Amazon’s layoffs at Goodreads: Another blow for the long-suffering book review platform?

Amazon famously started as an online bookstore. In the three decades since, it has disrupted how people buy, read, and review books through steps like undercutting local bookstore prices, launching the Kindle, and buying the book-review platform Goodreads. 

Now, Amazon has announced new job cuts, including at its Kindle and Goodreads teams, Reuters reports. In total, the company is reportedly cutting fewer than 100 jobs across its book division. Since 2022, Amazon has laid off about 27,000 employees as part of a cost-cutting strategy, according to CNBC. 

The online retailer claims its decision should streamline the impacted departments. 

“As part of our ongoing work to make our teams and programs operate more efficiently, and to better align with our business roadmap, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles within the Books organization,” an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters. 

Criticism over Goodreads stewardship

Amazon bought Goodreads in 2013 and has since been accused by the publishing industry of neglecting the book tracker and having only bought it to prevent competition.

Goodreads “hasn’t been all that well maintained, or updated, or kept up with,” Jane Friedman, a publishing industry consultant, told The Washington Post in 2023. “It does feel like Amazon bought it and then abandoned it.”

The online retailer also has a review system and launched a “Your Books” feature in 2023 for customers to track all their digital and print titles and get reading suggestions (another option available on Goodreads). 

Fast Company has reached out to Amazon for comment on how many jobs were cut at Goodreads and whether the online retailer is reducing its investment in the book review platform.

Some individuals also don’t use Goodreads because of its connection to Amazon, as noted by CBC last year. There are entire Reddit threads devoted to alternatives with comments like, “I am doing everything to avoid Jeff Bezos.”

That’s a bit easier to do these days as far as trackers go. A number of alternatives to Goodreads have emerged over the years, such as The StoryGraph, Bookly, and BookWyrm.