My Reviews at Goodreads
June 25, 2010 by Lillie
Not only do I enjoy helping authors promote their work, but I like to introduce readers to authors and books they may not know about. One way I do both of these things is writing book reviews. Primarily, I review self-published books or books from small press publishers here on my blog. However, I share many more reviews at Goodreads.
If you’re a member of Goodreads, I hope you’ll add me to your friends. Whether you’re a member or not, you can see all the books I’ve reviewed by clicking on my “read” bookshelf on my Goodreads profile. Although I haven’t reviewed every book on the shelf, I have rated them all and have reviewed (at least briefly) everything I’ve read since I joined Goodreads. Hope you enjoy discovering my favorite books.
GoodReads is great for anyone that loves to read and is always looking for the next great read. Good reads makes it possible for people to identify the books that they will like without having to read the book.
Michael,
Yes, Goodreads can be very helpful in deciding what to read. If you have similar tastes to someone else, choose books they recommend; if you have dissimilar tastes, avoid books they recommend.
Never heard of Goodreads before. I’ll have to check it out. I normally have a look at Amazon to find new books with high ratings.
skg,
Looking for high ratings at Amazon is also helpful. However, the system at Amazon is subject to abuse—authors can go to great lengths to get people to leave good reviews and high ratings. Encouraging readers to write reviews at Amazon.com is a legitimate and recommended promotion tactic, but sometimes people go over the line. On the other hand, there are always people who will leave a bad review and low rating for reasons totally unrelated to the quality of the book.
I think that is less happen at Goodreads because most of the readers there write reviews for the same reasons as I do: because we love to read and to share our favorite books with other readers.
At both places, some people tend to give either high or low ratings in general.
Also, I like to look for reviews at Goodreads rather than just ratings. Plus, you can look at other reviews by that person to see if they tend to rate high or low.
I advocate using Amazon and Goodreads and other review sites to get the best picture.
Thanks for sharing Lillie. I hadn’t heard of Goodreads and I’ll be checking out your reviews. I love being able to read reviews before I buy books – another great thing about the Internet.
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Cath,
I choose a lot of books on the basis of reviews along with other factors such as the genre, author, and blurb.
Not familiar with Goodreads, but I will check them out. Can you recommend how a new author of children’s books might best promote a book – with few finances? I would suspect that there are certain channels that must be followed.
John,
I don’t have a lot of experience promoting children’s books. One offline tactic that I know works for many children’s authors is school visits. That takes a lot of work both in making the contacts and setting up the visits and in actually spending time talking to children.
Online, I would try visiting blogs: both book blogs and “mommy” blogs. If you don’t already read those types of blogs, you would probably have the best success searching for and subscribing to such blogs. Read them enough to know whether they are a good fit for your book and leave comments whenever appropriate. Then contact the blogger to ask if they are open to doing a review or an interview or accepting a guest post from you.
Check out all the promotion opportunities available for free on Amazon.com. You can set up an author page and blog and do lots of other things to get your book in front of interested readers.
I joined up and added you as a friend! Great suggestion! Thank you! Now I have a place to put my book reviews!
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Dominique,
I’m delighted you joined and look forward to reading your reviews.
I never heard of Goodreads, and I read books every day. Thanks very much for the info, I will check it for sure
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Alex,
If you’re an avid reader, I think you’ll enjoy Goodreads.
Thank you for the heads up on Goodreads! Looks like a site I’ll enjoy for sure!
Chris,
I hope you enjoy it. If you’re a reader, I’m confident you will.
Lillie,
Thank you for your work inspiring people to write and read more. I was touched by your bio on good reads and how you fought though for your dream after the “wake up” call.
So many people these days have oneexcuse to many to not get on and do what they want in life – to anyone else readingthis, if you dream of writing then please write!
To paraphrase Maslow:
“If you’re writer in your soul then you must write, or you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.”
I read this and wrote my first book using Dragon voice activation software while recovering from a bike crash. – one of the best things I’ve ever done – “writing” that first book that is,
Lilli, keep it up, you’re an inspiration ;o)
Dave.
Dave,
I hope you fully recovered from the crash and am glad you were able to write a book during your recovery time. What kind of book? Is it available?
It was based around my daily action tips, aimed at giving people a bite sized tip to help them get motivated and overcome procrastination.
It is available from lulu.com
daily action tips workbook
But do let me know if you’d like a complimentary ebook version and I’ll send you a link via email.
Dave.
Dave,
I see the book has a different author name. Did you use a pseudonym or did you ghostwrite the book for someone else?
It looks like it might be an interesting book for me to read and review. I’d love to have the e-book version. Thanks!
Perhaps the biggest benefit of Goodreads is that you’ll have the chance to communicate with other people who love books as much as you do. You’ll find virtual companionship and conversation throughout the site. And you might uncover an unexpected literary gem in the process.
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Excellent point, Richard. Goodreads is a social media site for people who share a love of words and reading.
The goal of Goodreads is to find good reads, those books that leave you satisfied and/or wanting more. It is also about avoiding bad reads, which are books that aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. So, I feel its very useful.
Martin,
You’ve described benefits of Goodreads well. Sometimes I can tell I don’t want to read a book that another Goodreads member raves about because I’ve learned we have very different tastes. On the other hand, if someone else who has similar tastes recommends a book, I can be pretty sure I’ll like it, also.
Hi Lillie,
First off, I’d like to commend you on your blog. You have a great attitude and I really liked reading your responses to comments!
So I checked out Goodreads and read your review on Glenn Beck’s Common Sense. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of his, but I agree with what you say in your review about both parties becoming full of career politicians and it harming our country.
Anyway, I’m glad I found your blog, keep up the good work!
Jeremiah,
I’m glad you found the blog, also, as well as being glad that you found something of value in my review of Glenn Beck’s book even if you aren’t a fan of his. I look forward to seeing you back often.
I just subscribed, I look forward to reading future posts of yours!
Enjoy!
A really helpful comparison. I’m a Library Thing member and very happy with it, but have recently come across Goodreads – you’ve saved me some time experimenting, because it’s clear LT is the better fit for me.
Chris,
I haven’t used Librarything, although I have signed up so I can have an author page. I think it’s important for authors to have a presence everywhere people are talking about books, but it’s impossible to keep up with all the sites. What is it about LT that you like better? I haven’t used it enough to see the differences, except that anyone who reads very much has to have a paid membership at LT.
It may just be perception because so many more of the authors I know belong to Goodreads, but I think Goodreads may have more small press and self-published books, while LT is more geared to major publishers since they are associated with so many libraries. Do you think that’s an accurate perception? I want to be where readers are open to books published outside the large traditional publishers.
Goodreads offers a full fledged API as well as import and export functions. weRead appears to offer only an import function, with a stated pledge (and I have no idea how long ago it was first expressed) to provide an export feature at some future date. That’s a big plus for Goodreads. However, with ~1,000 entries in weRead, would have to slurp and scrape them up with my own developer sweat — a prospect less than tantalizing.
weRead seems to be more connected with other social networking sites, though Goodreads is represented with a Facebook application.
Paul,
I’m not familiar with weRead. Are you a member? I’ve added to my very long to-do list to register as an author at weRead. As I said in an earlier comment, I think it’s important for authors to have a presence wherever books are talked about; however, it’s impossible to be active on all the sites. I just want to be there in case someone looks for me.
I signed up for LT and Goodreads about the same time. I haven’t tried VB. Even though GR uses the same Amazon search as VB and lacks the search power of LT, you can establish an unlimited number of shelves and populate them using a drop-down menu. With LT, you have to add the tags each time. GR shows two books on FB on two shelves – Currently Reading and Read, so not as versatile as VB.
Michael,
What is VB? I’ve heard of Shelfari and weRead, but VB doesn’t ring a bell.
GR- I love the idea of putting books into community-wide groups. Some of my favorite groups include “The Rory Gilmore Book Club” and “I’m Glad Someone Made Me Read These Books.” While not directly related to organizing one’s collection, I enjoy the quotes feature immensely as I have a huge habit of writing down particularly poignant passages from every scrap I read. Author profiles and trivia are also worthwhile features while we’re on the subject.
Craig,
I can see you use many more features of Goodreads than I do. As I’ve said before, I’m not very adept at social media. I enjoy Goodreads because I like to share favorite books with others and see what others like. But I’m not taking advantage of nealy all the site has to offer.
I tried We Read for awhile because I couldn’t get my GoodReads to integrate with FB, and it bugged me. It was harder to find good books or see what people thought about them, and there wasn’t the flexibility that you have on GR. Plus (maybe I just never found it), they didn’t have some of the fun extras like giveaways, quotes/trivia, author pages, etc.
PLUS – now I can get my GR to work with FB, they must have made the app better or something. I have it set so I can fully access my GR from FB, plus publish any of my reviews/etc. to my news feed. Works great!
Stewart,
Thanks for the feedback on WeRead. I’d never heard of it until an earlier comment so it’s helpful to hear from someone who’s tried it. I’m glad you’ve got Goodreads and Facebook working together properly.
The site has quite a clean design that’s easy on the eye and also very easy to use. On the home page there is an option to sign up and create an account straight away. There is also a list of popular books and the worst books towards the bottom of the main page. It’s also possible to search for books by searching for the author, title or ISBN number. The community is great because you can use it to find a great book that you will really enjoy reading. Adding books to your bookshelf is just a matter of searching for it and then clicking the “add to my books” button and give it a rating. You can also write a review if you want.
Elina,
Sounds like you’re either a member of Goodreads or checked it out well.
Just found you. Great site for the exchange of ideas and concepts. Anyplace that encourages reading has my vote. Will return often.
Peter,
You’ll see a couple of reviews of Glenn Beck books on my Goodreads page.
There is, at times, a smell that pervades the air when certain people talk about literature. Maybe it’s the reek of mildewed pages, or wine and cheese gone stale from having sat for too long at a book-club meeting. Perhaps the pretentious literati can’t smell it because they’re too involved in the literature. Luckily, Goodreads contains neither smells nor a haughty forum for criticism. It is, instead, a simple yet fun site for readers to share their reading experiences with their online friends.
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Jennifer,
Your smell analogy made me smile. You’re right about Goodreads.
In a nutshell, the Goodreads App allows you to keep your friends updated on what you’re reading and how far you’ve progressed, and they can do the same to you. Find new books, rate old ones and check out what’s hot right now!
Larry,
That’s a nice summary of what Goodreads is.
Sometimes I’m not so sure I can trust other peoples reviews. Sometimes all people do is talk trash. I’m glad to hear you are reviewing on goodreads now. I know there is at least one trustworthy person writing reviews.
Dave,
There are some people who write reviews–negative or positive–out of a personal agenda, but I think most reviewers try to be fair. But tastes in books are subjective, and what one reader loves another hates. If I don’t care for a book, I try to point out people who might. I always to be completely fair–never trashing a book or author but never saying I like something I don’t.