What is Goodreads?
Goodreads.com is the San Francisco-based American reading community of the first hour and the largest platform for reading recommendations worldwide. Popular English-language authors such as Stephen King, David Mitchell and Cormac McCarthy are represented there. Under the motto "Meet your next favorite book." the recommendation platform brings readers and authors together to exchange ideas about books. Otis Chandler founded the platform together with his wife Elizabeth Khuri Chandler at the end of 2006. The site went online in January 2007 and a year later boasted a membership of 650,000 and 10,000,000 books online. There are 30,000 American book clubs alone on the review platform.
As the American top dog among book communities, Goodreads.com was taken over by Amazon in 2013. Since then, the user numbers of the community have increased significantly. According to its own information, Goodreads currently has around 90 million members. Book communities like Goodreads create a publicly accessible space with enormous reach for exchange between readers and authors. For readers, they are an ideal information tool - and for authors, for this very reason, an ideal platform for their own book publishing. Book marketing. So far, there is no German version yet. Nevertheless, authors should keep an eye on the platform in order to get their books talked about. Because your own reading audience can be addressed directly there.
What can users do on Goodreads?
Goodreads users can create a virtual bookshelf with their own books on the platform. These are divided into "books I've read", "current reads" and "books I still want to read". Members can browse through public booklists of other users or Goodreads suggestions and reading recommendations and exchange ideas about favorite reads in discussion groups or contact authors directly in the "Ask the Author" section. Authors can use the platform's "Goodreads Author Program" to distribute giveaways to readers in order to increase the visibility of their own books.
Every year Goodreads awards the "Goodreads Choice Award". The award was first launched in 2009. Members can rate books nominated by Goodreads or suggest their own books published in the same year. Goodreads awards books in 20 categories.
We'll explain what the Goodreads reading community is all about, the pros and cons of the book recommendation platform, if and how you can use it for your marketing, and the mistakes to avoid.
Does Goodreads fit into my marketing strategy?
Before you rush into promoting books on Goodreads - impressed by the number of members - you should first familiarise yourself with the platform. First, register and inspect the site thoroughly with marketing glasses:
- How does the platform work exactly?
- Which readers cavort there?
- What books are featured? Find there books from your Genre?
- What marketing tools does Goodreads offer me?
- What are the pros and cons of promoting books on Goodreads?
- Does an American platform make sense for my German-language book?
What are the benefits of Goodreads?
On the English-speaking Amazon.com website, the company has preinstalled Goodreads as a community on its Kindle Paperwhite e-book readers. With a market entry in Germany, this should also be implemented in this country. This would give Goodreads a clear advantage over platforms like LovelyBooks. Authors can then - if they are represented on Goodreads in time - benefit from the competitive advantages of the platform through the Amazon Group and automatically receive additional visibility on the community.
What are the downsides of Goodreads?
Despite announcements to this effect by Amazon, Goodreads still does not have a user platform for the German-speaking region in 2021. Many non-American users already use the platform, including in German-speaking countries. Nevertheless, German titles are only marginally represented there so far. That's why you should consider one or more of the German-language platforms. LovelyBooks, Watchareadin, Read Aloud, What are you reading? or Reading Jury also use it. German-speaking authors should nevertheless keep their eyes open as far as their own book marketing on Goodreads is concerned. Because, according to the American pioneer, Germany is a important target group, with more than half from users outside the U.S.
Have the target group in mind
Always keep your target audience in mind with all marketing ventures. If you have taken a close look at the platform, you can safely answer the question of whether your desired reader is there at all. Because you should only invest your time and your budget for your marketing if your readers use this platform at all.
The offer at Goodreads is similar to that of the more well-known reading community LovelyBooks in German-speaking countries. There are a number of book lists from the fiction sector (fiction, young adult, fantasy, historical fiction and co.) and the sections children's books (children's), non-fiction (non-fiction) and history and biography (history and biography). The main focus of the portal is on fiction, although almost everything can be found on Goodreads. Under the recommendations section, Goodreads makes reading recommendations tailored to its readers. In the book lists, readers can find suitable book suggestions for every topic.
Questions you should ask yourself at the beginning:
- Is your genre even considered on the portal and
- are there enough German readers for the book to appeal to?
- Is your book maybe for the American market interesting?
If that's the case, Goodreads is a great place to put your book in the conversation there.
How do I sign up as an author on Goodreads?
Registration as an author
First register with Goodreads.comto take a closer look at the platform. This also works through direct access via other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. Once you have published a book, you can join the Goodreads Author Program. This is also for Self-Publisher free of charge.
To do this, you search for your book on the platform and accredit yourself as the corresponding author. If you don't find your book on the platform yet, you can easily add it via the button "Manually add a book", see in the following screenshot.
If you publish with a service provider, you should make sure that your book is covered with ISBN is distributed in bookstores and is therefore also accessible to book communities like Goodreads.
Create your author profile
If you've published a book and it shows up on Goodreads, you can link your book to your author profile like this:
After that, you'll be taken to the preliminary author page, and you can click the "Is this you?" button at the bottom of the page to let Goodreads know you're an author. Let us know" button at the bottom of the page to let Goodreads know that you are an author.
After this step, you can sign up directly with the Goodreads Author Program:
You will then receive a confirmation from Goodreads that the author profile will be "merged" with your regular Goodreads member profile. The Goodreads email will also contain more information about managing the author profile.
The author and book page on Goodreads.
Your author and book page on Goodreads is in addition to your pages on other platforms like. FacebookAmazon and Co. are your digital shop window to the reader. When designing these pages, make sure that the author's appearance is cross-platform. You should upload the same texts about your book and yourself as an author that readers can find on your other public book pages.
Therefore, pay attention to a professional and attractive appearance with recognition value. Offer the users a gripping Story behind your bookh or to your life to carry a strong brand to readers via content.
Regarding the language of your texts, you should consider in advance which audience you want to address. If you are represented with a German-language book and want to address a German-speaking audience, you should also write the promotional texts in German. If you want to address an international audience or if your book is even in English, you can also use English-language promotional texts, such as author vitae and the like.
Similar to Lovelybooks, the author profile on Goodreads can be customized by:
- a professional author photo
- an attractive Short vita
- the setting of readings
- Linking to your other social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram
- a list of your favourite books or books you have just read
- Videos or trailers for your book
- the possibility to add your own blog and thus editorial contributions to build up and retain a following (growing follower numbers signal your awareness to your readers)
- Announcement of own events, Readings, Signing Hours and other events
- Raffles
- Regular updates of your data
tredition author Dani Aquitaine knows how important it is to have a professional outward appearance as an author, and she gets up close and personal on her author page on Goodreads:
Your books will in turn be presented to readers on the author page. Here you will find an example book page by Dani Aquitaine for her book "Ainia's Silence: Volume 3 - A Themiskyra Novel":
Readers can leave comments and book reviews on your book in the form of reviews or star ratings, which will always be displayed at the top of your author and book page.
How do I use Goodreads for my book promotion?
You've located your target audience on the social reading platform Goodreads. Then, in addition to a professional brand presence, you should also take advantage of the advertising opportunities that Goodreads gives you on the platform.
On Goodreads, there are several marketing options for authors, the main ones being the following:
Participation in discussions
Just drift on Goodreads and browse the "Groups" section of the platform to find topic groups that you find interesting and that might be a thematic fit for your book release. Goodreads has a huge number of subgroups on every topic imaginable where Goodreads members can talk and share. There are many author groups that can be a good place to start for guidance.
Under the section "Groups" you can quickly find the appropriate groups.
Once you have found the right group, you can join in the discussion and contribute to the conversation.
The many discussion groups on Goodreads (found under "Discussions") are a great way to engage in conversation with other authors or your reader audience.
Review Requests
There is also the possibility to offer review requests in these groups/discussions in order to find reviewers for one's own book. To do this, authors should open a separate thread (i.e. a new discussion) and provide information about the book and the review opportunity. This will get you and your book talked about by other Goodreads users and help your book become more popular.
Giveaways
On Goodreads, you have a variety of ways to promote your book. Giveaways are certainly one of the most popular promotions. In a giveaway, the author raffles off copies of their book to Goodreads community members in order to get as many reviews as possible and generate attention.
Giveaways are a not-so-cheap investment in your book to begin with, as you have to give your books away for free (postage is on top of that). However, the only way your book will get attention on the platform is by getting a lot of good reviews. If you want to generate a lot of reviews in a short period of time, you should try out a giveaway campaign to see if you can achieve fast and good results.
Your advantages:
- You have little effort as an author, as Goodreads takes care of selecting the winners. They are selected based on whether they have already shown interest in books in the same genre or on a similar topic on Goodreads.
- experience gained from Goodreads according to about 60% of those who win a giveaway also rate the book afterwards.
Here's what giveaway promotions look like on Goodreads:
Here's how you do it:
- If you're an author enrolled in the Goodreads Author Program, you can apply for a Sign up for a giveaway.
- As an author, you can individually determine how many books you want to give away and over what period of time.
- You can start the giveaway campaign before the book is published and then send out the books exactly on the publication date. This way you increase the excitement in advance and build an audience for your book in time.
- Remember to order your own copies for the raffle in time to serve your readers with books.
- On your blog you can set the giveaway widget to advertise your promotion there
Ask the Author
Another option to get in direct contact with your readers and promote the book is the "Ask the Author" section on Goodreads.
Here's how you do it:
- If you change the button from "Off" to "On" under "Ask the author" on your author profile, readers can ask you questions right on your profile.
- Initially, only you as the author can see the individual questions. Only when you decide to answer a question will the question and answer appear on your profile.
- So it's up to you as the author to decide which questions and information to publish.
Avoid these mistakes on Goodreads
The Goodreads review platform offers a number of promotional options that can help you create buzz for your book and increase your readership. But be sure to use these tools actively and correctly to avoid mistakes on the reading community.
- Don't respond to negative reviews. This will scare off new readers and you will not receive any new positive reviews or comments. Rather, use the criticism as an opportunity to draw conclusions for further actions or your next book.
- Don't contact all the readers who put your book on their book list. This may be well-intentioned, but it tends to annoy readers and you will be perceived as a "spammer".
- Don't randomly try to link up with everyone on Goodreads. Make friend requests to members of a group that you belong to, or whose subject matter matches your book. If you've written a fantasy book, it doesn't make much sense to reach out to romance fans and ask for a review.
- Don't join groups with the sole aim of getting your book talked about, but act in groups as a reader! As on all social networks, the focus in book communities like Goodreads or LovelyBooks is on the exchange, not on the promotions of a single author.
Conclusion
With the Goodreads author program, the social reading platform Goodreads offers you a range of marketing tools with which you can increase the visibility and discoverability of your book and come into direct exchange with your target audience. Take advantage of the platform's enormous reach, but find out in advance if your readers are present and active here. Use discussions or giveaways to promote your book and get reviews about your book. Avoid the typical rookie mistakes in your marketing efforts, though, so you can hit the ground running when promoting your book on Goodreads and see quick results for your book.
