Goodreads is a popular platform authors can use to market their books. However, I know many authors who have not even set up the basics on Goodreads to increase their exposure on this popular site for readers.
In this post, you’ll learn about the power of Goodreads as well as how to set up your Goodreads author platform and get started.
Why Goodreads?
Goodreads launched in 2007, has over 30 million members, and typically has more than one million unique visitors per day. Since March 2013, Goodreads has been owned by Amazon.
If those statistics do not convince you of the importance of Goodreads, consider the fact it is a social media platform for readers. Where do readers spend time online? Millions of them can be found on Goodreads.
When they are on Goodreads, will they see your books and your author profile or will you be missing from this important site?
Goodreads is also another place you can have your book reviewers post reviews. This gives your book more exposure as it will show up on their profile and their can see it as a recent update on the homepage.
Now that we’ve discussed the importance of Goodreads, I’m going to show you how to set up your Goodreads author profile.
Setting Up a Goodreads Author Profile
It is important that you go through the steps to claim your author profile so you can optimize it and access other features available only to Goodreads authors.
Step one: Claim your book (or manually add it)
First, search Goodreads to see if your book has already been added to their database. One of your readers could have already added it for you.
If you don’t find your book listed, take these steps to manually add your book:
- Click “My Books” along the top
- Click “Import/Export” along the left side
- Click “manually add books” along the top
- Or use this link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/new
Once you are on your book page, click on the link for your name. It will open up to an author profile page. Click on the link that says “Is this you? Let us know.” and you will be able to send a request to join the Author Program.
Step two: Customize your author profile
There are many things you can do to customize your Goodreads author profile.
Here are a few recommendations:
- Add your author photo.
- Add a compelling author bio with a call to action to sign up for your e-mail list.
- Add your blog.
- Add at least one video.
To find out more information about the Goodreads author program, visit this URL: https://www.goodreads.com/help/list/author_program
If you need more personalized help, contact a librarian. The easiest way is to join the librarian’s group here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/220
Step three: Getting started on Goodreads
When you are first getting started on Goodreads, here are three things we recommend doing:
- Rate at least 20 books. This will unlock additional features that are not available to you until you add and rate at least 20 books.
- Start adding friends. Personally, I got started by importing friends from Facebook. This helped me add friends quickly.
- Remember to ask reviewers to post to Goodreads as well. Get the URL of your book page and give it to reviewers who agree to post a review for you.
9 ways to get your profile image to show up around Goodreads
Getting exposure for your author profile on Goodreads can create interest in you and your books. Here are a 9 ways you can get your profile image to show up around Goodreads once you have your account set up:
- Update your progress on a book you are currently reading. Click update status on that particular book’s Goodread’s page.
- Vote on a list http://www.goodreads.com/list
- Vote on a poll http://www.goodreads.com/poll
- Blog updates – this will happen automatically if you’ve connected your blog to your author profile.
- Rate a book and/or review it.
- Add a book to your shelves.
- Find a book and click “want to read”.
- Click the “like” button under someone else’s review.
- Respond to friend requests.
Conclusion
Do you have an author profile on Goodreads? If not, I encourage you to set one up today! If so, what tips do you have for authors on getting set up?
This article was originally published on The Future of Ink and is reprinted here in its entirety for our Magnolia Media Network readers.
