Marketing and Goodreads

 … at the risk of being repetitive, I would like to remind everyone of an internet site that can help our author group get more attention for our books. It is a free site and requires only an e-mail address to become a member. This site can help with publicity, reviews, and sales.  

There is a book/reading website named Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/). People sign up for the free site and then list books they have read and give ratings (one to five stars) on those books. The member can also provide a review for the books they list, if they wish. The whole purpose is to generate an internet family that lists ratings and reviews of books. There are now over 8 million users and 330 million books listed on the site. As an example, I listed my book Circle of Service (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13400957-circle-of-service). Goodreads does not sell books, but does suggest places where one could purchase the book.

What may be of interest to MWSA members is the giveaways on Goodreads. Any member who has used the site for a while can list their book in the giveaways … this is where you offer to send a free copy of your book to a fixed number of Goodreads members who enter to win that book. When I tried it I offered 5 copies of my book and 479 people entered to get a copy (http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/26373-circle-of-service-secretary-of-the-air-force-michael-w-wynne-the-fam). Goodreads does the random selection and notifies you who the winners are – all you do is mail the free copies, so the expense is minimal. The quid pro quo in giveaways is that the people who enter to win are encouraged to write up a review and post it on the Goodreads site … if they do, this provides a bit of publicity for your book.
Our own Joyce Faulkner and Jim Greenwald are already listed on Goodreads, as are many other MWSA members. You can claim your author’s name and post a picture of yourself (Joyce did, Jim hasn't) … and list all your books if they are not already on the site. Remember that any reviews on Goodreads supplement the reviews on our MWSA site. MWSA members can list their reviews for other MWSA members, sort of a cross-publicity effort.  All-in-all I think Goodreads offers us another way to get our work out in public. Cheers.