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Any Authors On Goodreads? What Was Your Experience?

Anything considered a "hustle" and not necessarily a CENTS-based Fastlane

Roli

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So I'm back after a long depression and I've started writing again, in my current situation I think it's about the only chance I have...

Anyways, I was looking at the whole Goodreads route and in order to get on their author list I want to try and publish through Kindle Unlimited and then get myself onto Goodreads and hopefully get some exposure/critiques for my books.

Just wondering if any authorpreneurs are on there and what their experiences are.
 
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MTF

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I don't recommend it. Goodreads is a place where people unhappy with their lives or otherwise needing help/approval/their ego stroked publish snarky, hurtful reviews. It doesn't really work as a marketing channel and it doesn't work as a way to interact with your readers, either.

You're unlikely to learn anything useful from most book reviews. If you want to improve your writing, it's better to work with a good editor and then hire a few professional beta readers who will give you a thorough, constructive critique. You may also get some feedback on r/writing (never done it but it looks way more useful than Goodreads since you're getting feedback from other writers who just want to help).
 

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Goodreads is a place where people unhappy with their lives or otherwise needing help/approval/their ego stroked publish snarky, hurtful reviews.

Interesting and here I thought it was something I alone noticed. The reviews there always seem to be on the lower end, for all books.

I used Goodreads some years ago for giveaways which worked spectacularly for giving away books while getting nothing in return. ;-)
 

Roli

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I don't recommend it. Goodreads is a place where people unhappy with their lives or otherwise needing help/approval/their ego stroked publish snarky, hurtful reviews. It doesn't really work as a marketing channel and it doesn't work as a way to interact with your readers, either.

You're unlikely to learn anything useful from most book reviews. If you want to improve your writing, it's better to work with a good editor and then hire a few professional beta readers who will give you a thorough, constructive critique. You may also get some feedback on r/writing (never done it but it looks way more useful than Goodreads since you're getting feedback from other writers who just want to help).

Thanks for the info. I have zero funds and am finding it very difficult to save. The only thing I can do for free is write. I'm just trying to find a route to market that doesn't cost me thousands...

What do you think of Kindle Unlimited?
 
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Thanks for the info. I have zero funds and am finding it very difficult to save. The only thing I can do for free is write. I'm just trying to find a route to market that doesn't cost me thousands...

What do you think of Kindle Unlimited?

Unfortunately the market is beginning to become more and more a pay to play kind of a thing. Amazon isn't giving much visibility to people who aren't driving sales themselves.

If I didn't have a marketing budget, I wouldn't even know how to launch a book. I guess you could put in a lot of effort building some kind of a following first but that's like having two completely different jobs.

Kindle Unlimited is almost a requirement in some niches where most books are available for KU subscribers. It gives you some additional marketing tools but merely lowering your price with a countdown deal isn't going to generate sales anymore.

It may help get more people to try your book (since KU subscribers essentially pay zero for KDP Select enrolled books) but you get paid much less if it's a borrow and you're 100% dependent on Amazon.

I think it's a good idea in some niches and possibly helps gain some traction but I wouldn't say that it does anything spectacular by itself.

I think I would probably start with freelance writing to save some money and then spend it on launching your books. A good cover alone can cost a few hundred dollars. And without a good cover, you have no chances of success.
 

seraphine

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Here's a good analysis of how Goodreads works, if you're interested, though it focuses primarily on "classic" books.
The first key insight is that Goodreads purposely conceals and obfuscates its data from the public.... It's not just difficult for researchers to collect Goodreads reviews. It's difficult for anyone to interact with Goodreads reviews. Though more than 90 million reviews have been published on Goodreads in the site's history, one can only view 300 reviews for any given book in any given sort setting, a restriction that was implemented in 2016.
Based on our analysis, we found that the first 300 default visible reviews for any given book develop into an echo chamber. Once a Goodreads review appears in the default sorting, in other words, it is more likely to be liked and commented on, and more likely to stay there (figure 6). Meanwhile the majority of reviews quickly age beyond "newest" status and become hidden from public view. These liking patterns reveal that Goodreads users reinforce certain kinds of reviews, such as longer reviews (figure 7), reviews that include a "spoiler alert" (figure 9), and reviews written by a small set of Goodreads users who likely have many followers (Table 2).
 

Roli

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Unfortunately the market is beginning to become more and more a pay to play kind of a thing. Amazon isn't giving much visibility to people who aren't driving sales themselves.

If I didn't have a marketing budget, I wouldn't even know how to launch a book. I guess you could put in a lot of effort building some kind of a following first but that's like having two completely different jobs.

Kindle Unlimited is almost a requirement in some niches where most books are available for KU subscribers. It gives you some additional marketing tools but merely lowering your price with a countdown deal isn't going to generate sales anymore.

It may help get more people to try your book (since KU subscribers essentially pay zero for KDP Select enrolled books) but you get paid much less if it's a borrow and you're 100% dependent on Amazon.

I think it's a good idea in some niches and possibly helps gain some traction but I wouldn't say that it does anything spectacular by itself.

I think I would probably start with freelance writing to save some money and then spend it on launching your books. A good cover alone can cost a few hundred dollars. And without a good cover, you have no chances of success.

Thanks for the info, it is as I suspected but thought there might be some hidden info gem there somewhere.

I'll keep plugging away, also going to take the slowlane route of sending out manuscripts to agents/publishers etc.
 
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MTF

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I'll keep plugging away, also going to take the slowlane route of sending out manuscripts to agents/publishers etc.

Keep going, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

Sending out manuscripts to agents/publishers isn't slowlane. Most big names owe their success to publishing houses. This is slowly shifting today but it's still a viable route for some people.
 

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