Someone please walk me through what an Author should be doing on Goodreads.

[Ronald McIsaac]

With Goodreads, I'm waiting for the ebook giveaway option to kick in. I spent around $130 CAD mailing paperbacks around North America on my last giveaway with Goodreads. I unpublished the book a year later, though. That said, I'm hoping to find some beta readers this time around...

[KBoards.com]

[Not any more]

There are specific Read4Review groups on Goodreads if you want reviews. Find one that fits your genre, read the club guidelines and post a reviewers wanted request.

If you have a thick skin and are feeling adventurous, running your books through the read-for-review programs can be good exposure. Yes, you'll get some lousy reviews, but you may get some good ones that will cross post on Amazon and B&N.

Be careful about identifying yourself as an indie. Some genres/groups are more tolerant of it or embrace it. Others are indie hostile. One of the things that I find most useful about GR is monitoring the market and seeing what people are reading. You can even start threads to gauge reader interest in ideas or pet peeves - just don't do it as an author. Do it as a reader.

The one thing that Libby cites in her post from 2013 that I don't do is review. There are some crazy authors out there, along with some really nasty, bitter ones. I don't need revenge reviews or those who think that tearing down other books will somehow make theirs better.

What I do use the site for is beta readers. Free beta readers. Yes, the feedback is of uneven quality, but they have been very helpful and when I gift them with a free copy of the book after publication, a source of initial reviews.

[Nathan Van Coops]

One of the useful tools Goodreads offers is the chance to get in book of the month club reads. I've found that very useful. I am a co-moderator of a group for time travel and we do a group read each month. Members typically vote for books they want to read and we tackle them. The cool thing about that is if your book gets selected, you tend to get linked to all the other books a group has read in Amazon's also boughts. My book for example was selected a while back, and since the group had also read a lot of classic time travel and also contemporary bestsellers like Stephen King's 11/23/63, it now has a connection to those books on Amazon. A Goodreads group of even as small as 10-20 people all reading the same books together has an interesting effect on your visibility.*

You can't just barge into a group and get your book read obviously. You definitely need to be a member of a group as a reader. That is your number one priority, but I think you should be doing that anyway. Joining a group related to your genre keeps you informed of your target readers' likes and dislikes and helps make you more knowledgeable on the genre in general. If you are writing science fiction but not reading it, you won't be likely to know what's new and capturing readers attention. I believe the value of reading critically and heavily in your genre can't be understated. Talking to other fans of the genre really opens your mind up. It's also my favorite place to reach other authors and develop connections and friendships.

*If you want to see what other books yours is linked to right now, check out www.yasiv.com and type the title of your book into the search bar on top. Fun tool.

[Tilly]

There are some crazy authors out there, along with some really nasty, bitter ones. I don't need revenge reviews or those who think that tearing down other books will somehow make theirs better.

I don't review, I do rate books I really enjoyed so the algorithms kick in and recommend me other similar books.

Unfortunately crazy self published authors are all over GR. I had one author 1-star my entire catalogue and then email and tell me she would only remove the 1-stars WHEN I 5-starred her entire catalogue. I don't respond well to blackmail, I told her what she could do with her request...

[Tilly]

Wtf is Listopia? all I know is my books aren't in it.

Listopia are simply lists of books. They are reader created and curated. They can be anything the reader wants, like 2015 debut YA fantasy, or Best Orange Shifter Covers.

Leave Listopia to readers. Do NOT stick your books on readers lists and upvote your own book. Readers can tell. It makes some readers grumpy and can result in negative backlash. It's another example where authors try to impose their books on a reader environment. You need to stop viewing Goodreads as a marketing opportunity, it's a book related social media site. One that has experienced a lot of rampaging special snowflake authors which has made many readers wary, sceptical and yes, hostile in some cases. Once you see what some authors are doing on GR from a readers perspective, you can understand why they don't want authors climbing all over everything.

[KBoards.com]