Children's author and ex-agent Nathan Bransford - he of the terrific blog - calls for a change of culture on Goodreads:

Everyone knows that it takes a thick skin to be an author. But no one who writes a book deserves to be subjected to online abuse. It's one of the strange aspects of online life that it feels like nothing to attack someone through a computer screen, but the recipient of that attack feels as acutely as if it happened in "real" life. Make no mistake: These aren't reviews, they're personal attacks.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2013/09/the-bullies-of-goodreads.html?spref=fb

Well done for highlighting this Emma- seems this kind of crap is rife in our society. I didn't use Good Reads and won't bother now- if these companies won't let us delete bullies on sight and baulk at taking action before damage is done then the only other option is not to believe their spin that we need them and leave them with the bullies. I am all for free speech as long as I have freedom to act accordingly. I remain unconvinced that governments can legislate over this effectively it changes too fast. MC

This is why I'm very cautious about sites like Goodreads - too many people who can't tell the difference between criticising a writer as a writer, which seems absolutely fine to me, and criticising a writer as a person, which absolutely doesn't.

And altogether too many people with large and unpleasant axes to grind.

Lit Reactor seems to be saying GoodReads has changed it's policy and is taking down stuff that is about authors rather than there work. MC

If you scroll back through Nathan Bransford's post, you will see that the readers on Goodreads who rated September Girls had some very real issues with it. All the low reviews have well thought-out critiques to accompany them. The readers have read between the lines and found the book wanting, which is their right. (Most accusations are of misogyny).

The twenty - two year old who self-published her book probably made the mistake of trying to publicise her book on Goodreads without first having built up some kind of relationship with the community. Because of the self-publishing phenomenon this happens all the time and Goodreads readers, who are passionate about their books, hate it as they have found themselves being spammed by self-publishing authors a great deal. It is usually then that the nasty reviews will appear.

I don't agree anyone should be allowed to create a shelf - 'author should be raped', but I do think this young girl was probably someone who didn't quite know what she was doing, and it escalated from there.

Goodreads is a wonderful site and authors would be foolish to ignore it.

And I am a self-published author.

No, you can't ignore GoodReads, as an author. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't have some kind of filter about what gets posted.

Yes, I do agree.