Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon[1] that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews.

He wanted to integrate this scanning experience and to create a space where people could write reviews regarding the books that they read.

[15] Goodreads addressed what publishers call the "discoverability problem" by guiding consumers in the digital age to find books they might want to read.

[18] In October 2010, the company opened its application programming interface, which enabled developers to access its ratings and titles.

[4][20] Later that year, Goodreads introduced an algorithm to suggest books to registered users and had over five million members.

The Authors Guild called it a "truly devastating act of vertical integration" and that Amazon's "control of online bookselling approaches the insurmountable."

[30] Goodreads founder Otis Chandler said that "his management team would remain in place to guard the reviewing process" with the acquisition.

Recent research in literacy studies shows that such challenges encourage participants to read more in their free time.

[39] Goodreads users can read or listen to a preview of a book on the website using Kindle Cloud Reader and Audible.

There is also a special section for authors with suggestions for promoting their works on Goodreads.com, aimed at helping them reach their target audience.

There are settings available, as well, to allow Goodreads to post straight to a social networking account, which informs, e.g., Facebook friends, what one is reading or how one rated a book.

Goodreads felt Amazon's requirements for using its API were too restrictive, and the combination of Ingram, the Library of Congress, and other sources would be more flexible.

[65] After Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads, this policy was modified to include deletion of any review containing "an ad hominem attack or an off-topic comment".

[69] Critics have assailed Goodreads' lack of development and maintenance, coupled with its dominant position in the book-review marketplace.

[73] By contrast, any registered user on Goodreads (which Amazon purchased for $150 million in 2013) may rate or review a book, even before publication,[73][74] and even without receiving an advance copy.

[71][74] Author Gretchen Felker-Martin's debut horror novel, about a trans woman, was review-bombed in what she suspected to be an organized campaign.

[73] Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, was flooded with negative ratings on Goodreads for her not-yet-published novel The Snow Forest from users who objected to its setting in 1930s Russia.

[73] Cecilia Rabess, a Black author, was flooded with negative reviews on Goodreads for her debut novel Everything's Fine, which focuses on a young Black woman who falls in love with a bigoted white fellow employee at Goldman Sachs; the negative reviewers had not read the work, yet deemed its premise to be racist.

[74][71] Goodreads said in 2021 that it takes "swift action to remove users when we determine that they violate our guidelines" and were developing technology to "prevent bad actor behavior and inauthentic reviews in order to better safeguard our community.

Her publisher, Del Rey, cancelled the May 2024 publication of her own upcoming science fantasy debut novel, Crown of Starlight; her agent dropped her as a client.

[75] On X (formerly Twitter), she attributed her actions to worsening depression and the attendant alcohol and substance abuse that had recently culminated in a "complete psychological breakdown", saying she would be going into rehab and apologizing profusely to not only those authors she had disparaged but a friend who had defended her initially against the accusations.

[75] Jane Friedman[77] discovered a 6 listings of books, probably written using AI generative models (LLM), fraudulently using her name, on Amazon and Goodreads.