5 Tips to Get the Most from Your Goodreads Author Profile

Did you know that Goodreads is the world’s biggest site for book readers and recommendations? With over 50 million users, Goodreads is a behemoth in the world of online literature. For this reason, it’s the perfect place to interact with readers who may be interested in buying your books!

Upon first glance, Goodreads can be an intimidating place. After all, with so many users, books, and active conversations, it all can be a little bit overwhelming for a first-time user. But, if you utilize the following 5 tips, not only will Goodreads be a great platform to promote yourself and your books, but you’ll also have some fun – we guarantee it!

1) Begin as a Reader/Reviewer

Use Goodreads to rate and review books that you’ve read in the past or happen to have on the go right now. You can talk about why you loved the book by rating it or by writing a thoughtful review (recommended!). As an author, you can also create bookshelves of your favourite books or recommend books you used in your research to write your own. The best part is, each time you review, rate, or shelve a book, it creates an update for anyone who follows you. This makes reviewing books one of the best ways to build a following on Goodreads.

2) Encourage Questions from Your Readers

On your Goodreads author page, there will be a specific field where readers can submit an “Ask the Author” question. While these can be ignored, we suggest answering as many as you feel comfortable with! Like reading and reviewing, answering questions generates updates and grows your followers. Updates are further amplified through Goodreads users depending on the size of their follower base. Answering questions is also a unique way to provide your existing readers insights on you and your books.

Be sure to check back next week when we explain how to get the most from your “Ask the Author” section.

3) Participate in a Goodreads Giveaway

Every author who is part of the Goodreads Author program has the opportunity to participate in a giveaway. As the author, you can list your giveaway within minutes by deciding on how long you want to run your giveaway (a month should do!) and how many copies of your books you want to give away. When a reader enters your giveaway, through Goodreads’ social amplification system, other readers will discover you and your book via notifications to their home feed and likely enter as well.

4) Participate in Discussion Groups

As an author, you can demonstrate your expertise and knowledge of a certain topic or genre by participating in Discussion Groups. There are hundreds of Discussion Groups happening every day on Goodreads – you just need to jump in! Once you find the group that’s right for you, be careful of self-promotion as some groups do not allow this.

5) Add Your Blog to Your Goodreads Profile

On your Goodreads author profile, you have the option to link to your website’s blog posts. The set-up is relatively easy (via RSS feeds) and virtually guarantees you additional web traffic. Also, like most other features, a notification is generated to your followers when you publish a new blog!