Published Podcast Ep. 60 | How to Promote Your Book Successfully Using Goodreads with Mimi Chan

Welcome to Episode 60 of Published. Today, I’m speaking with Mimi Chan, the senior marketing manager at Goodreads. Mimi will tell us all about the Goodreads platform and how you as an author can use it connect with readers and promote your book.

Welcome back to Published! In this episode we’re talking about the power of Goodreads as a tool for authors as they work on growing their readership and creating a buzz around their book.

Goodreads is well known to many readers as a great place to find book reccommendations and reviews, but today we’re going to talk about how it can also be a great tool for authors.
New authors may not realize that Goodreads has a robust Author Program that you can use to run giveaways, interact with your readers, and advertise your books.
This program is available to anyone and is easy to use, making it a great tool for independent authors who are trying to connect with a target audience.
In this episode, Mimi tells us all about how to use Goodreads as an author and what it can do to elevate your book promotion strategy. She gives us her tips and tricks to optimize your experience on the platform and explains why authors looking for more book marketing tools should try Goodreads.
Let’s get into the interview!

01:30 – Mimi, welcome to Published! For starters, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at Goodreads.

My name is Mimi Chan. I'm the senior marketing manager at Goodreads and my main role is to help authors connect with readers. I'm super passionate about learning what the needs are of authors, reading their books, and helping them create unique content that excites our readers and helps them to become lifelong fans of the author.

02:10 – And for those who aren't familiar, can you tell us a little bit about Goodreads and how it serves authors and readers?

Absolutely. Goodreads is the world's largest community of book lovers. We have over 135 million readers and members throughout the site. What's unique about Goodreads is that everyone that comes there is truly looking for a book. That's what we're strong at, helping readers discover that next book that they're going to love. We're also a wonderful site for publishers and authors to connect with those readers.
We’ve created tools and profile pages that are uniquely for the author, ways in which they can talk to readers or promote their books that you probably wouldn’t find anywhere else.
We have a wonderful tool we call a flywheel, where once you start putting some of that content in there and start engaging, it just builds on itself overtime and from one reader to their followers, and their friends on the site, it just gets bigger and bigger. So that’s what Goodreads is about: building that strong reader community. There’s absolutely a role for authors in that.

03:22 – You did mention some of the tools and features quickly just now, but what are some of the features that you wish authors knew about or used more?

This is such a great question. I wish that authors would come on the site before their book was published. I wish authors would come and just join Goodreads as a member, start establishing those relationships. Maybe it’s in a group and a genre that they’re writing in.
Start reviewing and reading books, especially in your own genre, so that you start becoming a book tastemaker, somebody known for having good writing skills and the ability to talk smartly about those books that you love.
And then, once you have a book titled, get your book on the site. Get on there right away, as soon as you can, that way people who hear about you hear about your book and start adding it to their shelves, kind of bookmarking it and sharing about it. It's a place where they can kind of put it on hold, almost like if you're putting a book on hold at the library. You can do that on Goodreads.
Then what we'll do on the site, is we'll remind those readers that they are interested in that book, whether through a launch announcement in an email or maybe if you run a giveaway. A giveaway is the easiest way to advertise the book on the site and reach a lot of new readers quickly. That’s just a book giveaway that you can run on the site.
Then the other thing that I tell authors all the time is that you need to find and encourage readers to follow you. The more followers you have on the site, the more you can talk to readers and the things you do show up in their newsfeeds, and not just for a single book but for every book that you write and everything that you do on the site.
So, to narrow it down, if I were to say there were three things that I would recommend authors do on the site it would be:
- One, I just recommend they join, even if their book isn't ready yet. Join the site, connect their Kindle account to the site.
- Then, two, once I do have a sense of what their book is going to be and even if you don't have a cover but at least you have a title, you have a way to share the synopsis for the book, get the book on the site. You can either create a book listing yourself or you can ask our librarian or expert teams to help you with that.
- Then, third, start to engage with readers and asking readers to follow you in every place that you like write a review or have content, or when you open an “ask the author” for readers to ask you questions. In all those different places. If you run a giveaway, ask readers to follow you. Ask readers to follow you outside of the site. Again, that gets the flywheel kicked off and started on the site for you. So those are the basics of the things that I think every author should do and it doesn't take very much time.

I tell authors all the time, just find a good 15-minute window once a week, preferably in the morning and on like a Monday through Thursday, because that's when we see highest traffic on the site and do just a couple of these things. if you do that consistently overtime you will build a strong following and you will build a great engagement platform for readers for yourself.
It's also about asking them to help share if they love your book or love you as an author, to share about that. That is a very natural thing for a lot of fans and so it's not a big ask when you know somebody loves your work. I think one of the keys to asking smartly is to find those people who truly love your work. Those are the people you want to ask to talk about your book.
It doesn't make sense to ask somebody who maybe is just okay with your book or maybe the book wasn't quite right for them, that always happens for even the best books. You don't want to try to convert those people into being fans, that's not going to be the best use of your time.
Focus on those people who really love your books, look at your book page, look at those reviews where people are giving you five stars. Those are the people you want to engage with. Say thank you to those people. Encourage those people. Say, hey you know would you be willing to write a review? Hey, would you like to get an early copy of my next book? And would you be willing to share what you think about it? Those are the people that you want to engage with and that's where you're going to find a lot of goodness.

8:15 – Book reviews are obviously a huge part of what makes Goodreads such an effective platform. Can you talk a bit about how generating reviews on Goodreads can help an author have a successful launch?

We find that reviews on the site are largely positive. 92% of the reviews on the site have three stars or higher, many times even five stars. And that makes sense when you think about. Why would you spend your time putting a review in there, putting a rating in there? You generally tend to want to do that when you love something.
What we see in our research is that when a book on the site has a mix of reviews, both one star all the way up to five stars, that's when other readers really start to trust the reviews and the ratings for that book. You want a large range of reviews, predominantly, of course, in the four-, five-star range, but even a three-star review is considered good on the site. You want some of those lower ones because it gives validity to your book and makes it feel that the reviews are trustworthy and so you want to foster that.
The second thing to think about with your reviews is that you want to try to get those reviews as early as possible, hopefully before your book even launches. A lot of authors ask me, how do I get included in things like roundups in our editorial coverage? We start looking at that data early on. How does buzz build on the site for a book? It happens before that book ever launches.
Authors like Colleen Hoover or Celeste Ng they get their book on the site, they start talking about their book and what their writing process is like. They talk about exciting developments with their book: I have a title now, I have a cover now, the names of the of the characters are clear to me now, it came from this other book that you all love. All of that becomes a way that they get engaged readers so that by the time you launch your book they're well invested. One of the things that you want to do is early on is get copies of those books to those same people so they can add their reviews on this site.
Now what we're doing as editorial coverage at Goodreads when we look at these books early on, 3, 4 months ahead of book launch, like right now we're probably looking at May or June, we look and see, well which books already have reviews? Which books already have ratings? Which books already have a lot of buzz behind them where people are adding it to their ‘want to read’ shelves? Those are the books that we're going to bubble up as the most anticipated books of the year or the month or the most anticipated romance novel, sci-fi, whatever it is.
That's how those early reviews can really help you, knowing that helps build buzz on the site and gets it noticed by things like editorial or by other readers. That then feeds more readers back to site and then the more views you have on there, the more that new readers will then add that book to their ‘want to read’ shelf and then eventually do pick up that book to read as well.
One last tip I would give that another author gave me was that they found one of the best ways they had to get reviews on Goodreads was simply by adding a link at the end of their book, whether it's a Kindle book or some other eBook, somewhere at the end pages of your book just very quickly ask again for people to add a review to Goodreads. That truly actively generated a lot of reviews for that author on Goodreads.

12:05 – Goodreads is known for giveaways, you mentioned that earlier, but what are some of the other strategies or features that you've seen authors use to use the platform successfully and reach their readers?

Yes, so you're right. Giveaways are one of the few features on this site that are very simple and easy but do require a little bit of budget, we're doing a promotion on it right now for authors. Everything else though on the site is basically free. So let me tell you a little bit about what those free tactics are that you can use.
One, reviews. Reviews is actually one of the top ways in which authors get more people to follow them. I’ve talked to authors like Colleen Hoover, and I asked her, what is it that got you to like almost half a million followers on the site? She told me, well you know I think all I did is write these really short, snarky, funny reviews and so many people just started following me. And it makes sense, right, because that's the way that readers start to get to know you as a writer and your style.
It's also something that we're known for on the site, how readers discover new authors and discover new books as they're reading a lot of those reviews. So, you can make yourself a tastemaker in this space just like some of our top reviewers and people will follow you just for that. Then, when you talk about your books as well, the ones that you write yourself. they'll naturally be interested in that.
Strategically when you're writing those reviews, a couple things to think about. Make sure that you think like a top reviewer does. Look for books that have authors with large followings. Look for books that are in your own genre because now you're collecting or building a readership of people that want to read the type of book that you write. Then look for a book that you can get your hands on early before that book is even released. Making your review one of the first reviews on one of the hottest upcoming books is one of the best ways for a lot of people to discover you.
Then, lastly, think about that review space on your own book. It's one of the few places where you can control some of the content and engage with readers directly on your book page. Don't use that review space to write a review of your own book. Use that as a space to write about things that are exciting about the book, maybe promotional information about your book, maybe have a special offer on your book. This is one of the few places I recommend writing something promotional on your book.
All that review space, doing that really strategically, will truly help you build a large following. I have a review I wrote maybe three years ago now that every day I still have somebody I do not know liking that review and following me and I'm sure it's because of that one popular review. So that's one thing you can do.
Something else that you can do is write annotations on an existing book. So, once you have enough followers and what’s enough? I would say maybe 1000 followers on the site. Then, I would consider writing Kindle notes and highlights.
So, annotations on top passages in your Kindle book. Go to your Kindle, look at your book, see what the most popular highlights are, and then just add special insider knowledge that only you as an author has on those passages. Since these are the most popular highlights, you'd know for sure it's going to resonate with your readers. And then when you share those on Goodreads, through our automated system we will send a notification as well as an email to every reader who follows you or who added that book to their ‘want to read’ shelf.
Now you're engaging those readers with special content, unique content. It's content that you can use not just on Goodreads, but you can use that in your social, you can put that in your newsletter, you've created something that you can use to market overall.
In those annotations, I would include links to other books that you've written that have natural ties in that book. Maybe it's a book in the next series. Maybe it's a character in that book that spun off into its own book. Now you convert the readers of that book to other books. So, you're moving them from one book to the next. Especially in a series, it's really helpful. You're reminding them what they love about that book and perking their interest for that next book, getting them to add it to their ‘want to read’ shelf.
That means that when your next book does launch, so you're doing this before your next book launch, they have it on their ‘want to read’ shelf and our system automatically sends them yet another free email for you to let them know that the book is now released, and they can now get it. They can now check it out on Goodreads, they can now buy it you know on whichever sites they want to buy it on. We clearly promote it on Amazon, but we also give links to every other place that a reader can buy books.
Then lastly, you have ‘Ask the Author.’ So, on your author profile page, you can turn on questions and answers. Think about times when you want to activate Q&A around a particular book. Maybe before or as it launches, hold a set time that you're going to do a live Q&A with readers where they can type in a question, and you can type back an answer in real time. Promote that on your socials and other places.
The reason why you'd want to do it on Goodreads and promote it elsewhere is because people that you drive into Goodreads might like the questions, the answers to your posts, and that will show up on their newsfeeds to their friends and followers on the site. But secondly, those questions will live on the site pretty much, let’s hope, forever. Future readers will be able to see your questions and answers and learn more about you and about your books through those Q&As. Again, just another piece of interesting content you can use and share elsewhere.

There's so much here that you learn about how readers think about your book or what questions they’re asking about your book. It helps you understand what their needs are, what gets them excited. You can use a lot of that information, including the review information on your book page, to help refine how you describe and market your book, that synopses that you write.
Pick up on those cues, like words that every reader is saying about your book. You should think about, okay how do I use that word in my marketing? How do I use that phrasing and how it gets them excited, in the description of my book? Maybe I should update the back cover of my book with some of the things that readers are saying, especially if they're top reviewers on the site.

We get asked a lot, how do we engage with top reviewers? This is a tricky one for sure because we have community guidelines that you shouldn’t just spam or reach out to people promoting yourself. As a matter of fact, I do not recommend on a site, just promoting yourself, that would not go over well. Instead, engage yourself like a reader, be a part of the community.
That means look for top reviewers where you their style of review and what they read and start engaging with them on books that they're reading. Like the reviews that they write, comment back on them, start a back-and-forth engagement, build a real relationship, and they will naturally start to follow you.
Then, once you have a relationship you could then message them because now your friends on the site or you're following each other, and you can message them and say, hey I have a new book coming out I'd love to offer you a copy, would you be interested at all? Send them an early ARC. That's the way to really engage with our top reviewers, not to blind ask, but build a relationship first. Invest in them a little bit by engaging with their content, give them that social currency of your time, and maybe even support them elsewhere on social. A lot of them are on BookTok, Bookstagram, so on and so forth. We also support those same top reviewers in those other places on our social sites.

Take a leaf out of our book, hopefully it helps you find fabulous fans among our top reviewers.
One last tip for top reviewers is if you want to know who is at the very top, has the most followers, the most people looking at their reviews, there's a part of our site where you can look at those people. So, at the top navigation it says community and you pull down it says people, click on that and you can sort by who has written the most reviews, who has the most people following them, so on and so forth. You'll see that some of our top reviewers are actually authors. I hope that’ll become one of you.

20:55 – And for the benefit of our listeners who maybe already have published a book, are these same tactics available to them and not just people who are writing new books?

Absolutely, all these tactics are available to every author.
Even though I do say, and I do truly believe that the earlier you promote your book the better, 6 to 12 months ahead before your book launch, if at all possible, you still can use these same tactics even if your books already launched. Think of it as a relaunch. Put together a new plan, think about it like you would a new book. What would you do differently? This is your chance. Maybe you want to change the cover a bit. Maybe you want to add a little bit more to an additional version of your book, like a special edition.
Then do the same things you would do for a new book launch. Run a few giveaways so you can get new people looking at the book right away. Reach out to some of those reviewers that you've built relationships with. Put some general status updates out: I'm relaunching or rereleasing my book. It's got a new cover, there's a new part of the story that you're going to want to read, so on and so forth. Add that to the review, change the synopsis and description.
Post a general status update. On the main home page, if you go to the left navigation column underneath books you're currently reading, it says general status. Every time you post something, it shows up in the newsfeeds of your followers and then if they like it or comment on it, it shows up in the newsfeeds of their followers and friends.
So that's a great place for you to talk about your old book and make it new again. Ask interesting questions about that book, share when you’ve added Kindle notes or highlights for that book, because now you've added some new content around it. Those are things we can do here within general status.
There's also HTML there so that's one of the few places that you could be more promotional. Maybe you have a special offer on your backlist title, maybe it's on Kindle Unlimited for the first time, maybe now it’s a Prime read, or whatever it is. You can share about that in that status update, share about it on the book page, share about it in your giveaways. Those are the three ways that you can be more promotional: your status update, on the review of your own book, and with giveaways.

23:25 – You've mentioned some big names, can you share some success stories of authors who have successfully used Goodreads to help with their book launch?

I hope Catherine won't mind, but Catherine Cowles has a new book that just launched in February, it's a romance novel, called Tattered Stars. We looked at her book, and we talked about what the campaign would look like for her on the site in marketing that book early on.
I'll give you the same tips. If you're building a marketing plan and you're integrating Goodreads as part of your marketing plan, here’s some of the things that Catherine did that I’d recommend for other authors.
One, she's been on the site for a while. She already has built relationships with some of those book influencers that I talked about earlier, some of those top reviewers. Then about six months ahead of time she started to send those books out to reviewers.
At the same time, she started to run a giveaway for her book. This is a great time to run one during the month of March, because it's giveaways month and with the sale it’s only $99 for a giveaway right now. So, start running a giveaway for a book up to six months ahead of time, that’s as early as you can run a giveaway on the site.
Once she’s done those two things, now she’s getting people reviewing and rating the book on the site. She's listed the book on the site because that's the only way she can even have those giveaways. She's written the descriptor for that book; she's updated her author profile page to make sure that it's clear that her new book is coming out.
Now she's starting to post status updates around her book about exciting things that are developing. She’s trying to share all the exciting news in her general status updates.
About three months in, she stepped it up. Again, she’s running like 3 to 6 giveaways. By the time she's two to three months from book launch, I check in with my editorial team and they're starting to notice her book moving up the rankings.
There's a page on the site where you can look by month which books have gotten the most buzz, meaning mainly which books have the most people adding it to their shelves. You can look at that and see where you stand in that ranking and how quickly you're moving up. Our editorial team is looking at that same listing a few months ahead of time. That's one good, strong indicator for them of what book has buzz. It's a good indicator for you as authors to see if your book is getting enough buzz to get interest and coverage.
So, she's looking at that, and based on that it looks like maybe we should do more giveaways because it looks like we're down here and I know it would bump you up here and give you another one, three, five thousand people adding that book to their shelves.
Based on that maybe we should look at people you haven't reached out to before who already read and loved your books in the past. They don't have to be top reviewers. At that point you’re just looking for people who are going to read your book and love it and are willing to talk about it. You can reach out to those people on the site and say, hi I’m the author, and they’ll probably be really excited to hear from you. Offer them a copy of your book. Now you're starting to add more reviews and more ratings to your book for the people who are coming to look at it.
She's also talking about all these things in her newsletters, she's posting about these things on social media. Outside of Goodreads she's leveraging the content excitement about she's created here in other spaces.
As she's getting closer to the book launch, that's when she’s looking at things like, okay do I need to put some special offers together for my past books? This is a new series for her, so this isn’t as applicable, but I've seen other authors start to offer the first in the series for free to get people hooked on to that, and then promoting the next book in the series.
Those are some of the things that I've seen Catherine do and other authors do leading right up until book launch. Hopefully by that point you have a lot of people following you and they have the book on their shelves on Goodreads.
Now, the system starts to really kick in for you because we're sending out all these giveaway emails, we're sending out the new book release email, and then around the book release you're doing those Kindle notes and highlights. If you do it before the launch, it helps you get followers for when your book releases.
Maybe you aren’t big enough to have enough people add the book to their list but you're seeing in the book stats on the book page that a lot of people have added the book but haven't read it. I'm 2, 3 months into my launch, and I have 10,000 people adding the book to their shelf but only 500 people who have read it.
That's a good point to think, maybe I should write those Kindle notes and highlights even though it's an existing book and it's not a past book that I’m converting readers over to. But maybe if I wrote highlights for my new book that would encourage people to pick up the book and make it the next one that they read.
That might be a good point for you to post an update to your review on that book because that will also generate a newsfeed to people. Write about something that's happened two or three months into the book being launched.
Maybe now you're on your book tour and you want to let people they can come see you at these places. Maybe that's when you have the virtual Q&A on the site. People who read my book can come learn about it, people who haven't can come learn why they should read it.
Again, all along with every tactic Catherine’s putting in there, follow me as an author on Goodreads. Or, if you love the book write a review on Goodreads. That just gets that flywheel going faster and faster on the site.
As she starts getting that coverage, Catherine’s book did make it into the roundup of romance books that have the most buzz in February based on her doing all that work. If we continue that momentum moving forward, then my hope is that she'll make it into Goodreads Choice Awards.
When you get into Goodreads Choice Awards, that's the time of year where we're promoting all those books to millions and millions of readers: in our general newsletter to 40 million readers, throughout the site, on our ad banners, in Kindle special offer ads. Now your book is getting even more awareness later down the road because we're covering in all these other places.
For people who win the Goodreads Choice Awards, I've seen books basically 10x the number of people who add the book to their shelves once they win the award. So just being part of the awards you’ll naturally get more people, but once you win it just explodes.
It can be challenging as an indie author to get that much attention; it takes work, and it takes time. You're building that up over time, but that investment really does pay off.
That's exactly what Colleen did on the site. She started doing something like five or ten years ago and now her books are consistently in the Goodreads Choice Awards. And a lot of times her books back then and even now aren't backed by publishers. A lot of these are indie titles she's publishing herself. But she's built such a base of strong fans on the site that she can move books just by talking about her own books on Goodreads.

You have to start somewhere. Celeste Ng too, she started as a reader on the site early on and eventually she decided she wanted to write a book.
You know that saying that everybody has a book in them, well first start as a reader and then when the book comes you already have the five or ten years under your belt.
One of the things that I want to point out, any one of these things I'm recommending to you as authors, you may not see movement on just one thing. It's a marketing maxim that you need to touch a customer seven times before they’re going to buy your product or pick that up. That's why we recommend you do these things over time not all at one time.
Then, in the readers mind subconsciously, they start to think, I am seeing this everywhere. I'm seeing this author and this book everywhere, there must be a reason for this. I need to pick this up and figure out why this is so popular. The reality is that you've done the work of incepting that book into the minds of that reader. You can get our readers to help you in doing that if you can get them to follow you and to like and engage with your content.
That community is really the beauty of our site. It's a strong, positive, and beautiful community that we continually foster, that we protect, that we lift up, and we think of our author community the same way. We want to protect, support, and lift them up on Goodreads.

33:15 – Are there any areas or features on the site that authors frequently struggle with, and if so, is there some advice you could offer to help them avoid those struggles?

Alright friends, there are some things on the site that I think authors have concern about and I recognize that. The things that I hear a lot from authors, is one there's a lot of concern about negative reviews or reviews what they haven’t even released yet. Then two, reviews that just don't feel nice, they just don't feel good.
And what I would say to those things is one, again majority of the reviews on the site are positive. So, 92% of the reviews are really positive. We also have a team that’s really focused on the best customer experience, particularly for our authors. We know it's a trust that we have between us on this site and so we really protect that customer trust. There are ways in which you can let us know when you see something on the site through the help page. We take that concern seriously. We have strong community guidelines for that reason. We hold all our readers, authors, and publishers to them.
There will still be times when you probably won't agree with something that someone is saying on the site, usually about your book, not about you. Even the most popular books on this site have people that disparage it and that is normal. Like I said earlier, it fosters trust in the reviews when there's a range of reviews.
And these are one of the few things I say avoid, ignore. Avoid and ignore reviews that are negative on the site because it doesn't really do any good to look at those. Instead focus on the positive reviews.
The other thing is when you're having instances where you do see something that you don't agree with on the site the best thing to do is just to flag it. Let us know. It's not going to do you any good to personally address it. I think we will be able to help you in those situations.
If they are validly giving their opinion on your book, then just ignore it. But if there's anything else that's negative let us know so we can address it.
There are even times when I’ll encourage authors to reach out to me. I love talking with our authors. I’m only one person so it’s kind of hard to scale that, but I’m pretty good about responding to the messages that I get on Goodreads. You can find me on the site, and message me if you ever have something that you need help with.

36:42 – Discovery, of course, is critical on every platform. You mentioned a couple things earlier that I suspect fall into this bucket, but are there ways an author can optimize their book listing so that it surfaces higher on the site, and they get in front of more potential readers?

A lot of that is really driven by our system. Some ways that you can tap into that are when you do something like run a giveaway. Premium giveaways are going to list that book higher up. If you run a series of giveaways, I always recommend running the premium one first because it gets a lot more people adding it to their shelves.
The other thing you can do is get people to add reviews and add the book to their shelves. That’s the number one way to get your book listed higher and recommended to more people. It's all about getting more readers to add that book to their shelf.
Also, some things I mentioned earlier, promoting when your book is listed on the site in all different places, not just on Goodreads, encouraging people to add that book to their shelf, talking to your followers, using general status updates. Again, just getting people to add the book to their shelf is number one way you can get that book to start rising higher on different listings.
This is for more advanced users of Goodreads but joining certain groups where you can ask people to add those books to their shelves, but groups where you're truly invested and a part of the community. This will be where people add books to all different kinds of lists. You can see if the owner is willing to add your book to their list for you.
If you have an existing group on the site that you engage with, such as an author group, you can put out there, hey I have this book would you please add that to the shelf to help get more awareness around it? Would anyone be willing to read my book and give me a review on it?
There are a few niche communities that you can go to for authors to get in front of other readers that want to help each other. That's a nice part of the community that you can tap into.

39:30 – Are there any particularly powerful events that Goodreads has throughout the year that might be bit of benefit to an author?

At the very beginning of the year, we have our annual reading challenge. Readers always have goals around their reading at the beginning of the year. People who haven't read in years suddenly come back into a love of reading because they're making resolutions. They want to improve themselves; they want to learn something new, and reading more books is a common way you can do that.
We see a huge spike in readers at the very beginning of the year. A lot of them are taking the reading challenge, saying I want to read ten books this year, and the average American only reads like one or two books so this is huge for them. That's a really great time for you to get engaged on the site and for you to encourage readers to pick up your book to kick off their reading challenge, for you to take the reading challenge yourself and share about the books that you're reading and how you're challenging yourself.
You can build engagement and community around the shared desire to read more books for the year. Then you could even share updates on how you're doing or ask your readers how they're doing on their reading challenge throughout the year.
There's a whole page that lists all the books you've read for your reading challenge and gives you stats on how close you’re getting to your reading challenge and then at the end of the year it turns into an infographic about books that you've read and it shows all this interesting, fun information and you can share that at the end of the year to kind of cap off your year of reading and your reading challenge.
The other thing is that throughout the year we have different events like summer reading, genre weeks, Goodreads Choice Awards. The way you get included in all those things is everything we've talked about in terms of building buzz on your book and getting your book onto readers’ ‘want to read’ shelves. Just by doing all those things we talked about, hopefully you'll naturally start to become part of those things.
However, if you want to be more active in being part of those genre weeks, then look at those articles and start adding those books to your shelf. Talk about those books that are being talked about during those genre weeks. That's what people are going to be talking about and buzzing about. Be an active part of the conversation at those times.
Vote for your favorite books during Goodreads Choice Awards. Show your support of other authors. Readers love seeing authors supporting each other. Encourage people to vote for you if you’re in the Goodreads Choice Awards. I think that's absolutely something you could ask readers and fans. Ask them to follow you, ask them to write reviews, ask them to vote for you for Goodreads Choice Awards, ask them to add your book to their ‘want to read’ list, ask them to share in and take part in any promotions you’re having. People who love you are going to be happy to hear from you about that. I love hearing from my favorite authors so whenever they ask me, I get super excited.

43:00 – You have been so generous with your information, your help, and your feedback today. Do you have any parting advice you'd like to give our listeners?

I really hope that all your authors that are listening join Goodreads and find a beautiful community of fans to support them on it. I truly believe that the readers that you want are on the site, they just haven't discovered you yet. My hope is that all these different tips that we've given will get you down that road to having just as huge a fanbase as our most popular authors. I truly believe that's possible for every author.
Do not be afraid of the site, do not avoid the site. The reality is that you're already on Goodreads. You may not be a member yet, but you are already on Goodreads. Your book is there, your author profile page is there, that picture from high school that you didn't want is on there because somebody found it. Control that. Get on the site, control your brand, control your book, control what’s said about it. Take part in the community and I think that you will find it really, really rewarding and I truly hope that I will see you there. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. Welcome to Goodreads!

ABOUT MIMI

Mimi Chan is the senior marketing manager at Goodreads. She's an entrepreneurial marketeer who thrives on finding creative solutions to complex problems and driving results in a fast paced environment. She has had the joy of launching over 30 marketing campaigns and products ranging from product integration into American Idol to crowd sourced social media campaigns with producers Wong Fu. Each campaign honed her ability to understand diverse customers, collaborate with partners, and influence others to achieve joint goals. She is at her best when inspiring my team, connecting people, and unleashing creative ideas.