Promote Your Book on the Goodreads Network

With more than 3 million members, Goodreads is the largest social network for readers. The site is a terrific way for authors (especially fiction authors) to interact with their target audiences through the Goodreads Author Program.

Like other social networks, members join and set up a profile. But the emphasis of this site is on discussing books and sharing book recommendations with others. Members can create a catalog of the books they have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future; post reviews; create lists of books; start a book club; join a discussion group; or even contact an author.

To sign up for this free reader network, just enter your name, email, and a password on this page. I recommend setting up your own profile and book catalog and becoming familiar with the site before you get started with the author program.

See this page for details on how to upgrade your account to "author" status. Here are some of the things you can do to promote yourself and your books on Goodreads:

• Post a picture and bio.
• Share your list of favorite books and recent reads with your fans.
• Start a blog or import a feed of your existing blog.
• Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements.
• Share book excerpts and other writing.
• Write a quiz about your book or a related topic.
• Post videos.

The Goodreads Author Program offers these promotional tools to authors:

• List a book giveaway to generate pre-launch buzz.
• Lead a Q&A discussion group for readers.
• Participate in discussions on your profile, in groups and in the discussion forums for your books.
• Add the Goodreads Author widget to your personal website or blog to show off reviews of your books.
• Advertise your book to the Goodreads Community.

The key to getting good results on Goodreads is to join in the conversation on the site and share with others.  One of the best ways to make friends on Goodreads is to be active in groups related to your genre or topic and to send friend requests to selected folks in those groups. But don't overdo it – as with all social networks it's important to observe proper etiquette. Read the guidelines for authors and be careful not to engage in activities that are considered spamming, such as contacting or friending everyone who has read your book or similar books.

Many authors find reader communities such as Goodreads to be more beneficial than general networking sites like Facebook. I recommend starting with Goodreads because it's the largest, but there are a number of similar sites and some are geared to specific types of books, such as children's books. See this list of virtual reader communities for additional networks to consider.

By the way, I read primarily mysteries and marketing/business books, and I welcome connections on my Goodreads page.

Comments

[Rebecca Ryals Russell]

I love Goodreads. I have some of the best conversations in the groups there.

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with Goodreads, Rebecca.

[Aggie]

Dana, a quick question.

Does a giveaway book on Googreads have to be a prepublication copy. Can we give away a book that's been in print for awhile!

Thankx for sharing all this info!

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Glad you enjoyed the article, Aggie. Goodreads prefers that book giveaways be for new books, but it's not required. I think you can leave the publication date field blank on the form, which makes it less obvious how old the book is.

[Norwood Holland]

I need help maneuvering through Goodreads. I joined the mystery thriller group but can't figure out how to join the discussions group. I also want to promote my book and they talk about an "Authors Page". But there are no detailed instructions or guidance on how to set up an Author's page. I'm lost. I wish somebody would write a "How To" for Goodreads. I'm been a membe six months on going nowhere. I really would like to over this obstacle. It's just not user friendly.

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Norwood, I agree that GoodReads can be confusing to navigate. The instructions for setting up the Author Page are on this page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/program

I haven't had time to experiment with the groups function yet myself.

You may find this article helpful:
The complete and unabridged guide to GoodReads for authors by John Corwin http://bit.ly/ob7FHN

I wish you success with your book!

[S.B. Lerner]

I found the same article by Corwin and it was useful. My book is on Goodreads, but as an ebook, it has a different ISBN for Kindle than for Nook. So far, the link only works for Nook. They only seem to allow one ISBN number. Any idea how to get it to work for both>

Also, I put a review of my own book, just to let people know it was out there. I gave it 4 stars and said it was 'boorish to give it 5 stars, but the stories were published before and got a great reception..." and blah, blah. Do you think I should delete it?

[Dana Lynn Smith]

S.B., I suggest contacting GoodReads to ask how to get the Kindle edition linked in their database.

http://www.goodreads.com/about/contact_us

I wasn't comfortable giving my own books a 5-star review, so I just left the stars blank and said "This is my own book so I'm not rating it" then made a couple of comments about the book.