Click to visit MWSA’s Goodreads page
Goodreads, often referred to as the Facebook or Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb) for readers and authors, is more than just a platform. It's a vibrant community boasting an impressive user base. With over 150 million members, 200,000 registered authors, and a staggering 3.5 billion books on file, it's clear that Goodreads is the go-to platform for readers and book recommendations. Let’s delve into why you should consider joining this thriving community.
Goodreads offers a unique opportunity for authors to connect with their readers on a deeper level. Imagine your book, like the 2024’s most popular book, The Women, being reviewed by a whopping 361,609 readers, who have collectively posted 44,801 reviews, giving it an impressive overall score of 4.66 out of 5.0. These reviews are not just numbers; they are your readers' voices, shaping your work's perception.[i]
This should signal to us that a large audience of users of this database routinely access book listings and express their opinions. Participation is also a straightforward way to keep track of what you have read in the past, much like you can do with movies on IMDb. The more books you enter that you want to, are, or have read, the better the software can recommend books for you to read based on your preferences. Amazon.com does the same thing based on your purchases and browsing history.
As an author, you can post an author profile with links to any work for sale on Amazon.com and attract fans and followers for you and your books. Goodreads will automatically import any book from Amazon.com that lists you as a contributor. A posting of your books affords you the prospect of adding an enticing description that might convince someone to purchase your work (helpful links to sites are included). It also allows you to introduce searchable metadata on your book by readers looking for various subjects and keywords. When readers have read one of your books, they click on a link to your author page and follow you. You can see what friends are reading and how they rank any book. Private messaging and group discussions are allowed between members of groups and friends.
As a publisher, and anyone that is an indie or self-publisher this means you, you will undoubtedly want to take advantage of a highly robust and free author page available to anyone Goodreads qualifies as a Goodreads Author. Generally, this is anyone with a published book who is listed as a contributor – thus including chapter authors for anthologies. As a Goodreads Author, you can post your photo, a bio, answers to questions the site or you provide, a video of perhaps you reading a portion of your work, a list with links to your books, a blog, lists of books you are reading, quotes by you, quotes by others that you like, results of polls, and authors that you like. This is in addition to groups you can join, friends you can collect, and announcements of events sent automatically to your friends, like on Facebook. There is a separate page for giveaways. You can enter some data initially, go back, and fill in the rest later. The author’s page alone should be sufficient reason to get involved.
Goodreads, like Amazon.com, now require separate author pages for each name under which you are published.[ii] Amazon.com owns Goodreads, and books listed on Amazon should routinely appear in it. A librarian group helps fix metadata problems. A Goodreads app is available on most smartphones, permitting access from your mobile device.
MWSA has an active Goodreads profile, where we post reviews of books submitted by members for our annual writing contest.[iii] Each awards season, we add books to a “shelf” for that season’s year. For example, here’s a link to our 2024 season page.[iv] As of now, we have posted over 800 of our MWSA authors’ books. We have forty-nine friends and sixty-two followers. In other words, creating your own author page and having MWSA post your book on our awards season page will help generate sales for your book.
Join your fellow members and take advantage of the opportunities afforded by this excellent and free program designed to support writers like you. Visit our page today… and don’t forget to become a friend and follower of MWSA’s Goodreads page!
[i] https://www.goodreads.com/book/popular_by_date/2024 and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127305853-the-women
[ii] For example, https://www.goodreads.com/jimtritten contains my more recent publications where I used the pen name Jim Tritten while https://www.goodreads.com/jamestritten generally contains my older and academic publications. There is overlap just as there are on both of my Amazon.com author pages.
[iii] https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/69843339-military-writers-society-of-america-mwsa
[iv] https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/69843339?shelf=2024