Three Ways to Activate a Goodreads News Feed Trigger.
What is Goodreads? It’s a social network with over 90 million readers where they can search, review, discuss and connect over books. There are good reasons for indie authors to use Goodreads, namely getting your book into the sights of potential readers. Readers can discover and add your books, creating an opportunity for visibility that hopefully results in more page reads, sales and reviews.
The aim of this post will be to provide you with three top tips to increase your exposure on the platform by getting your book into the news feeds of your followers and your followers’ followers.
1. Like or Comment on Reviews
Every book listed in Goodreads can have reviews and a book rating (out of five) added to its page. Users are able to like these ratings or reviews and are also able to leave a comment or start a discussion with the reviewer.
Each time a user leaves a review or a rating, the book’s details are displayed with the action post in that user’s news feed to all of their friends and followers. Anyone liking or commenting on the post will trigger it to then appear in their friends and follower’s posts. The more people who comment or like the post allows it to have an almost exponential reach appearing in each of their news feeds.
You can do this at any time. Like or comment on your reviews a few times a week or a month.
2. Reading / Status Update
On the top left side of your Goodreads home screen there is a section labelled, Currently Reading.
Adding a book in this section will trigger it to appear within the news feeds of your Goodreads friends and followers. Not only that, this tool allows you to update your progress by choosing the percentage you want and gives the option of adding a written update with each progression. Again, each time you update the progress it will appear in your news feed.
Examples of things to add into a progression update:
– Key book dates and details for preorder, release or sales
– Author updates for the plotting, drafting, writing or editing
– Short excerpts
– Anything you think the readers will find interesting
3. Share a Book
On the book’s page, to the right of the cover and next to the Facebook share icon, there is a small arrow with the word, share. By clicking on this, a new screen will open asking you to share something about this book on Goodreads. Not only has it space for you to write something to be shared in your news feed, it will display it with your cover, author name and blurb.
Hyperlinks work within this function, so website or buy links can be added easily. This is a great way to share information about a sale or a giveaway and have it seen in your news feed.
Goodreads can be a powerful tool when used to your advantage. It has the potential to get your book into the view of new potential readers. By utilizing one or all of these tips you can increase exposure and hopefully interest in your book.
Thanks for reading, until next time.
Kirsten x
Indie Author's Book Services 