What is Goodreads?
Goodreads is a site dedicated to books and recommendations. It allows users to review and share books that they love with others. Goodreads also allows users to keep track of books they’ve read or want to read. Authors are able to sign up for their Author Program in order to claim their books and have a dedicated page.
Why set up a page?
The site boasts over 90 million users who have left over 90 million reviews. That’s a huge audience! You can also use the site to advertise and promote your book.
Is it worthwhile?
Since setting up my author profile and linking my books I’ve had a few readers that have chosen to only leave reviews on Goodreads. Presumably they don’t shop on Amazon or are more frequent users on this site. Whatever the reason, it’s a good (and free!) way to branch out further and capture more reviews.
Signing up for the Author Program
To sign up for the author program you first need to create an account. Once you are logged into your new account follow the directions on the Author Program page to claim your books.
You will need similar information that you used for your Amazon Author Page. Specifically your headshot and your bio.
Adding a New Title
If Goodreads isn’t aware of your book yet you can add it. I needed to do this myself and it was very easy. Search for your book and if it’s not found then click the “Manually add a book” link. There’s a lot of information to fill in about your book, but title, author & media type are the only required fields.
My book showed up quickly after submitting it, however I noticed that the cover didn’t get loaded. Since having the cover of the book is an important aspect of the listing I found a discussion on GoodReads’ message board where you submit the information of the book and where to find the cover (for example an Amazon product page) and one of their friendly librarians will help you. They updated it within 24 hours.
Author Dashboard
Once everything is hooked up you’ll have access to your Author Dashboard where you’ll be able to see a holistic view of your books and the reviews that have been left.
Be Active
Be sure to be an active participant on GoodReads by adding books to your bookshelf, leaving reviews, and answering questions (among other things). If you don’t look like you use the site people will be less interested in your profile. I didn’t interact much for the first few months I was on the site and saw no benefit to being on it. Once I added friends (mostly from Twitter) and started adding books I’d read I saw more traction in people following me, leaving reviews, and interacting in general.
Advertising
Goodreads offers a couple of different ways to market and advertise your books on their platform. It’s pricey and I have seen numerous reviews from other authors stating that it’s a waste of money. At this time I’m going to follow their advice and not bother investing in this form of advertising.