Goodreads Creative Writing - any takers?

[M. Robert Gibson]

Anybody here contributed to Goodreads' Creative Writing?

Sharon

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There is a well populated Science Fiction & Fantasy category

"Science Fiction & Fantasy" writing (page 1 of 100)

Break The Ice (BLACK ROSE KNIGHTS #1) by Ivy Winchester, Forsaken ~ Finished by KatieH, The Entertainment © by Sarah, Bound by Betrayal (Bound Chronicles...

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Here's the small print

Terms of Use for Writers

www.goodreads.com

 

[Biskit]

I'd not seen it before, but I would certainly be tempted to echo some of the shorts from my blog up there, and likewise the freeby flash fiction collection I did a while back.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I've just had a look at the 'New' section

Sharon

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SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM lovely SPAM

There is a 'Flag' option so I suppose they get deleted eventually

 

[Biskit]

I've just put one of my recent flash fictions up there, just to see what happens.
(Clean Slate - 1 by Mark Huntley-James)

 

[Biskit]

Twenty minutes into the experiment, there are already 5 spam entries above mine on the "new stuff" page, which suggests that unless people skimming through new entries have the patience to work past all the rubbish, this may be a waste of time.

 

[Biskit]

There is a 'Flag' option so I suppose they get deleted eventually

Out of curiosity, I tried to flag an item which was advertising diet supplements under a tag of "Children's Books", but it turns out to be pointless because the only options available are:
Why are you flagging this story?
* Plagiarized
The story is plagiarized.
* Inappropriate
The story facilitates illegal activity or contains hate speech or ad hominem attacks on a Goodreads member or author.
* Explicit
The story contains adult content.

Since there is no "other" option, not even a simple "this is spam", there doesn't seem much point.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I thought that perhaps selecting a category or tag might help, but no, your work is not even on the first page for science fiction and fantasy

 

[Biskit]

So, after 53 minutes there were 17 new items above, one of which looks genuine.
Updating the story does not affect where it appears in the list, but adding a new chapter pushes it to the top of "new".
I've briefly tried to work out what determines position and drawn a blank. Just looking at the top-listed sf/fantasy stories, it doesn't appear to be by number of likes, nor first publication date.
I will probably put a few more items up, but so far it does not strike me as promising, particularly given the total lack of any sort of spam filtering.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I wonder if it would be worthwhile contacting Goodreads through Twitter or Facebook and ask them about the spam and why there is no spam option when flagging

On second thoughts, they must know about it and haven't done anything, so probably be a waste of time

 

[AlexH]

I wonder if it would be worthwhile contacting Goodreads through Twitter or Facebook and ask them about the spam and why there is no spam option when flagging

On second thoughts, they must know about it and haven't done anything, so probably be a waste of time

Goodreads are owned by Amazon. Probably enough said.

Though Amazon did give me a £35 'goodwill payment' this week for issues I'd had with orders.

 

[Wayne Mack]

The terms and conditions seem dodgy to me. I only did a brief scan, but it looks like you grant GoodReads total rights to anything you post there. I would suggest having a legal mind read this agreement before working with them.

 

[AlexH]

The terms and conditions seem dodgy to me. I only did a brief scan, but it looks like you grant GoodReads total rights to anything you post there. I would suggest having a legal mind read this agreement before working with them.

There are some well-known competitions that do this too who even have the gall to charge a fee.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I posted an old humour piece just for the hell of it and to see what happens.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I've just had a look at the 'new' section, expecting to see reams of SPAM, but no! Top of the pile Mr Huntley-James

and then I scroll down and see the name Steve Harrison, and think 'There's a Steve Harrison over at Chrons. I wonder if it's the same?'

So I come here, and lo and behold, it is!

Obviously the spammers haven't got out of bed yet

 

[Biskit]

OK. Confession time. I cheated.

When I checked earlier this morning, mine was way off down the screen, so I tried the next experiment in finding out how Goodreads works. I deleted the completely empty chapter 3, which achieved nothing, and then I added back an empty chapter 3 which popped me back to the top of the list.

So, editing existing stuff makes no difference. Removing chapters, ditto. Every time you add a chapter, you become "new" again.

If you scroll down the page until you find the next instance of "Clean Slate", that shows how much spam had built up over night.

The upshot of all of this effort - two likes, unchanged from some time yesterday.

I will play a while longer before declaring it a waste of time..

ETA: There's now two spam and one possible spam above me, in the space of three hours, so slower spam rate than yesterday.