doesn't take nine months to read. A day, maybe.

I wonder if the "did not finish" numbers will also show up on a book's page. That's publicity for ya! Not good publicity; more like notoriety.  

I get it; Goodreads isn't for authors; it's for readers. Dumb-ass readers, but nevertheless. What if authors all got together and stormed Goodreads' headquarters---with pitchforks and torches? Okay, asking authors to band together is like...

But what if authors as a group removed their profiles? What would those poor readers do? They'd be flummoxed. "I don't know what to read now!" "Brenda always told me which book to read! Am I supposed to decide for myself?"

There are currently 14 people reading Running From Herself, so I'm told. Perhaps these people should be identified. Maybe if I notice that Carla's been "reading" my novel for eleven months, I should be able to rate her. 

⭐ Big fat liar

⭐⭐ Lazy

⭐⭐⭐ Scatterbrained

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Buys books; doesn't read them

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Got the book for free and doesn't give a damn 

Maybe one should be impressed that Goodreads actually implemented a new feature. Per Google:

Goodreads implements major new features infrequently, often cited by users as having a slow development pace

. While small updates, such as reading challenge achievements or UI tweaks, appear annually, substantial functionality improvements or redesigns are rare, with some users reporting major, lasting changes only every few years. 

In my irrelevant opinion, they need to scrap the whole thing and start over....or scrap the whole thing and not start over. Why is everything on the site so tiny? I mean, sure, I can hit zoom, but why not just use a normal-size font to begin with? Does this look normal-sized to you?

 

As you well know from my last post, my readers tend to be elderly. The elderly are people, too! "We" don't like reading on our phones too long, because our eyesight grows blurry. You'll find that out one day, too, young whippersnapper! And who has the most time for reading, may I ask? Old people! How are they supposed to find a book to read on the Goodreads site---with a magnifying glass?

It's true that I've visited the site more this week than I have in a year, so this subject, too, shall pass. And all my Goodreads experiences haven't been negative. I did convince the librarians to delete a nonsensical review...although they didn't delete the one-star rating, so...I guess they deserve a C- for that. Which for Goodreads is high praise.

I'm gonna stay away for now, unless I get more reviews and want to continue honing my ideal reader profile. One thing I already know about my ideal Goodreads reader---he/she has 20/20 vision.