You’ve probably heard that your reading habits can help your writing technique, but did you know that reading can also help your writing career?
Thousands of writers are interacting with their readers and establishing themselves in the writing community on Goodreads, a website that functions as an online book club, bookstore, and your own personal bookshelf.
If you are looking for an easy, fun, and free way to promote your writing and connect with people who have similar taste in books (i.e., fans, readers, editors, agents), Goodreads is for you!
1. Goodreads is Facebook for books!
Goodreads allows you to organize your own virtual bookshelves. Connect with other writers and readers who have similar tastes! You can share recommendations, follow others’ reviews, and create personal relationships with people in the industry. Network with other writers and meet potential readers of your work.
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, this site is EXCLUSIVELY for those in the writing/reading community. Establish yourself as part of that community by becoming a member.
2. Show off your writing (and great literary taste) by writing book reviews.
Write fantastic, memorable reviews that show off your personality as well as your writing. Build your review portfolio and get a Goodreads following. Establish yourself as a well-read connoisseur of your genre and others.
3. Drive traffic to your author website.
In your Goodreads profile, you can link out to your author website or blog. Once you’ve established yourself as a Goodreads regular, other Goodreads members will be interested to learn more about you. That’s when you pounce! Only write snippets or teasers of your reviews and then link to your own blog for its entirety (this is a common Goodreads technique). Refer to a discussion, article, or post on your own site and provide a link in your review.
Don’t have an author website? Now’s the time. We can help.
4. Become a Goodreads Author.
Goodreads WANTS you to use their site for promotion—how cool is that? They have a specific program designed to help authors reach their target audience. If you are an author with either a traditionally published or self-published book, you can register on Goodreads with a special “Author” account.
Authors on Goodreads can make their profiles an engaging and attractive destination for readers. Add a picture and a bio. Publicize upcoming events. Post videos. Share your favorite books and quotes, recent reads, book excerpts, and other writing with your fans.
5. Promote the Goodreads way.
You can promote your book with Goodreads goodies like book giveaways, Q&As, and discussion forums. You can even create quizzes about your book! Add a Goodreads Author widget to your own website to show off the reviews of your book.
Goodreads boasts 6,800,000 readers. That’s almost 7 million potential readers and promoters.
Convinced? Join Goodreads today! Use this link to sign up and instantly become our friend!
Find info about the Goodreads Author Program.
QUESTION: What are you reading right now?
I already have a goodreads account, but I never thought about using it to promote my self-published book. It sounds like a great platform.
Oh and I’m currently reading “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Great book so far.
Hunger Games! I’ll bet Goodreads is filled to the brim with reviews for it. I’ve never been to the site but it sounds really useful. Maybe some members can clue me in to other books similar to Hunger Games that I’ll be able to enjoy after I finish reading the trilogy…which will be soon because I can’t put it down!
I’m not on Goodreads yet. But I’m planning to be one of these days. I’ve been keeping my booklist in an excel file–what I read, when, who published it, who agented it, and what I thought of it. Goodreads seems like it’s way to do what I’m already doing, but interating with other people at the same time.
I do think it’s pretty cool that I can go on goodreads and see what my favorite authors are reading. it’s insightful.
I don’t plan to use goodreads. what if i keep all my information on that website, and then it goes down or crashes or something and i’ll lose my list of all the books ive read. i wouldnt use it for promotion or socializing because im not interested in promoting my own writing.
I totally agree, Goodreads is the Facebook for books – so we can use it without feeling guilty, ‘cos it’s sort of work! I think it is way better than Facebook for authors. Goodreads’ own statistics prove that – they did a survey to find out where people discovered their last new book. 64% of people said Goodreads, only 14% said Facebook (and a mere 7% Twitter).
Like many of you, I’m just trying to find a way to let the hounds see the hare. I have been impressed with Goodreads for some time. Slow learner that I am, I’m still at the “squinting in the daylight” stage after writing, editing, redacting, and writing more.
I have a Goodreads account, but honestly never knew there was a way to promote my books here. It is even great because it will get more readers to my site. I am a aspiring writing, and this seems like a great idea, and I’ll try it out. Thanks!