….Goodreads and Growing Up
Well I am being a true renegade – writing one blog post a day seems impossible, even in a week when I am technically between projects. I’ve been making the most of it, catching up with long overdue admin, writing and shock horror – taking time out to do a few nice things for myself. So I’ll just keep plugging away through the alphabet as best I can, until I get to “Z”. Might be the end of May – might be the end of June. Hopefully sooner rather than later though.
Goodreads
I had a laugh out loud moment when I read Em Newman’s catch up post yesterday, which includes “G”, because she also lists Goodreads in her section on G. How did it take me more than six months to fall in love with Goodreads. I was first introduced to it back in October last year when Lily Mulholland, unfailing in knowing just how to promote something, told Paul and I she’d put The Yin and Yang books up on Goodreads and helped to step me through it.
I accepted the author account and my own personal account. I admit I was clueless. My brain was so full of ‘other stuff’ at the end of last year and then all of this year, that I never really gave myself a proper chance to acquaint myself with Goodreads.
In the past week it’s all changed, and I’ve see how powerful a tool it is to connect with readers.
For a publisher – I can look at the number of people who have listed our books on their shelves. It’s mind blowing for me… to see pages and pages of people who have listed one of our books as ‘to read’. I know exactly who to let know when the paperback of any edition comes out. Goodreads also allows you to promote your book with competitions – which I imagine will become far more popular with Facebook’s most recent change to its Terms and Conditions which no longer allows Facebook as a platform to promote or run competitions. Seems you have to pay for that privilege now!
But the power of Goodreads doesn’t stop there for a publisher/author. It also provides readers the opportunity:
- to rate a book – out of five stars
- write and post reviews (something I intend to be more vigilant with as a reader!)
- read free extracts of the book
- buy your book with one simple click!
- see an author’s latest blog posts and comment without having to click through to the site.
As a reader you can:
- join common interest groups and participate in discussions
- keep track of the books you want to read and have read (bingo for me who is forever forgetting to write down the books I’ve read, or want to read)
- see what your friends are reading and be exposed to new books
What I like most is being able to have shelves entitled “books I am in” and “books I have edited”. It is one of those few platforms which functions for all interested parties, ie. everyone who loves or has an investment I books.
The best thing about Goodreads – they have an awesome App, which is simple and effective to use. Perfect for updating what page of your current book you are on before you turn out the light and snuggle in under the doona.
The one thing I’d like to see… the ability to upload a photo of you and your current read to the site. I know the buzz generated when you pair reader with a book.
Goodreads really is the one stop shop for readers, writers, editors and authors to connect, interact and share.
You can find me at Goodreads here. You can also find the following books by eMergent and Literary Mix Tapes:
Growing Up
Where did the time go? My son will be seven in just a few weeks. He’s about to move out of the most primal of the seven-year cycles and into a far more independent one (energetically he’ll move out of my Etheric field and into his own!) I’ve known it’s coming and I’ve seen the shift away from me being the centre of his world. His Dad now is (almost) the most important person in his world. I’ve also noted he’s started to gather and take account of the important men in his life – his Poppy, his Uncles, close male family friends… and in that accounting, recognising the men who are absent in the most part.
But there’s nothing like an every day moment to really hammer it home… how fast he’s growing up. Yesterday I took him to buy some long sleeved t-shirts and discovered where we went, size seven shifts him into a whole different section and style of clothing.
In the new section there weren’t half as many awesome (and cute) shirts, but there was one with zombies on. So what’s a Mum to do? Relent – and let him have his first zombie t-shirt. I had a flash back to the first time I bought him a skull and cross bones shirt – Size Three! he still squeezes into it.
What blew me away though, was what he said. “You’ll get used to the zombie shirt and then you’ll let me play games with zombies in it. And when you get used to that, you’ll let me watch movies with zombies in it.”
Where did my little boy go?
Pursuing Parallels 
You can put pictures in reviews on goodreads and add additional pictures to your profile.
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