Goodreads is probably the most important platform for readers to keep track of the books they’ve read or want to read.
If you want to support me on Goodreads, you’ll need your own account. The Goodnews is that it’s easy to make one and that it’s free. Once you’ve got one, you can
1. Follow me on Goodreads
Follow me in 2 clicks:
- Click on this link to go to my Author’s Account.
- Click on the button Follow Author, right under the avatar in the top left corner, and it will change into Following.
That’s it.
2. Become Goodreads friends with me
Notice that down-pointing angle bracket next to the Follow Author button? (It looks like this: ﹀)
If you click it you get some more options to interact with authors on Goodreads.
2.1. Add as a friend
What’s the difference between becoming friends with an author or another reader and just following that person?
Following goes one way: Readers can follow authors or other readers, and the one being followed is not required to do anything. They don’t have to accept or approve followers, and they don’t need to interact with them. The blog posts, reviews, and comments of the one you follow will appear in your feed, but your own comments and reviews will not appear in the feed of the one you follow. Unless you’re also friends.
Becoming Goodreads friends is a two-way commitment. Both people have to agree to it. Typically, one will send a request and the other will accept or not.
I almost always accept. You’d have to be the cruel dictator of some small hermit nation for me to think twice.
If you are friends with someone, their reviews and comments will appear in your feed, and yours in theirs.
It is also possible to be both a follower and a friend simultaneously.
2.2. Send message
This is a good way to communicate between people who use Goodreads on a daily basis.
I don’t and I much prefer you use the Contact page on my own site. Your call, of course. Either way I’ll try to answer as soon as possible.
2.3. Add to my favorite authors
Yes, please.
The other functions are more or less self-explanatory.
3. Rate my books
On Goodreads you can rate a book without having to review it.
This makes it a fast and easy one-click operation to reward the authors of books you like.
You can click the stars right under the cover thumbnail in the left top corner of the book’s page.
As on Amazon, the first book of the series bears the brunt of disappointed readers. At the time of writing, July 2019, The Invisible Hands — Book I: Bonds of Hate had 531 ratings with an average of 3.70 stars out of 5.
The other books have fewer ratings but a far higher average, because only the readers who liked the first one went on reading the next books. As a result the whole series had 1,460 ratings with an average 4.18 stars at the time of writing.
It’s obvious that good ratings for the first book of a series are very important as they will boost the average of the first book a prospective reader is likely to see.
The other books of the series usually have fewer ratings — half or less, but with an higher average — and yet here too sheer numbers are important.
To make it super easy, here are all the links to the individual book pages of the series:
4. Review my books
When you rate a book, you will be prompted to review it. A pop-up menu will appear above the stars.
You don’t have to write a review, but you can.
If you want to submit a review, click on the Write a review text.
Enter your review on the following page, and click on Save to submit.
If you don’t write a review immediately, you can always add one later.
Once you have had any interaction at all with a book page, a new section, MY ACTIVITY, will appear.
As you can see, this section allows you to add or edit a lot of information, among which add or edit a review.
5. Like reviews by others
Under each review is a Like button. Reviews are ordered according to how many likes they have, so readers will see the reviews with the most likes first.
Please, like the reviews that you think best represent the book. This is especially important for the first book as reading that one may convince someone to read the whole series.
5. Vote for my books on lists
On Goodreads there are hundreds of lists from Best Books Ever over Worst Titles Ever to Best Books About Plants That Eat Things They Oughtn’t.
They can be great fun, but some are also informative.
Some readers use those lists to find books in a specific genre or with certain characteristics.
If nothing else, lists give the books they feature more exposure.
On any list page you will find a few options in the right top corner.
As you can see, you could create a list yourself if you want, or, less complicated, nominate one of my books on an appropriate list.
The simplest, however, is voting for my books on lists they’re already on.
In my case, the first book in the Dark Tales series is the most important.
Here are all the lists featuring the first book of the series with for each list the exact ranking. When you click on a list, you immediately go to the place the book is on at that moment. There is a Vote For This Book button. Just click. Very easy.
5. Like quotes from my books
Goodreads maintains a large database of quotes. These quotes can be ordered by author or by subject. This last function is important because when people look for quotes about a specific subject with a search engine, often one of the first results, if not the first, is the Goodreads list of that subject.
As usual it’s all about visibility.
Liking quotes is very easy.
This link brings you to the Goodreads page with Andrew Ashling Quotes.
Next to each quote is a Like button. You just have to click.
Once you have liked a quote, buttons will appear so you can share it with your friends on Facebook and your followers on Twitter. Please do.
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