Goodreads

Are you on Goodreads? I am! I hope you come over and join me. 
Tonya Kappes Goodreads 

But I want to know exactly how you use Goodreads. Do you only mark the books you want to read? Do you actually go to the author's pages and look around? Do you take advantage of the 'ASK THE AUTHOR' feature? 

I truly want to know how to connect with you on Goodreads!

Reader Monday

I'm so excited to welcome the first Monday of the new year and a new series that I'm going to be featuring on Mondays. I'm calling it READER MONDAY (Yeah, creative...I know.)

The one thing that you should know about me is that I'm all about me readers! I love connecting with them here on the blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads, and in person. There is nothing more fun than getting together with people who love to read! Go on over to my website and check out my news and events for places I will be traveling to this year. I hope y'all let me know if you live near these places because I would love to hook up!

So when I decided to move my blog to reader friendly, I wanted to let readers have a day where they can talk about books, why they like books, who they like, how they fit riding into their busy lives, or anything that strikes their fancy! I'm pretty open to anything.

I'm excited to have my first guest reader today. Lori Hickey is a member of my STREET TEAM and she is so much fun! When I asked her to guest blog as a reader, I didn't know she was going to talk about me...little ole me;) But I loved it! This is exactly how I want my readers to feel when they meet me or read my novels! Lori summed it up perfectly!

Over a year and a half ago I found a new Author (with a little help from a friend) who writes fun, quirky, magical and laugh out loud stories where you fall in love with the characters. 

Since then I have read all of her books and am eagerly waiting for her next one. Tonya Knappes is her name and let me tell you she is so much like her characters. 

Since reading and finding Tonya, who lives in Kentucky while I live in Vermont, we have become friends. She is very involved with her readers and really cares about them.

She has her Street Team on Facebook which I am a part of. Tonya has book release parties that last for hours giving away lots of wonderful goodies including books that her author friends have written. 

So not only is she sharing herself with us she shares her friends with us too. This is a win win for everyone.  We have book group meetings on our Kindle Fires with Tonya. Not many authors do that. 

We’ve even had fun as a “Big Brother” group during the summer months.

I wake up every morning and turn my iPad on and go to Facebook for our morning hello and fun cartoons. This has become such a part of my routine. I would miss it if it was all gone tomorrow.

I could go on and on about Tonya and her books and everything else that she does for us but I’ll end here and hope that you will read her books and find them as enjoyable as I do.

What about you? Do you have authors that reach out to their readers?

Master GOODREADS!

Monday we took a dive into the waters of Goodreads and HEAD FIRST, if I say so myself!

Here is what you should have learned:
1) Join Goodreads. . .NOW!
2) Find and claim your published books.
3) Join the author program.
4) While you wait to be approved for the author program, beef up your profile.
5) Add your blog RSS or Atom Feed.

Simple. . .

Today we are going to explore how to get some of those 5 million people on Goodreads to notice us!

Why Goodreads? BECAUSE I said so. No, really. Think about it. There are three people who join Goodreads: READERS, WRITERS. . .um. . .okay, TWO BIG reasons! BUT the component is BOOKS!!

Everyone on Goodreads is there to connect over BOOKS. Good for us because that is what we do!

Today we are going to look at GROUPS and how to join them and why!

The people! Most of the people who belong to Goodreads are not only readers, but they are BLOGGERS! Bloggers who read, have readers who follow them, readers who read their blogs, and they write reviews. Like any other groups that are on other social networking sites, Goodread groups have rules about promotion and more, so you have to read all of those before you go and post what you think you can post.

NO SPAMMING!!!

How do you find these groups? Easy...
1) Click on the GROUP tab at the top of the Goodreads homepage. It will take you to a page of listed groups that are in columns: my groups, popular groups, ALL sorts of groups! On the right side you will see TAGGED groups or what I like to call TARGETED groups.

I joined a couple target groups for Chick-lit and Mystery. WHY?? Because that is my targeted reading group....duh!

Here you want to explore the groups, and see if they are right for you. THEN join! If the group is NOT right for you, after you have joined, they won't hold you hostage...simply leave the group and go to the next group.

It's a little like speed dating. (Is if I'd know....) But if I did have a history of speed dating...that is what I'd think it was like *wink*.

The groups that are categorized as POPULAR and RECENTLY ADDED, are ones you should definitely take a look at. These are obviously where readers are going to check out first.

2) After you join you will want to check out the BOOKSHELF in the group. YOU WANT TO BE ON THE BOOKSHELF!! How?

Easy. . .top left is a search box for the bookshelf of your group, simply type your name in and see if your book pops up. If it doesn't, your books will pop up and you simply click the add button.

Sometimes the moderator has to approve your book to be on the group bookshelf.

3) Members.
You want to know who the members are. You might even be friends with a couple of them.

4) Discussion tab! I LOVE THIS TAB!
This is where you will see all the topics or create a new topic in the group. It's great! You need to go in and introduce yourself in the introduction topic thread AND make sure you introduce why you want to be a part of the group...NOT BUY MY BOOK!! You have to be a genuine, likable author!!!
(OHHH. . .need blog post on likability factor!)

5) Events.
If there is an event scheduled for the group, like an author interview or skype session, it will be listed here.

6) Polls.
These are fun! Go into the poll section where you will be able to see what the readers LOVE or HATE.
In one of my mystery groups, the members vote on cozy themes they love best. Most of the time it is exactly the OPPOSITE of what NEW YORK PUBLISHERS say is selling!

Why did you need me to breakdown the part of Goodreads and why is it important to you?

BECAUSE THE READER HAS DONE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU! Let me retype that.
THE READER HAS DONE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU!! (that deserved two exclamation points)

* The reader has already put themselves in a genre. Your target audience.
* There are group discussions that you can participate in as well as take advice straight from your target reader!
* You can see who is active and who isn't. The active ones are your reviewers and bloggers!! GET TO KNOW THEM!
~check out those members
~see who has a blog or is a reviewer
~friend them
~follow them on twitter
~follow them on facebook
~offer a FREE copy of your novel for their review...HONEST review.
~participate in the group discussions and DO NOT SPAM!!
~look at the discussion threads and see if you can write a blog post that you can put in the thread. This will help you gain blog followers and readers.

All in all, Goodreads is a place to be genuine, commiserate with like-minded people, and meet some new bloggers/reviewers. Take the time to get to know them. Don't jump in and market yourself. REMEMBER, you are making an impression on them. You are giving them your branded image.  Be kind. Be smart. PARTICIPATE!