Marketing 101: G is for Goodreads

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to return to these posts on Marketing.  I've been busy.  Today we are going to talk about one of my favorite sites.  If I had to give up all but one or two sites on the Internet, Goodreads is one I would fight to hold onto.  Why?

1.  Connect with readers:  This is a great place to hear what readers think about your books and others.  You can communicate with them (as long as you watch what you say).  More than any other site, Goodreads has helped me find readers that will love my books.

2.  Giveaways:  They have a great giveaway program on Goodreads.  It's too bad you aren't allowed to give away ebooks yet, but they say we will be able to at some point.  For now you can give away print copies to as many people as you want.  I signed up Crushed for the program and over a thousand people signed up to win it.  This helped to get the word out.  Some people only want it if it's free and will sign up for anything, but quite a few bought my book after they didn't win it.

3.  Reviews:  This is a great place to get reviews, although reading them might not be a good idea.  They have discussed this subject at length in groups on Goodreads.  Some people feel superior when they rip apart your work.  If they don't like the book, they should be allowed to express that, but some people enjoy the process of crushing books too much.  Still, some comments are helpful.  They don't like the book and they tell you why so that maybe you can learn from your mistakes.

4.  Blog:  You can connect Goodreads to your blog.  Any time you can connect your blog to another place it's a good thing.  More people will see it.  Awesome.

5.  Ads:  You can pay for an ad and make sure your target audience sees it.  I haven't done this yet, but I suspect I will try it someday.

6.  Events:  You can start an event for a book launch, blog tour, etc.  This is a great way to spread the word.

There are tons of things you can do on Goodreads.  It's an awesome site.  If you haven't tried it, you should.