Saturday, January 31, 2015

GoodReads, are you there?

For an author, Goodreads is a is one of the must be places if you want to find readers for your work. I have been on there for over two years. Getting reviewed there can happen but for most books to be selected as a book of the month requires at least a hundred reviews with most reviews being over a four star rating. You can not nominate your own books but if you have a friend or reader that is a member of Goodreads, they can nominate you. Then the hard part is getting enough members to vote for your book. If you are a nationally known author, you are in the running with ease. Still, getting the word out about your books is helped having them on Goodreads. 

For those newbies, another good place to learn all about publishing and what you have to do to get your baby published. I would recommend you join LinkedIn to obtain the information you need to go about getting it published. Don't make the same mistake I made of publishing first then learning what I should have done to be successful. Going back and starting all over is twice as hard as doing it right the first time. Either way, until you build an author's platform, you might as well be pissing in the wind.

Most everyone is published on Amazon these days. Being committed to having your book for ninety days on Amazon when you first publish is no big deal. Ninety days is nothing in the book world, now days. After the ninety days, I would suggest that you not re-up for another ninety days but place your book elsewhere, such as Smashwords to reach different readers. You will leave it on Amazon plus adding another site. The more places you can gain exposure, the better. Amazon will still remain the place where you sell the majority of your books unless you sell them through a well promoted website. 

another good place to be is the Black Orchid Book club, they are international like GoodReads, if you can get them to read your book (s).  For those struggling to build their author's platform, Rave Review Book Club is another worth looking into even though they charge. Author's Den, World Literary cafe, LibraryThing, Shelfari and a host of other places is a nice place to have your books on. The more places your books appear, the better for you even though I have as yet to learn of any of my books selling on those sights. I guess, since most connect directly to Amazon, I don't know when the other sites helped me or not. 

Talk back, I'm listening as always. Have a great weekend!  

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