Support for Indie Authors discussion

Hello Everyone,

I have a few questions regarding the Lists feature on Goodreads, and one or two other questions.

First off I realize we can't add our own novels to Lists but it seems to be a major stumbling block for new authors to get more exposure. Short of begging or handing out favors, how does one get his/her novel on one or many of the lists?

One more question. I must be missing something here. But when I look at some other authors who published in the same month as I did, there are 50 or more people adding their novels to their shelves (listed as marked as to-read) on the novel's page. I have only four (which I am happy about don't get me wrong), which bothers me that others have so much more than I do. All I want is to get my work into reader's hands. Do I need to be more social? Market more? Beg more? Just wait and hope it gets done? What is the secret?

I have no idea how to go about this to get my book more exposure on Goodreads by getting it on people's shelves or even into the magical Lists. Can anybody shed some light on this matter please? It is really starting to grate on my nerves. I feel like I am doing something wrong or missing something important. I want those dagnabbit MARKED AS TO-READS NOW!

Sorry. I will contain myself.

It is hard to say, without knowing what you are currently doing.

I do a lot of Facebook events and Goodreafs events. Some of the "get entered to win a prize" features I use is to add whichever book I am promoting to their TBR on Goodreads, or add to a Listopia they feel fits the book.

Finding groups that read what you write, and seeing if they have a Read to review program to offer your book up will not only garner reviews, but when the reviewers posts, all their followers are notified and I find that typically increases my TBR list as well.

Definitely being more social in groups related to what you write, and casually mentioning that you are a writer (when appropriate) will get you more followers who will often add your books to their lists. But really, you should spread your marketing efforts around and not just focus on Goodreads.

You cannot them added to the Listopia lists, readers have to do that.

You can get your books added to people's to-read shelf if you do a Goodreads Giveaway.

Also be sure to add your book to the appropriate topical shelves on your account. For example, young adult, fantasy, unicorns, etc. If several people add it to the same shelf, then it will show up there when people search for that subject/shelf on Goodreads. The Goodreads shelves are separate from Listopia lists and are another way of categorizing your books. The 'popular on shelf' lists are fully automated and depend solely on how many people shelf your book as that topic.

Enter your book for a Goodreads Giveaway. That is how you will get your book on "to read" shelves.

Thank you for the reply. Currently I am just contacting bloggers and reviewers. But it seems to not be the right way.

Do the Goodreads events allow us to give away e-books or what exactly do you do?

I am also very active on twitter. I have not really taken part in Groups recently due to an illness but I guess that is most of my problem. Make friends first then get the listings and marked as to-reads.

Can you give me some pointers to set up an event like that? I would greatly appreciated it and name my first born after you.

You can only give away print books.

P.D. wrote: "You can only give away print books."

OK but would a custom event not do the trick as well? If there is such a thing.

Christi, please do not name your firstborn after me! It would really suck, especially if you have a boy ;)

If you go to your author dashboard, it has a section that will walk you through setting up a Goodreads giveaway. They do only accept print copies, but you can ship from Createspace to save yourself on shipping. I have heard that the sweet number is to do a giveaway of 5 copies.

At the moment, you can only enter paperback versions of your book in a Goodreads Giveaway. It is well worth doing, as all the experts agree.

Christi wrote: "P.D. wrote: "You can only give away print books."

OK but would a custom event not do the trick as well? If there is such a thing."

You can do a custom event, but it will only go out to your current followers, and you have to work your hiney off to promote it on Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, pinterest, and in the blogging community. I have found Rafflecopter is great for that, and you can add special options of how people enter (Like I mentioned that I do above. Anything from "tweet this message" to follow me on such and such site, subscribe to my email, etc. For that, you can give away e-books. I typically only do those when I am hosting a special campaign (like a book launch or blog hop) and get the others participating to also promote the daylights out of it. Last event I did I have over 300 entries, and added 64 subscribers to my email list. It was pretty sweet.

Thank you so much. Perhaps I am too eager as well. Being a debut author I might have to give it some time.

All of you are angels in disguise. Thank you for your help. If you think of anything else to help me or we can trade a Listopia load - is that even OK? Or is that against some rule? I don't want to break any rules here or step on any toes. I just want readers.

And Heidi, tough, first born will be named after you. Heidi Optimus Prime Smit. Has a nice ring to it.

Time to get super involved in a Science Fiction group I gave been following for a while. I hope that helps a little.

Lol, your poor first born. Tell them I am so sorry!

Debut novels take time to build up readership. I would recommend that you spend 20% of your time marketing and 80% writing the next book. That should be the case until you get to about your fifth book or so. That is just my humble opinion (and what I have done for the last 4 years, and getting ready to release my 7th book.)

Now I spend about half my time marketing, and half writing. It is easier to build an audience when you have a lot of books, and when they read one that they love, then they pick up the others.

Thank you. I am busy with my second book already so I am taking the advice to write more and market only as much as needed.

Congratulations on your 7th book. That is very impressive.

Thank you! Now if I could stick to one genre... Lol!

P.D. wrote: "You cannot them added to the Listopia lists, readers have to do that.

You can get your books added to people's to-read shelf if you do a Goodreads Giveaway.

Also be sure to add your book to the..."

I love how you guys are reaching out and helping! So sweet. How or where do I find or adjust topical shelfs for my books? I've been doing the Giveaways with much success but would love to know more about "proper shelving" :)
India

India wrote: "P.D. wrote: "You cannot them added to the Listopia lists, readers have to do that.

You can get your books added to people's to-read shelf if you do a Goodreads Giveaway.

Also be sure to add you..."

Good question. And they are great at helping. Thank you again.

https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/1...

P.D. wrote: "https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/1..."

Thank you! I will research it.
India

Shelved books look like this:



When enough people use the same shelf tag, it creates popular shelf lists like this:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

Ah, pictures. Making it easier for me :)
Oh! Should I be adding my own books to MY book shelf?
I thought I should only add others.

Christi,
You aren't alone! We've all been where you are at one point in time. The first step is to not be nervous or overwhelmed and reach out and ask questions which you have more than done here. You have received a lot of very good responses and excellent advice so take it and use it in your own time accordingly.

I noticed you saw your books to-read list was low compared to others, no fear as this means only that those people are likely running a giveaway and when you do a giveaway hundreds of people mark your book to read. Its only a paperback giveaway but I was able to leave a message in the giveaway description stating if anyone didn't win a copy could contact me for an ebook copy if they were still interested in reading it. I received a few messages and there's nothing against it in the Goodreads rules.

Listopia is fun but seeing as they no longer allow authors to add their own books I suppose some of that fun has been taken out. I once created a list and added my book and then my computer crashed in the middle of adding other books. When I returned to the list a lady commented saying she was going to report me for only creating a list for my book, I explained what happened but she said sure. I then added the rest of the books to the list as intended and she deleted hehe comments.

Moral of this story? Look at the lists your book would fit in and analyse them. See how many reviews they have, see what people are saying about them and take what info you can and attribute it to your book and in your books promotion and marketing. See who your audience is and go from there.

They say to establish your target audience, if you can do that then you can establish a following and if you can do that then you should have no problem getting your books noticed.

Justin wrote: "Christi,
You aren't alone! We've all been where you are at one point in time. The first step is to not be nervous or overwhelmed and reach out and ask questions which you have more than done here. ..."

Thank you so much for your advice. I plan on being more active for a bit, as long as my health lets me.

Cristi,

All I can say is take care of yourself and and your next book. Everyone's experience is different and some have better luck than others. For us, GR is in general has not been an effective means to get our books traction. "To-read" lists (especially) and "listopia" list to do not appear to generate meaningful visibility. Some people report some success with GR giveaways, but our experience was quite negative.

When thinking about how to your work visibility that is meaningful, I believe the best guidance is your experience and that of people you know: how many books have you bought that you became aware thru someone's To-Read list? Do the people you know look to listopia lists to find their next read? If not, what do they do? What do you do? What gives a book credibility with you and the people you know?

The Achilles heel of us attempts to sell our books is spending to much time discussing among ourselves what "works" and not enough time actually observing the readers who might buy our books. In consequence, a great deal of misinformation gets continually recycled in the indie author community.

The key to presenting our is not think like an author and not to think like a marketeer, but to think like the reader you want to reach.

All the best!

Owen wrote: "Cristi,

All I can say is take care of yourself and and your next book. Everyone's experience is different and some have better luck than others. For us, GR is in general has not been an effective..."

As always your advice is top notch. Thank you for this Owen.