A Good Thriller discussion

Well that was kind of you. No one said Aaron was a bad guy, just some inappropriate comments made in the wrong forum. There's a place for everything, the skill is knowing that place. Hopefully you'll get over your cold soon. They can take it out of you. Get plenty of rest.

Thanks Janet. and I will. Planning on reading later anyway. and I know he wasn't a bad guy, he just had a weird sense of humor that people were offended by. and I understand.

Good for you. Happy reading! :)

Thanks you too Janet.

I admire anyone that has the ability to write a book, sometimes I have an idea but know I have no chance of creating a story out of it.

So I don my wig, sorry hat to all who can. May the pen be with you :-)

I do too. I write stuff too but I post it on goodreads for others to read cuz I love doing it in the weekly serial format. It's fun and I love getting feedback from it too.

hey all! :)

Hey all! Raining again! :-( Dreary day!

Aww. I'm sorry Janet. It's supposed to rain down here in TN later. Right now it's hot and sunny.

Hello fellow thriller members. I've been away for a few days enjoying my long weekend. I hope that everyone had a good weekend.

Hey Lorrea. My weekend was good. went to see a free Shakespeare play then went to see x-men at the movies. they were both good. I'm still trying to get over my cold though.

Sorry to hear you are still sick. I was at a cookout this weekend and they had different trees than I have around here and I was sneezing like crazy and my eyes wouldn't stop watering. I hope you don't have to suffer too much longer.

I hope not either Lorrea. It's just a summer cold. Had one last month too.

Hope you all get to feeling better soon! Did everyone get a long weekend this past week? I work for the state, so I have another long weekend coming up as well. Yea, for long weekends!

thanks Autumn. ^_^

Hey everyone! I've been so busy, I haven't been very active on GR this week. What a wonderfully rain soaked week it has been.

Michael and I love rain storms, especially when they include that low rumbling thunder that my mother calls the 'potato wagon on its way'. I don't think she ever actually heard a potato wagon, but you get the gist.

We've been working on our second book, and that is a great deal of creative fun, but a bit exhausting at times too.

I read the thread on Oak's TOWY. Wow! What an original idea he had. You all had great questions. He had to have been pleased with the group's participation in the Q&A.

Is there often a Q&A after a monthly group read? That one was really well executed. Oops. I didn't mean to make a pun. It just wrote itself.

Take care everyone, especially those in the sick ward.

Good Night, Sleep Tight,
Cynthia (The Garrett half of Garrett Smith)

Garrett wrote: "Hey everyone! I've been so busy, I haven't been very active on GR this week. What a wonderfully rain soaked week it has been.

Michael and I love rain storms, especially when they include that l..."

Hi Cynthia, there are a lot of Q&As in this group. I only joined a couple of months ago so don't know about prior BOTM reads. I do know that an author doesn't have to be the author of BOTM to have a Q&A. This includes the Q&As set up so far for June--Tom Bale and Laurie Stevens, and also prior Q&As with SJ Bolton and Karin Slaughter. Let's see what Sean says.

Chris

Last month, and I am sure we will do it again, we decided to chose our books from our authors here on this group. They agreed to do a Q&A for is at the end of the group read. It would be awesome of every month we could have our author(s) do a Q&A. Coming up we have Laurie Stevens, Brian Freeman, and Linwood Barclay. We have also had Karin Slaughter, SJ Bolton, and Mark Seenan. Sean has done a great job of getting authors to join our group and make some time for us. I look forward to doing it more often.

Lorrea(Threein3) wrote: "Last month, and I am sure we will do it again, we decided to chose our books from our authors here on this group. They agreed to do a Q&A for is at the end of the group read. It would be awesome ..."

I would totally endorse a monthly Q&A with our authors--so many hidden gems out there to be discovered!

MN Chris

Maybe for future group reads we will do two a month. Pick one title from authors in our group and one from other authors we all know and love. This group is for us all, so any and all suggestions on how to improve are all welcome and taken under consideration.

Lorrea(Threein3) wrote: "Maybe for future group reads we will do two a month. Pick one title from authors in our group and one from other authors we all know and love. This group is for us all, so any and all suggestions..."

I would LOVE that, Lorrea. It would be good if more people participated in all fairness to the authors though. There were only two of us asking questions of Nancy Thompson Tuesday and only one (maybe 2) asking questions of Dave Edlund. There were only 3 who asked Mark Sennen questions. I felt bad for those authors.

MN Chris

Chris, and all others.

Yes I am very keen on keeping the Q & A going and have invited over 30 authors to do a Q & A, but it is hard, when many authors are so busy and get so many requests.

But I am e-mailing many authors also outside of Good Reads, and have two/three nearly ready.

But all this work is not worth it, as mentioned by you Chris, if we do not ask the questions, after the work of getting them here to do them

(as noted by Nancy, Dave and Mark).

I think that we will have more people involved in the Q&A, if we have less books to have to think about. Which is why I have reduced this months to just one.

Together we will get this group where we want it.

As authors, we very much support the idea of including one group author in each month's group read and/or Q&A. But how could we not. :)

Now, to the subject of book discussions. I see many groups struggling with how to increase participation on book discussions for monthly reads and Q&A's. Perhaps we need to throw the question out and ask members for their ideas.

Some of the things I have seen other groups try are:
- To nominate a book for a monthly group read, you must either be the author or have read the book before the nomination, and be willing to lead the discussion.
- Decreasing the number of monthly reads and Q&As to no more than two a month in each category.
- If the book selected for one of these categories has more than x number of pages, the time between the selection and discussion is prolonged.

On Q&As, you might consider a pre-read and a post-read Q&A.

Obviously, the questions in the pre-read will have to be free of thunder-stealing spoilers. They would be more like the Q&A at book signings for very recently released books, where it is a given that some members of the audience have not read the book.

Whereas, the post-read Q&As would be more like on-site book club meetings or book-signings for a popular book where it is assumed that the audience has recently read the book.

I hope others have ideas to throw out. This is such an active group, if any group can do this, this one can.

All the best,
Cynthia (The Garrett half of Garrett Smith)

Garrett wrote: "As authors, we very much support the idea of including one group author in each month's group read and/or Q&A. But how could we not. :)

Now, to the subject of book discussions. I see many groups ..."

I think about my mom every time you post BTW!!

All of these suggestions are great and I will try to implement them for our future reads. I will set up a discussion thread for our June group read, once it's selected for us to discuss during the reading. We have done this in the past as well. All members in this group are welcome to make any and all suggestions I know that I appreciate them and they will help to make this the biggest best group on Goodreads!!

Lorrea wrote I think about my mom every time you post BTW!!

:) I love the connection, that your mother and I share a name.

All the best,
This Cynthia Garrett to the daughter of another Cynthia Garrett.

so how is everyone?

I have a suggestion. I am having a blast trying to download reads from our groups authors instead of just randomly try new authors. We need a spot thst shows all our authors so we can pick. When one joins I try to go to their author page and check them out. that shows me the type of book the write and what their books are. GR also gives the ability to "shop" and different stores that carries that author. I like to support our authors. Most I have found are very friendly and will respond if you have a question. I have met some nice ones!
This group has been very good for me. For the first t ine I have posted a profile picture! Ok, so its my baby, but everyone made me comfortable enough to. do it!
This group has also help broaden my reading. I have preferred always a strong female lead. Not to be chauvinistic, but could connect more. Brian and Oak Change that. I highly enjoyed Purified. Im having more problems getting into Oaks but no fault of the book I am going thru med changes and just can't concentrate. I had problems remembering my name today! So behind on my reading but will get caught up.

awesome Lavada! I posted threads for Ty Patterson and Purified. someone did a thread for Steven Freeman too and Ted Galdi for his YA thriller Elixir too.

Lavada,

I like your suggestion.

On the mental fog. It happens. Michael and I had a funny conversation the other day, it went like this.

Me: How old am I? Am I 55 or 56?
Michael: Well, you're a year younger than me?
Me: So how old are you?
Michael: Well, what year were you born?
Me: 1958
Michael: So you're 56 and I'm 57.
Me: No, in June I'll be 56, and later this month you'll be 57.
Michael: So, why did you ask me?

Cynthia (The Garrett half of Garrett Smith)

Lol! That is a mental fog! Happens to the best of us!

Lavada, very happy to hear that you're comfortable here. Always a top priority for the group. Please keep the ideas coming, all thoughts are welcome. :-)

Cynthia, thanks for your comments.

This is what we need, comments to help us moderators to make the group better, and I am so grateful for the help from my three ladies.

My time is spent checking and approaching new members and finding new thriller lovers to join this group.

Top authors to do Q & A, but also as pointed out very nicely by Lavada I try to read and support member authors and read their books and the books they recommend to us all.

Private messages from authors asking me to read their books, advertise their books in very common. Which is fine, but I also like the authors to be part of the group and support the group, as many do.

Q & A also is restricted as if a top authors approaches me, I cannot say, well were are busy (which we are) I know that they are giving their time, so I try to fit it around our group.

I keep very close eye, on the figures of the group, and other groups, and we are the fastest growing group, and I am sure in time with have the same numbers, but I want active members.

I hope we can find a balance sending group messages to keep members informed of all that is happening, and not bombarding them.

I know when a group message goes our we sometimes loose some members, but had an author today PM to say how grateful she was for the updates.

I know as Autumn said we will get in right, and as Lorrea works on the group reads, we will do our best for this group that I am so proud of.

A good few years ago I read a book about a lone B52 pilot flying to Russia to drop Bombs after a nuclear attack, throughout the book he only speaks to one other person. Having serious trouble trying to find who wrote it and what it was called, my head is cabbaged so HELP PLEASE!!

Yea mental fog is bad!

Mental Fog!!! That's a good one will remember that. :-)

Lavada wrote: "I have a suggestion. I am having a blast trying to download reads from our groups authors instead of just randomly try new authors. We need a spot thst shows all our authors so we can pick. When o..."

I hope that all authors that have joined our group post in the Promote Your Book Here thread. Just so that we can get to know them and find out about their books. I've read a lot of new things while being in this group and look forward to reading more and more from members in this group.

Q&A's do seem to be popular in other groups. One book a month as a group read, or even every two months, as many of us have other commitments. A thread an author?

Are there any other topics you would like to see here? Any ideas on chat rooms perhaps. I'm happy to start things off if you throw ideas at me :-D Thinking caps on please, folks.

Forgot to say, if you have any ideas and you don't want to discuss them openly, please don't hesitate in messaging me. Or for anything else for that matter. :-)

Lordy! I am so full of bleach fumes, I think I'm seeing stars!! :-\

Do you know....

Amazon has bought Good Reads !!!

Hopefully nothing will change....

That was a while ago, wasn't it?! A good feature might be being able to link existing library, new purchases to Goodreads. Think that's partly it. Need to look into it.

Oh god, I really am full of bleach fumes, I may not remember any of this!!! :-\

Sean wrote: "Do you know....

Amazon has bought Good Reads !!!

Hopefully nothing will change...."

Yes, it has almost been a year and I'm really relieved that nothing much has changed.

https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/4...

The only change I can think of is when previously I used to search for a book, I could add it to my list if it was available on Amazon. But now I have to create a new book manually even if it exists in Amazon database. Weird, right?

It's only recently come to the UK I think. I've only just started getting notifications.

I only put my book reviews on goodreads and don't do them on amazon. and nothing has changed since the amazon buyout.

I trust GR reviews more than Amazon. I'm not sure why.

On Amazon there's competition between reviewers, especially those that take it really seriously, and want to get into the top 500. Likes/dislikes affect ratings and some reviews will purposely get disliked, just to keep their rating down. Then there are trolls on there too that troll for the sheer hell of it. On Goodreads there's no real hidden agenda. Shame it goes on.

Kristy wrote: "I trust GR reviews more than Amazon. I'm not sure why."

I do as well. I think it is because I know the GR members are avid readers, while the Amazon reviews could be professional reviewers. I like that the GR reviews usually explain likes and dislikes, so I can gauge if I might feel the same. For instance, some people hate first person and will give a low rating for that reason, but say otherwise it was a good book. I don't mind first person at all, so I will take that GR review as a good review. Also, you tend to see more synopsis of the book in GR reviews than you do in Amazon.

Janet makes some good points that I hadn't thought of. As authors, Michael and I should be aware of this. Thanks J.

All the best,
Cynthia (The Garrett half of Garrett Smith)

I did notice that on my home page there is a link to add my amazon purchases to Goodreads. Other than that and a couple of cosmetic changes, I haven't noticed anything different.

Janet and Cynthia, you bring up good points. And since Amazon bought GR, I wish they'd change their review system for books on Amazon.

LOL @ "professional reviewers" You are so right about the way readers judge books, and giving low stars because of simple things that they can't see past with their own pet peeves and dislikes.

Diane, thank you very much I look forward to reading it again :-)