THE Group for Authors! discussion

Hello, for a while now, I've been trying to resolve the following issues and haven't been successful. I first posed the three questions/problems below to the Goodreads Librarians Group and was advised I post my feedback and questions here instead:

1. I changed the covers for several editions of two of my books. I understand the old cover editions cannot be removed from Goodreads but the book record shows the "Preview" under the old editions and not the new, (the old versions are no longer available on any venues so preview on those editions, but not the new, do not make sense). Is there some way to add the preview to the new records since the records do not allow me to add the same ASIN or ISBN to the new records (from which the preview is being pulled)?

Regeneration X
old version that has a preview:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

versus new version that does not have a preview:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

old version that has a preview:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

versus new version that does not have a preview:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Progeny
old version that has a preview: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

versus new version that does not have a preview:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

2. All individual books in the Regeneration Chronicles series have a paperback edition that has a preview except for this one, old or new:

old: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
new: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

3. On my Goodreads homepage, only one of my book appears in the quick view of the Author Dashboard (at the very top of the right column above "New! Add Your Amazon Books"). I cannot tell why that one book and only that one appears. Is there a way to have the column show more books or at least be able to define the criteria of which book is displayed, i.e., most recent, most stats?

Thank you for your help.

Can anyone shed some light on the three issues above? As mentioned, I've already posed these questions to the Librarian's group.

I never even noticed the "preview" option on Goodreads for a long time, for some reason. I have no idea how that's done, but it seems to be pulled directly from Amazon. Have you tried contacting Goodreads support directly?

As for the author dashboard, that has mystified me as well. Sorry, I know that doesn't help :)

Great idea, Ken. Where do you go or how do you contact Goodreads support directly? I just find I go round and round trying to find things sometimes. Like, I tried to add a "now reading" and couldn't manage to do it (though I've done it in the past!)

Try the help page, link at bottom of the page

Thanks, Paula. Will do.

Jan wrote: "Great idea, Ken. Where do you go or how do you contact Goodreads support directly? I just find I go round and round trying to find things sometimes. Like, I tried to add a "now reading" and couldn'..."

Next to the large green want to read button under the picture of the cover there is an arrow. Clicking on this arrow gives you the option for other shelves, including currently reading.

Hi,
I'd like to edit the info under "Get a copy" but I can't find the place to do it. I'm especially interested in adding Libraries button to my book info as I've seen this feature, alongside the usuals such as Amazon, Kobo, etc.) on book pages recently. I'd appreciate a bit of help with this. Thanks very much.

J.A. wrote: "Hi,
I'd like to edit the info under "Get a copy" but I can't find the place to do it. I'm especially interested in adding Libraries button to my book info as I've seen this feature, alongside the u..."

I think it is the individual members who get to edit this section to choose their preferred sources. Authors don't get to edit it.

Faith wrote: "J.A. wrote: "Hi,
I'd like to edit the info under "Get a copy" but I can't find the place to do it. I'm especially interested in adding Libraries button to my book info as I've seen this feature, al..."

I thought that might be the case so I asked several of my author friends to have a look at my book page and they all came back with a message that the library button wasn't available or visible on my Get a copy options. Funny thing is that it's available on their book pages.

When I look at your book I have the libraries option.

Amazing. I wonder why they didn't see it.
Thanks so much.

These links are set up by each user in their account settings, so every one can have different links.

They are not set by the author or by book.

To add libraries to your get a copy links go to the account settings of your user profile and add the libraries you use. These will display on every book page you look at for you only

Hi J.A.

You can add custom buy book links on your book links tab under your profile settings. On the right side of that page, you should see a "Popular Links" list (you may want to sort alphabetically first to make your life easier). If you see your local library there, click "add" next to its entry. From then on, you should see the library link appear under the green "book links" drop down menu on all book pages.

If your library is not yet listed, you can create a custom book link for it here (the instructions are on the left). Feel free to let me know when you have added it, and I'll make sure it gets approved.

Jaclyn wrote: "Hi J.A.

You can add custom buy book links on your book links tab under your profile settings. On the right side of that page, you should see a "Popular Links" list (you may want to sort alphabetic..."

Thank you very much for this. I've sorted it now. I really appreciate how generous and supportive Goodreads experts are.

All the best

Ellison - regarding that preview, this should eventually populate on your new book page. Unfortunately, this data feeds through from Amazon so can take a while to import correctly.

Unfortunately, there isn’t currently a way to manually change the featured book showing under the “Author Dashboard” section on your homepage. Currently, it's set to show a representative book from your works, as a visual indicator that the dashboard is where you'll go for statistics on all of your books. Sorry about that.

Jaclyn, thanks for the info! Strange thing is it's been several months already for each of the new books and none of them has been updated with a preview. Also, about the dashboard; very good to know.

I'm sorry it took me so long to reply to you initially! That's not right, so I'm going to ask one of our developers to take a closer look into this. I'll let you know as soon as I have some news for you.

It's been almost a full year since my original post and the same issues remain. Old versions of books have a preview (the latest preview), but the new versions of book have no preview at all.

New versions of Regeneration X with no preview link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

New versions of Progeny with no preview link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

New versions of After Effect with no preview link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

New versions of If There Be Giants with no preview link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

Any feedback would be appreciated. Is there anything I can do?

Thanks for your patience Ellison. I've just had chat with the team and it seems the previews will not show on editions without a valid Amazon ISBN/ASIN on the book page. We understand that this is difficult for authors, as ISBNs/ASINs cannot be shared by two editions of the same book. We do hope to improve this system in the future.

For now, you can still add your own sample to these book pages. Here's how:

1. Navigate to your Author Dashboard.
2. Beneath the book in question, click on "add preview".
3. Use the "Choose File" button to upload your ebook excerpt in PDF format. Your file should only contain the excerpt of the book. If you add a PDF that contains your entire book, the entire book will be available on the site.
4. Choose which permissions you'd like to allow using the radio buttons (either "Members can only read this preview in their browsers" or "Members can read this preview in their browsers and download it").
5. Click on "Upload File."