Social networking is an essential part of any books marketing strategy, and for self-published authors, no social network has had such a meteoric rise as GoodReads.
With over 25 million members currently residing on the site – not to mention over 400 million book titles – GoodReads has often been compared to Facebook due to its social networking abilities. However, due to its acquisition by Amazon in 2013, it has more in common with Instagram, which built up a huge following and reputation before being purchased by Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2012.
GoodReads is a must-have social network for authors and readers alike, as it can connect both the author to their readers and introduce readers to authors of different niches and stages of their career, from first-time self-publishers to established traditionally published authors who simply wish to converse with their readers.
One of GoodReads greatest attributes is that it enables the community to review books and share their recommendations (and dislikes) across a wide-reaching platform. GoodReads is also connected to Amazon, and can also be connected to other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, making GoodReads the ideal platform for authors to have their works find a wider audience online.
It could only take one great review from a reputable GoodReads author or reviewer to catapult your book up the Amazon rankings and improve your sales considerably. Give GoodReads a chance and allow your book to be reviewed by the community.
Sign up to the Author Program and Encourage Interaction
Signing up to GoodReads and joining groups and discussions on forums in a great way to connect, but when the endgame is to get more reviews from the GoodReads community, the best way to achieve this is to sign up to the Author Program. Here you can set up a profile as an author and connect your books directly to your page.
The author program has many cool features that encourage reviews, including giving you the opportunity to embed a GoodReads author widget into your website, forever linking your books, reviews and your profile between the two. The more people see that your books are garnering attention and reviews, the more likely they are to check them out and purchase a copy.
If you are an active user, more of the GoodReads community are going to engage with you. The author program allows you to post videos and create a quiz for community members to get involved with. This can help to raise your profile and get people interested in who you are and what books you’re writing.
Create an Ad to Encourage Readers to Your Books
GoodReads makes its money from authors and publishers paying for advertising, and it’s easy to understand why: 300 million page views and 45 million unique visitors per month. There aren’t many authors out there who can afford to pass up an opportunity like that to find an audience for their novels, particularly if you’re just starting out on the self-publishing path and you’re eager to increase those sales.
Reviews are one of the best ways to achieve increased sales, as the opinion of strangers carries a lot of weight in the book world. With GoodReads advertising, you can target age, gender, genre and location and you only pay for the clicks you achieve. The great benefit of a targeted ad is that the reviews will come from people who are actively looking to read books in the specific market you have targeted, meaning that the reviews are more likely to be positive if your storytelling is of an exceptional standard.
Find the Top Reviewers for Your Niche and Make Contact
While you should be using GoodReads to meet authors, publishers, agents and readers of all genres, it pays to be a little tactical in the connections you seek to make. This is especially true if you’re looking to gain more reviews from your books.
One of the ways to do this is to target the most active users and reviewers in the niche that your book fits into, and hope that your interaction will lead to them picking up your book, reading it and reviewing it on their popular profile. You could always contact them and simply ask for a review, but you may be brushed off if you come across to desperate for approval.
That isn’t to say that you should be a sneak with your GoodReads connections. It is simply a recommendation to consider who you are making connections with instead of adding all of your friends and family in a Facebook-style way instead of prioritising and focussing on getting your novel the publicity it deserves.
Read more:
Use Giveaways to Promote Your Books and Gain Reviews
Whether it’s a short-term special offer to increase sales or a pre-release strategy to build the buzz leading up to the release of your self-published novel, nothing gives your book a great chance of achieving a solid number of reviews than to create a GoodReads giveaway.
People love to read, and when those books are free to read, they’re always a little sweeter. A giveaway is a superb way to get people talking about your book, whether they download it and write a review themselves or share the giveaway on their social media accounts and bring in readers from outside the GoodReads community. Either way, the reviews should come flooding in if you turn your giveaway into an event.
Read more:
Give a Little Back and Become a Reviewer Yourself
As everybody is aware, relationships should never be totally one-sided, and with that in mind, it is important not to allow yourself to become a selfish user of GoodReads. If you only use it for your own gain, people will catch on pretty quickly and label you a spam artist, which is a label that you definitely don’t want hanging over you.
Authors who use GoodReads should look to recommend and review books themselves, and be active users of the groups and forums on offer. Dishing out helpful advice, sharing insights into your self-publishing career and simply recommending authors will give your profile a massive boost, and will actively encourage other GoodReads users to read and review your books. Giving a little back will have never been so rewarding.
Read more:
-
GoodReads Announces New Content Policy – Now Deletes Reviews Which Mention Author Behaviour
-
The Bullies of GoodReads
The post How to Get Reviews for Your Self-Published Novel from the GoodReads Community appeared first on Million Pens.