THE Group for Authors! discussion

Currently, if a Goodreads Author is syndicating their blog to their author profile, we are only pulling a snippet or excerpt of the larger post, and then providing a link back to the blog to read the full post. This doesn't make for a great user experience, and we'd like to try pulling the full post to see if that makes for more interaction with blogs on the site. We'd still be providing a link back to the blog itself on each post, but Goodreads members would be able to read entire posts right on Goodreads.

If we were to implement this feature, authors would be able to choose whether they wanted full posts to appear or just excerpts, but the default setting would be for full posts.

What do authors think of this idea? Are any of you dead set against having full blog posts on Goodreads? Anybody think it's a great idea? We'd love author feedback on this!

Please note that the reason we truncated initially was we wanted the authors to get traffic back to the blogs. But after listening to enough complaints of how annoying it is to have to click 3 times to read the full post, we are rethinking this. It's also worth noting that we are very similar to a RSS reader in many regards, and Google Reader and Bloglines don't ever truncate. Looking foward to your feedback!

I'd be very happy to see my entire posts fed here to Goodreads. In my experience, I tend to have two different readerships between here and blogger, and making things easier for my goodreaders would be a big plus, from my POV.

Cheers

I'd love it if the HTML codes in posts worked when they were viewed on Goodreads. I have images in my blog posts that I scale down, but when they're viewed on Goodreads, the images are shown at full size which distorts the post.

The idea of being an active author on the web is to make it easier for readers to find you, get interested in your work, and buy your work. For me, it doesn't matter WHERE they find you; I don't make more money the more times my site gets hit. I make more money when more of my books sell.

So...I'm fine with posting full messages.

I definitely would opt for full posts!

Hey, thanks for asking! I love that people can access my posts on here, partial or full, and I agree, it would be easier on readers to have entire posts up. I'm all for it. Especially if there were a button so they can go to the blog to read earlier posts if they really wanted. But either way, I'm into this idea.

My blog was on MySpace, and I moved it here. So this site has new members, and my blog gets visited. Either way, there was some challenge to accessing it, but I like it much better here. Then I post a link on an email notice, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Although I'm quite new to Goodreads, and am just feeling my way around, I would also enjoy seeing the whole blog posted.

Huh. My post in this thread is missing. Must have been when the site hiccuped yesterday.

The point I wanted to raise is that some feeds only deliver a snipped so depending on what the author is using to blog, for those authors it is impossible to download the entire feed anyway. Has no effect on those that are either/or, but for some authors the change won't make a difference.

Patrick wrote: "Currently, if a Goodreads Author is syndicating their blog to their author profile, we are only pulling a snippet or excerpt of the larger post, and then providing a link back to the blog to read t..."

I get between 30-50 views of my blog on Goodreads (sometimes even over 100) because I believe I post the entire blog article. And these are of older blog articles cut and pasted from my own blog at www.shanejoseph.com/blog I don't like truncated blogs. I wonder if I have the most recent blog post from my own site up on Goodreads whether I would get more views? If Goodreads would allow for the entire blog to be viewed on its author profile page then I would be happy to link my blog to Goodreads and have my Goodreads friends and fans view the most current post.

I would definitely prefer the entire blog shown on GoodReads! Anything to help reader convenience is great.

As a reader, I like snippets. The reason is that I usually have gone to that author's page because I want to see a list of books they've written and the blog pushes it all the way down. If it could be a 'more' link though that would work both ways.

I would definitely prefer full posts. Considering Petra's request, though, perhaps the list of books could be in the left sidebar?

No reason it can't stay a snippet on the author's profile, but a full post on the blog entry page (where the "more" already goes). Even currently, it is more truncated on the profile page than on the blog entry page.

I'm brand new here, and still finding my way. I like reading the snippits to see if I'm interested enough to read the blog, but it would make me write differently for my blog--I'd try to have a hook in the opening line to make people want more. I probably should do that anyway. I have a long way to go, learning all these things.

Reading a snippet of a post that has one thing to say is okay. But if a post takes you from A to M via Z, I think readers might find that a snippet is simply puzzling. Just one person's thought. And I don't post anywhere, including in my blog, to have people discover me or buy my books. Period.

Anthony wrote: "I'd be very happy to see my entire posts fed here to Goodreads. In my experience, I tend to have two different readerships between here and blogger, and making things easier for my goodreaders woul..."

Co-sign. I like the idea of having the full blog post here not only for my readers but for the authors whose posts I enjoy reading. It'd be easier to check it out while I'm surfing Goodreads rather than having to leave the site and then come back. I like the idea of having a link to the original blog as well so readers can have a choice.

I vote for the full post.

Also (a related topic), I would like to be able to schedule my posts to publish at a future date (which is pretty standard, in blogging platforms). I like to writes posts in batches each month. It would be nice to be able to write the month of posts, then set them to publish in coming days and weeks.

Kathryn wrote: "I vote for the full post.

Also (a related topic), I would like to be able to schedule my posts to publish at a future date (which is pretty standard, in blogging platforms). I like to writes post..."

Good suggestion, Kathryn. I will forward it to our developers. Of course, if that kind of functionality is extremely valuable to you, you could always write your blog on a service like blogger or wordpress and then import it to Goodreads. That works well for many authors.

Full posts are more than fine, they're probably even better than snippets; some people (like me. Yeah.) are sometimes too lazy to click on that extra link. If the snippet isn't TOO attractive, then they wouldn't click, but if they read the full post and find it interesting, there's a bigger chance they'll want to check the whole blog and read others' comments for themselves.

It seems that the authors want full posts.

I know for sure that when I see a big blog on an author's page here, especially if its got a huge graphic in it as well, no matter how much I like the author, I'm not going to read it. If I see a snippet that I don't have to scroll down to (like past a graphic) then I often read it and if its interesting I click to read the rest. I'm not saying that my behaviour is general, but perhaps you should poll the readers as to what they prefer, being as they are your audience.

Petra X wrote: "It seems that the authors want full posts."

Not all of them. Some have gone with one option, and some the other.

Personally, as a reader, I prefer the full post.

I think that full posts gives readers a chance to see what's happening with an author without leaving goodreads. I know that I personally don't like switching sites unless I wish to, so I wouldn't normally click through to another site. It's also more "sticky" for goodreads.