Goodreads Extortion Program

Just when you thought things couldn't get more criminal, guess what? It gets more criminal! Take for example the latest idea from the "braintrusts" over at Goodreads. They finally decided how to combat bully reviews. Not by deleting the bully comments and reviews, mind you, (or the bullies themselves as it should be) but instead, Goodreads is going to attempt to extort money from authors in exchange for deleting (or hiding) bully attacks on authors through the book review system by having authors PAY for this service!

You heard right, folks.

Instead of doing the right thing, Goodreads is going to go the criminalization route in forcing authors who want personal attacks against them removed, through these bully reviews, to pay for it themselves! That's right. Pay Goodreads a monthly fee and BABAM! No more bully reviews. 

Don't believe me? Check this out.

And now this.

What this all comes down to is simple: Amazon wants to cash in through Goodreads by using author extortion to do what they should be doing for free, which is, enforce their ToS. I guess it's a sad day to be an author on Goodreads. (Or should I say, "Badreads"?) And I suppose now extortion has become legal on the internet. (I'll keep that in mind for future reference)

You read more about here from STGRB, who broke the story earlier yesterday. 

Goodreads Premium Author Program 

I'm Carroll Bryant ..... and this is The Looking Glass.

Things We Learned Today:

* Goodreads/Amazon practices extortion

* Extortion must be legal now

* Goodreads is "Badreads"

* Let's hope authors don't fall for this scam!

* It's a bad time to be an author on Goodreads