Before you can participate in Discussions you have to set up a Goodreads account. Goodreads is a free website for book lovers. Signing up is simple. Just google Goodreads then enter your name, email and a password. Goodreads giveaways have changed. Now an author can giveaway either a print, digital copy or both. The bad side is that it now costs to set up a giveaway.

How to start

To begin using Goodreads, select books you have written, have read or want to read. With each one, add them to “your books”. You can do this by searching for books. If your book is not on Goodreads, you can add it manually. If you have both ebook and paperback, you will have to add them twice. They will have different ISBN’s. You can rate books you have written and or read. Rating a book automatically adds them to your shelves. This is your personal book shelf.

Shelves

You begin with three shelves. Read, meaning you have read the book, currently reading, obvious you are reading it now and to-read, that’s a book you would like to read. I always called it a TBR book, to be read. Goodreads gives a reader or writer the ability to catalogue and put the books on shelves of their own making such as sic/fi, romance, mystery and so on.

Join or start Goodreads Discussions groups.

Discussions can be fun and interesting. To join a group, groups have to be joined before you can join others in the discussions. First, make sure you are on your home page. Hover over Community. A list of places to go will appear the first one is groups. I would suggest joining one group to start. The groups list how many members, when someone last posted and some will say they are closed. If the discussions of the group is not of your liking, pick another group. An email goes out when people post.

Goodreads Giveaway:

In December I was disappointed to learn an author could no longer host giveaways on Goodreads without writing a check to Goodreads which ultimately, I’m guessing, goes to Amazon. It seems this is just one more way to stick it to a struggling author. Now, I haven’t tried this giveaway so I’m surmising things that might not be true. However, in the twenty years I’ve been writing, the success of promotions that cost money are debatable. It has been rare that I’ve been able to recoup the cost of the promotion let alone make money. If Goodreads plans to promote the giveaway this might be successful. I’m going to give this giveaway one try and I’ll let you know if it’s results in a profit or even breaking even.

How do you feel about the change in Goodreads giveaways?

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