Is Goodreads Good for You?

This is a reblog of Ellis Schuman’s excellent post on the topic. I, too, have been puzzled as to how to use goodreads as an author. Twitter, Facebook, blog–sure, I can see how all of those work into an overall social media plan. Twitter and Facebook are for making friends. You post free blog content there, and hopefully, people from your target audience come to read your blog and later buy your books.

But goodreads just doesn’t seem that social to me. Ellis asked his readers how they use it, so be sure to read the comments section at the bottom. That’s where the truly valuable content is. Here’s the the post:

An email popped into my Inbox this morning. “Be my friend on Goodreads” was the subject line and in the body of the message I learned that someone wanted to add me as a friend on Goodreads. But wait – there was another email – another friend request. And another one. Every day I get invitations from five to ten people, none of whom I know, and they all want to be my friend.

I currently have more than 760 friends at the “world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.” I joined Goodreads a number of years ago in order to keep track of the books I was reading and to list an occasional review or two. My account lists 185 books, but I haven’t been updating it lately with my latest reading accomplishments or opinions.

What I can’t understand, and here I’m hoping that you can help me, is how to leverage Goodreads as a platform for a self-published author of fiction.

Limited success promoting my books

I have listed both of my books on Goodreads… For the rest of the post go to http://ellisshuman.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/is-goodreads-good-for-you.html.

About cathleentownsend

Avid writer and reader of Faerie tales and noblebright fantasy.