Goodreads: the social network that killed the literary critic

• The obession for the 'young adults'. The public that everyone is looking for

In general, nobody likes authority or vertical relationships or chevrons or hierarchies. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and we all have to accept that hierarchies work often. That is known to any reader who has followed a teacher, a critic, a father, an older brother or a bookseller to choose a book that later stuck in his heart.

The hierarchy dilemma is the issue that really hides behind the curious case of Goodreads, the literary social network that two Stanford students created in 2006, just like Mark Zuckerberg, with minimal investment, scratched by their savings, and that He has become the great prescriber of world literature from a seemingly horizontal scheme.

"I have no idea what Goodreads is," a literary critic said a few days ago in an informal conversation. The implementation of the website is still shy in the Spanish language , but its pages meet us in Internet search engines every time any of us asks in English for a book or an author.

What is Goodreads, then? In short, it is a social network based on books but that looks more like a mix of Facebook and TripAdvisor rather than a literary magazine ... Although the criticism is at its core. In principle, Goodreads users add literary content: criticism, ratings (from 0 to 10) or a simple record of the books they read. They build their libraries, sort them by themes and show them to other readers through their digital profile.

That is the basics. Afterwards, readers / reviewers are expected to discover and join other colleagues with similar interests, debate with them in literary discussion forums and participate in the distractions organized by Goodreads for them: reading clubs, fan lists, Surveys on the best of the year and things like that. In addition, network owners have developed the inevitable algorithm that suggests titles to readers based on their already registered tastes. Have you read all of Harry Potter ? How about continuing with Mallory Towers now?

By the way: what owners? Stanford students who are not Mark Zuckenberg? No. Otis Chandler and Elizabeth Khuri, the founders of Goodreads, sold the company in 2013 to Amazon, and, at this point, the story does not sound so innocent. At that time, Goodreads had 16 million registered. Last summer it already counted 80 million .

It is important to be fair: Goodreads is full of valuable information. An unregistered user can ask in his search engine for books not necessarily famous, not necessarily written in English and not even translated, and find well-founded reviews. Criticisms are often written in a much more emotional tone than the academic or journalistic criticisms we had known so far, but they can also be valuable.

Is there any scrap? Yes, as in any corner of the internet, but you don't have to be especially skilled to detect and dodge it. In addition, Goodreads has the advantage that it is free of sarcasm . There are no trolls, no reproaches, no humiliations. While they were still running the company, Chandler and Khuri imposed a criterion of intolerance towards aggressive messages. Whoever fights, go to Twitter.

And who wants to work, who is dedicated to publishing books ... Do you have something to fish in Goodreads?

«I barely use it. I have no opinion, ”replies Miguel Aguilar, editor of Debate and Taurus. "I like very much. I am not an active user but I read the reviews of the books that interest me because I find different ways of approaching the books. Journalists and publishers are too attached to our clichés and a little freshness is added, ”says Marcel Ventura, editor of Today's Topics.

«We use this page both to probe the opinion that readers and readers have of the titles we publish - something we consider essential to know if we are on the right track - as to know the valuations of some works written in a foreign language that we have not yet I have been able to read and we are thinking about publishing, ”explain Alberto Rodríguez and Gonzalo Izquierdo, editors of Dos Mustaches. «It is quite useful, since reading good reviews of a book can give you the necessary push to publish it».

And one more opinion, that of Enrique Redel, editor of Impedimenta: «Goodreads is only a relative help, especially when making initial decisions about a book. Sometimes, agents offer you titles that sell you as a great critical success, but you need to know the reader's opinion, for better and for worse. If the title interests me on paper and I'm interested in the reviews I read or the author, Goodreads serves, like many other tools, to know something else, to broaden the focus . That said, on many occasions I published with some success titles that Goodreads did not leave well ».

And then, the real users where are they? Anyone who asks Goodreads for books written in Spanish can find around with a handful of civilian writers who show their readings and often review them: Luna Miguel, Argentina's Clara Obligado, Lucía Baskaran, Antonio J. Rodríguez, Pablo Muñoz , Juan Gómez Jurado and Elizabeth Duval, among others, have more or less active profiles in the network.

«I opened a Goodreads account because I have an ominous memory and it was a way of ordering my readings. It was something for me, in principle , even though I later took a more social profile, ”explains Lucia Baskaran, author of Damned Bodies . «I don't usually read conventional criticism, from the press, if I look for them after finishing the book, when I want to know something else». So where do you look for the information to choose a book? «In social networks. On Instagram there is also a lot of echo. And through some friends »

Another opinion: that of the writer Elizabeth Duval: «I do not write reviews but I do register every book I read because it is a way of ordering my readings. It is a fairly tremendous transparency exercise . Have I ever closed the profile because it caused me some stress »And does Goodreads work well as a social network? Is it a good place to look for friends? «I wouldn't say make friends. There are people you look at but the relationship is based exclusively on books. It is very particular ».

"If a reader wants to talk to me and tell me something about a book of mine, he doesn't usually use Goodreads," adds Juan Gómez Jurado. «I usually write an email or interact on Twitter. At this time, I would say that Twitter is the great social network to talk about literature , much more than Facebook. Goodreads in the United States is very important, especially in the genre of young adults , but in Spain we are still in diapers ».

The journalist Carolina Velasco, author of the book Tour vertigo (edited by Walden) explains that Goodreads is for her “the way to keep up to date with literature in Spanish despite living in Germany. It has also been a door to enter Japanese and African literature when I had interest. The information you find is good. You end up with people you like because of how you see the books and follow them ».

However, the fact that almost everything fits in Goodreads does not mean that his canon is very transgressive. In his popularity rankings Stephen King appears as the most admired writer (King himself had an active profile for a few years) followed by a lot of American thriller writers. Another successful author on the web is Patti Smith, who has open days in which she talks with readers.

In Spain, the user with the most followers is called Josu Diamond and is a booktuber whose profile speaks of comics, neo-Gothic novels, biographies of Kurt Cobain ... The silver medal corresponds to Andrea Izquierdo, also booktuber in addition to author of seven Novels for young adults. «As an author, Goodreads is interesting: I can see the feedback from my books, it's much simpler than looking for review blogs. Criticisms have level. My only problem is that sometimes very low ratings appear when the book has not yet gone on sale and I know that the user has not read the book ».

This thread allows us to return to the beginning of the text, to the hierarchy problem. "From Goodreads I like that the prescription works horizontally, that we all be equal," explains Elizabeth Duval. «But I know that the criterion of authority is also based on knowledge and that we all rely on it . I have just published a text in Vogue about books that I recommend and I know that I am exercising a hierarchy ».

Horizontal prescriptions are fine but they are not paradise. Cases of corruption have been documented around Goodreads, from companies that generate positive fictitious criticism. Good: there have also been corrupt press critics. For those who long for that teacher, older brother or bookseller who whispered a title in our ears, there are alternatives such as Bookmarks, which bring together the professional reviews of each book, something similar to what Metacritics is for cinema. It has its grace.

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