Use Goodreads Author Program as a Book Marketing Tool

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What Is the Goodreads Author Program?

The Goodreads Author Program is a completely free feature designed to help authors reach their target audience—passionate readers. This is the perfect place for new and established authors to promote their books.

What Can You Do as a Goodreads Author?

Take Control of Your Profile

Make your profile a dynamic destination for curious readers. Here are some of the features you can use on your profile:

  • Add a picture and bio.
  • Share your list of favorite books and recent reads with your fans!
  • Write a blog and generate a band of followers.
  • Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements.
  • Share book excerpts and other writing.
  • Write a quiz about your book or a related topic.
  • Post videos.
  • Add the Goodreads Author widget to your personal website or blog to show off reviews of your books.

Promote Your Books

Get the word out! Here are some of the promotional tools available on Goodreads:

How Do I Join?

  1. If you are already a Goodreads member, make sure you are signed in. If not, sign up for an account.
  2. Search for yourself and click on your published author name. The author name is listed below the title of your book in the search results. If you do not find your book in our database of published works, please see section below (“Who Can Join”).
  3. Clicking on your name takes you to your basic author profile page. This page has your name at the top and “author profile” to the right of your name. This page is part of our database of books and authors and is separate from your member profile page (which lists your bookshelves and friends).
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click “Is this you?” to send a request to join the Author Program. Please allow a few days for Goodreads to process your request. You will receive email confirmation when you successfully upgrade your user account to an author account. Joining the program merges your author page with your member page. The email will also contain further instructions for managing your author profile.

Who Can Join?

The Author Program is designed for people with published books, or who are in the process of publishing a book. It’s best if your work is on a bookseller’s website, such as Amazon.com or BN.com, but Goodreads will accept any author who has published a book. This includes authors from other countries as well as authors who are self-published (such as through Barnes & Noble NOOK Press or services like Lulu). If your book is self-published and is not yet in the Goodreads database, you may manually add it.