#do i tag storygraph on twitter to ask about how they make these summaries? i cant find a contact email. @ ing them seems confrontational :

[wastelandslug]

what the fuck is this. get out AI out of my book tracking website. how does it even figure out what the key themes are. is it reading the book? is it combing reviews? both of those dont sound like you asked anybody involved (the author or the users writing reviews) if you could regurgitate their words for a summary. i get that there are infinite books and it can be hard to have a summary for every single book, but this isnt how you go about fixing that issue. at all.

[hopingforcoordinates]

RE:StoryGraph

First off, thank you so much to everyone who responded to StoryGraph on twitter and contacted them directly about why they should consider handling fanfiction differently. They took the feedback to heart and came up with a compromise that will hopefully allow fanfiction readers and writers to coexist a bit more peacefully on their site.

Second, just so we’re all on the same page, fics are not being reposted or uploaded to StoryGraph. Works are only listed with basic information like title, author name, summary, etc.

Understandably, StoryGraph doesn’t want to engage in the same game of “whack-a-mole” that Goodreads has allowed to go on for ages and they’d rather not delete user data like ratings/reviews. As a solution, they’ve introduced the “Not A Book” label for things like fanfiction, academic papers, articles, etc as well as removing the “buy” button to avoid the appearance of monetization of noncommercial works. In addition to that, “non-book” listings will have hidden reviews and star ratings--only information such as mood, pacing, and content warnings will still be publicly visible.

Overall, I’m impressed with how they handled this issue and how quickly they responded to feedback. The changes to the site make me feel more comfortable with my fics being listed there and the new categorization method will, in my opinion, help create a clearer boundary between professionally published books and the sphere of fandom.

I would still like to ask everyone to reach out to fic writers before you think about trying to list their work on third-party sites and be respectful of their wishes. Please do not use fanart as “book covers” without explicit permission from the artist. 

Lessons will be back on AO3 later today and it will continue to be listed on StoryGraph for anyone who wants to count it towards reading goals/challenges. Once I figure out stuff like page counts, I’ll probably add my other completed fics to StoryGraph myself (and I’ll continue getting them removed from Goodreads anytime I see them on there--just switch to StoryGraph please).

For anyone that’s curious about using StoryGraph themselves, I’ll put what I’ve found so far as a new user under the cut:

—StoryGraph is a Black-owned, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads that links users to Bookshop.org in order to support indie booksellers

—You can import your Goodreads library for simplified onboarding (I haven’t tested this feature myself since I didn’t have much on my GR shelves to begin with) 

—In general, StoryGraph seems more focused on presenting actually useful data about books and your reading habits, whereas Goodreads feels like it’s trying to be a social media site (as well as a PVP zone for fic writers and readers)

—Detailed content warnings page where author-approved and user-submitted tags are sorted into graphic, moderate, and minor categories. Each content warning has a little number to note how many people added it and by clicking on the tag itself you can see all the reviews tagging that specific warning

—Community reviews are neatly summarized with a list of descriptors for mood and pacing as well as some simple yes/no questions regarding things like character development and diversity. Each response has a percentage to make it even clearer what the general opinion is. There are still written reviews of course, but you won’t need to sift through them just to get a sense of a book’s overall vibe

—Stats page that updates whenever you add a book you’ve read or mark something “to read”. All the data appears in colorful pie charts and bar graphs. If you go to your All Time stats, you can compare the moods, genres, page counts, etc of stuff you’ve read to what’s in your to-read pile

—Marking a book “did not finish” removes it from your currently reading list and adds it to your DNF page automatically

—Roadmap page shows what features StoryGraph is working on and what they plan to add in the future. As we’ve seen, StoryGraph responds incredibly well to feedback and they seem keen on constantly improving their site for their users