Any feedback on Goodreads?

forsusan

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I've been trying to market a book, I have it on KDP, Library thing, and Smashwords (for me the best so far). Does anyone have any dope on Goodreads. I understand they are part of Amazon? I've tried contacting twice about something, but no response. Thank you in advance.
 

mrsmig

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Goodreads is owned by Amazon.

What is it you want to do on Goodreads? I see your book listed there...
 

lizmonster

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IME Goodreads is a terrific resource for readers, but not an efficient marketing tool for writers. It doesn't hurt to have a friendly author profile there and to be open to answering questions, but I don't know that your personal participation will increase your readership much.
 

forsusan

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Thank you for responding. I'm publishing a book in memoriam for Susan. So I'm the editor and publisher, not the author. I always explain my situation when applying to have an author profile. I wrote to goodreads twice requesting a response, and they didn't respond. I'm going to forget about them.
 

Arpeggio

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I did a Kindle Giveaway on GR a month ago out of curiosity. 100 copies won, 220 entrants. From this I got 4 ratings on GR, of which three 5 star and one four star. Also one 4 star rating with review text. Nothing appeared on Amazon. Might use again for another book.
 

WriterBN

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Goodreads has a pay per click advertising program, it's fairly new, but it's about as effective as AMS, in other words fairly worthless.
From my experience using the Goodreads ad service a couple of years ago, AMS is far more effective (although not as effective as it used to be when the program started).
 

Polenth

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Thank you for responding. I'm publishing a book in memoriam for Susan. So I'm the editor and publisher, not the author. I always explain my situation when applying to have an author profile. I wrote to goodreads twice requesting a response, and they didn't respond. I'm going to forget about them.

Author profiles are for the authors, not for the publishers, so I don't expect they'll give you control of the author profile. However, you can start up a profile for yourself and become a librarian. This will let you edit book details and author profiles (where the author isn't on Goodreads). It's a good idea to make sure the entries are correct on Goodreads, as readers do use it to find books.
 

Erato

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I have gotten a sale or two through Goodreads by participating in discussion groups there (I know because I had some books that had flatlined for over a year, then after mentioning them in GR groups I got a sale, nothing major but it's something.) But it's not a sales channel really. I did try paid ads on Goodreads and got no clicks at all -- happily they refunded me.
 

Arpeggio

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I did a Kindle Giveaway on GR a month ago out of curiosity. 100 copies won, 220 entrants. From this I got 4 ratings on GR, of which three 5 star and one four star. Also one 4 star rating with review text. Nothing appeared on Amazon. Might use again for another book.

8 ratings / reviews now. 4 x 5 stars, 3 x 4 stars and 1 x 1 star.

Amount of reviews on Amazon = 0

Shame that couldn't be on Amazon. I have to wonder what effect GR reviews have on sales on Amazon or sales on retailers generally? Some places do or used to aggregate reviews from GR (such as Book Depository or previously Google Play). From what I can see the reviews on GR are a bit less rigged and therefore more accurate than Amazon reviews, then again if Amazon started to show GR reviews the fakers would just move to GR to manipulate them.
 

Lisa Driscoll

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If what you're looking for is to get some reviews to list on GoodReads then I would search out bloggers (on Twitter). Contact them - please find their blogs and abide by their policy if they have one listed. Any blogger worth their salt does. Send them a nice contact email and ask them to review for you - specifically state you are looking for them to post on GR on Amazon.
 

Arpeggio

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8 ratings / reviews now. 4 x 5 stars, 3 x 4 stars and 1 x 1 star.

Amount of reviews on Amazon = 0

Did another eBook giveaway on GR recently. 6 ratings: 2 x 5 stars, 3 x 4 stars and 1 x 3 star.

Amount of reviews on Amazon = 0

Given the amount of fake reviews on Amazon I'd have thought they would be more interested in putting this refined petrol (actual ratings / reviews) into the tank of their car (business) rather than pouring it onto the floor (not the business).

I think that a Goodreads presence has been responsible for book sales, even though they aren't an author's marketing forum. It can't hurt to have a profile and your books listed.

I agree. The giveaways haven't been a total waste and at least they appear on some other retailer channels.
 
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DrDLN

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Good reads to me is like social media but you can list your books there. So any media is helpful to let people know what you have published...
 

Alessandra Kelley

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A significant number of Goodreads’ most prolific and willing reader-reviewers (including me) abandoned the site approximately six years ago after a number of dreadful incidents where authors (almost entirely self-published) were allowed to run wild, deleting reviews, gaming the list system to clog them with their own unrelated books, deleting readers’ personally created lists and replacing them with their own, and doxxing and threatening reader-reviewers (and in some cases our family members). The moderation at the time was dreadful, something like seven people for a site with millions of members and none at all on weekends (!)

Goodreads is a site for authors to flog their books which pretended to be an indexing and review sharing site for book lovers and readers. It quite brutally demonstrated that it was nothing of the kind and lost a significant number of its best reviewers and all of my goodwill a long time ago.

My two cents.
 

Al X.

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A significant number of Goodreads’ most prolific and willing reader-reviewers (including me) abandoned the site approximately six years ago after a number of dreadful incidents where authors (almost entirely self-published) were allowed to run wild, deleting reviews, gaming the list system to clog them with their own unrelated books, deleting readers’ personally created lists and replacing them with their own, and doxxing and threatening reader-reviewers (and in some cases our family members). The moderation at the time was dreadful, something like seven people for a site with millions of members and none at all on weekends (!)

Goodreads is a site for authors to flog their books which pretended to be an indexing and review sharing site for book lovers and readers. It quite brutally demonstrated that it was nothing of the kind and lost a significant number of its best reviewers and all of my goodwill a long time ago.

My two cents.

I have only been listed on them for three years. They must have fixed things since, as that does not appear to be the case now, at least that I can tell.