OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
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Writers are readers first, so today we discuss the number 1 social network for readers, Goodreads, and how authors can best utilize its many features.
Breaking news 4 September 2013: Amazon introduces new Kindle Paperwhite which incorporates Goodreads reviewing, so whether you like it or not, reading customers will be rating your books on Goodreads.
In the intro, I mention a fantastic article by Kristine Rusch on career writers, as well as my imminent trip to 
India, how the launch of ‘One Day In Budapest‘ went and also some thoughts on screenwriting. We also have a message from Kobo Writing Life, who now sponsor the podcast, all about how authors in the US market specifically can work with independent bookstores through Kobo.
Patrick Brown is the Director of Author Marketing and Community Manager at Goodreads, the world's largest site for readers and book recommendations, with over 20 million members who are passionate about books. It's a feature-rich site with a lot going on!
You can also watch the interview on YouTube here.
The aim of Goodreads is to keep track of books previously read, currently being read or to-read in the future; join book club style groups, get book recommendations and hang out with other readers. Avid readers are addicted to the site 🙂
- Goodreads' recommendation engine is an algorithm similar to Netflix, recommending books based on what you have rated already. Putting them in grouped bookshelves helps the algorithm learn more e.g. my psychology bookshelf vs your psychology bookshelf will help the algorithm provide surprising new recommendations. It won't recommend obvious books like Twilight or Harry Potter as you will already know about them, but it will try to find new books for you. A book does need to get a few hundred ratings before it gets into the recommendation engine, but once it is in, then connections can be made.
- Goodreads is a social network with a news feed that members look at first. Every time someone takes an action on your book, it goes out on the newsfeed and that fuels social amplification. There's a To Read button that will capture interest. Focusing on that before publication can get the book noticed earlier, as it fuels awareness. The To-Read shelf is the first step to getting a review, and ultimately, your goal is to get reviews as this fuels discovery. Generating word of mouth buzz for books is the point.
- If you're starting out on Goodreads, you have to have a regular member account anyway, which can then be turned into an author page. But don't stop using it as a reader. You should be a reader first and be an active part of the reader network. Don't talk about your own books at the beginning. Contribute useful content, which are book reviews and comments on groups and engagement around books. Authors are tremendous readers, so use that knowledge of books to contribute.
- The Author Profile can be quite extensive if you populate it fully. Add your author photo which is important, your blog feed, a bio and then add your books, which you can do manually if they're not already there. You can add video content and link those to books as well.
- On Giveaways and how they work. It's free to list a giveaway for the author and the reader. The goal is to get people adding the book to their shelves and also reviewing the book. This is useful before the book comes out, so it can be used for pre-release opportunities. You can also reach people who would have never heard of you otherwise. Giveaways are only open to authors with a physical book because of the technology compatibility and potential customer service issues with ebook giveaways. Check out giveaways here.
- Combining editions is recommended for your book. There are likely to be many editions e.g. paperback vs audio vs ebook, even down to editions per ebook retailer. The reader may put reviews on various editions. Email: support@goodreads.com to get your editions combined. This will combine the reviews which will benefit your book. You can also get author widgets to use reviews on your own site.
- Note: Goodreads is owned by Amazon now. It is an arms length relationship, but it's very likely Amazon are using the data!
- The difference between friends and fans on Goodreads. It's similar to twitter and facebook, in that you post content and that's shared to your friends. Everyone can have friends but it's not so scalable, people can also be fans of author pages. What I particularly love is the ability to compare your reading preferences with another friend in a Venn diagram. It's so cool to find people who like the same books as you.
- How authors should behave on Goodreads. Remember primarily that it is a site for readers. Beware of etiquette! Groups function a bit like a book-club and you should join some in your genre, but use them to talk about other books, not your own. Always read the rules for the groups as well. Once you're established, it is a great way to meet readers. You can also use Listopia, curated lists by the community around niches and topics. If you want to get lost for a while, join the everlasting book quiz – a must for book geeks!
Go check out the site at Goodreads.com!
You can find more info from presentations on the Goodreads slideshare account.
Connect with me on Goodreads here.
I listened to the interview and thought it was excellent, but this extra information makes it even better. Thank you, Joanna, and thanks to Patrick as well.
Hello, Joanna & Patrick,
Having been a member of goodreads for close to five years, both as an author and a reader, I couldn’t recommend a better site for book lovers.
Thank you both for an informative and entertaining article.
Stuart
Hello,
what I find very appalling with Goodreads is that an author does not have a choice as to whether he/she has an author page or not. I had an author page put up without my permission/authorisation and when I wrote to Goodreads for it to be removed, I was told they would not.
So no free choice, no free will. Their argument is that they are a ‘library’. Their site only describes them as social media for authors, so that is deceptive. Following their argument, books do not get catalogued by the National Library, etc., without the authors and publishers doing the entry themselves, so it is, even then, a matter of choice. It is an abhorrent lack of respect for individual right.
Second to that, they posted a slanderous article on my book page (which, as with the author page, I did not authorise) in which the writer clearly stated it was not a review.
I, and my company were called a fraud by someone who had never spoken to me. When I wrote Goodreads, again, and asked them to remove it, as it clearly is not a review, they refused. So I have pages I did not want, with slanderous articles that are not book reviews.
Let’s just say I am not a Goodreads fan!! I am seeing a lawyer to determine if I do have any rights here.
Did you get anywhere? They are refusing to remove my books despite me asking multiple times.
As far as I see they have no legal right to do this. Have you made any progress?
As a self-published author, I, too, am having very big doubts about the sincerity of the Goodreads website. More and more, it appears to be a website that was actually created as an avenue for UNDERMINING authors rather than promoting them. There’s no easy way for an author to do ANYTHING on the site – let alone promote a book or network. All navigation pertaining to authors is clearly designed to go around and around in circles so nothing gets done.
Tonight I was attempting to do something very simple – change my book cover so that it matched the new one displayed on Amazon – and there’s just no way to do this easily (i.e. no button that says “Change Book Image” or “Edit Image”). In fact, it almost appears that I need PERMISSION to do this although it is clear I am the logging author (and, truthfully, I should be the ONLY one that has access to my bookshelf!) Of course, my attempt to find a simple Contact Us page specifically where a author could ask a question proved futile as well although there certainly APPEARS to be plenty of moderators hanging around in pictured “groups” doing nothing. I did find my way to the Question & Answer section of the forum/discussion area (supposedly for authors) but – lo and behold – the moderator had closed it down for comments and questions. So I gave up. THEN, when I dared to change the capitalization on one word in my current subtitle, I was suddenly redirected to a section about making “a new edition” which entailed a whole bunch of nonsense AND presented me with text pop-ups stating that they would prefer that I leave it as it is! Weird. And…tell me, what’s the difference between “My Books” and, say, the books I’ve WRITTEN – there isn’t any. There’s no place clearly noted where I can edit and work on MY OWN STUFF although everyone else can move around my area it seems, commenting and making notations and what not. Is it really all about a library – WHAT library??? Seriously, what is this site about???? The entire set-up of the website is extremely bizarre and deceptive. It’s as if the concept of being – even partially – an “author website” is what the site is PRETENDING to be when, in reality, it has an entirely different agenda (and I have no idea what that is!). Authors have no rights and no permissions to do much of anything but click around in endless circles that go nowhere. Everyone else, it appears, can do whatever they want.
This site needs a major revamping of both the staff AND the overall idea and authors need to watch their own backs here.
OK, the purpose of Goodreads is a site for READERS, not for writers. The focus is on readers adding books and readers posting reviews. It is not aimed at authors as such, but I may have confused the issue by focusing this interview on the author side. It’s critical to remember that you need to be on Goodreads as a READER first. This is how I use it, and I am a fan. But of course, like any social media sites, it it entirely your choice to be there at all.
In terms of setting up an author page without your permission – if you have a book, any READER can add your book and review it. If they enter the author name, you have a ‘page’ – it’s nothing special, just a placeholder.
The bottom line is – use Goodreads as a READER and you will enjoy the site far more.
My problem with Goodreads is that they allow people to post ratings without reviews. This means that any idiot can go on and capriciously post a lousy rating without having to justify it. Unfortunately, Amazon has now started to allow the same thing. All of my book’s reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads have been 4- or 5-star reviews, but now a few very low ratings have been posted, and I have no way of finding out why. If Goodreads really wanted to cater to readers, they would insist that anyone commenting on a book leave a review to go along with the rating.
Cool, thanks for the intro. I’ve always wanted to look into Goodreads, and now I think I will actually do it. It could be a good way to both find books and find people for book clubs etc., so maybe I’ll be lucky with my next project there, where I want to start a book club for the art of digital storytelling.
‹ Nico @ Leaf ♦ Pub ›
I’m so glad you did this interview, Joanna. Suffering from social media overwhelm — introvert that I am, I’d rather go to a party ay Cannes — I really need to focus and am frankly tired of facebook and never liked twitter as thinking in soundbites is SO hard for me. It seems for writers Goodreads is the best place to spend time and, for me, Pinterest has been great for attracting people who love the same imagery. My work is imagery heavy being Gothic and historical and occult and all, so it works.
This was really inspiring and helpful.
Cheers!
Alyne
I’ve been a member of Goodreads for a long time, but never really got into it; always seemed so confusing to me. But after reading this, maybe I’ll give it another shot. I’d really like to see how many people like the same stuff I like; and I’m all over the place with genres, with fantasy being my first like, followed by mysteries, romantic suspense/fantasy, thrillers…being able to switch among genres to read has never been easier. 🙂
And of course I’m going to have a re-launch of my first series with 3 new covers…but that doesn’t enter into the equation at all. 😉 Still, I am a voracious reader, always on the lookout for the next story that grabs my fancy.
Thanks to you and Patrick for a great post. 🙂
Interesting you talk about replacing Facebook with Goodreads. I’m considering replacing Facebook with Google+ for my author page. I just feel there is more opportunity for engagement there. Meanwhile, I can’t wait to read and see (lots of pictures) of your travel in India. What an amazing opportunity.
Hi Joanna, I got an email from your site about this article, and I must say that it’s been something of an eye-opener for me. I’m going to go ahead and join up. I’m reading Pentecost right now, thanks to your help, so I’m going to be leaving two reviews, one for Goodreads and one on Amazon now. Thanks for helping me learn about Goodreads!
Thanks Joanna, I’ve been on Goodreads for quite a while but learned lots from your podcast with Patrick.
Thanks for this Joaanne. I’ve been on Goodreads a while but struggled for ages to find my way around and have kept meaning to put more energy into it. So for me the nod to Michelle’s book is great – i’ve just downloaded it. Thanks as always for the useful info.
Sorry – *Joanne