The platform

Your book is already being discussed there.

Goodreads lists books whether or not their authors turn up. The only question is whether the page a reader finds was built by you or generated without you.

What we set up

Four things
that make the page yours.

  • The Author Program, claimed

    Which turns a generated listing into a profile you control: biography, photograph, links, and the ability to reply where replying is appropriate.

  • A correct bibliography

    Every edition of every title, gathered under one work. Editions split even more readily here than on a retailer, and each split fragments the ratings.

  • Metadata that matches the book

    Description, genre shelves, series order, publication date. Wrong shelves put your book in front of readers who will not like it, which is worse than no readers at all.

  • A route back to you

    Your website and your list, linked from the profile, so a reader who liked the book has somewhere to go that is not a shop.

What Goodreads
is actually for.

Goodreads is not a shop and it is a mistake to treat it as one. It is where committed readers keep their lists, and the behaviour that matters there is somebody adding your book to Want to Read. That is a decision made months before a purchase, by exactly the reader who buys books deliberately rather than by accident.

It is also where reviews are most visible and least filtered. Ratings there run harsher than on a retailer and readers know it, which is why they carry weight.

The rule about reviews

Do not argue with them. Not once, not politely, not with a correction. An author replying to a critical review is a whole genre of internet incident, and it has ended more independent books than any bad review ever has. We will set the profile up, and we will tell you the same thing on the call.

And what nobody can do

Nobody can get you reviews there. There is no legitimate mechanism, ours or anybody else's. Reviews come from readers, or from an advance copy programme where readers choose whether to write one — which is a different service with different rules.

A manuscript covered in red editorial marks on a desk beside reading glasses and a laptop.
Related

The one place
reviews can be asked for.

Advance copies, to readers who choose whether to review. Nobody is paid and nothing is promised, which is exactly what keeps a book from being pulled.

What our authors say

On platforms we do not own and cannot edit — which is the same reason a Goodreads rating is worth having and impossible to buy safely.

See all our reviews on Trustpilot

Goodreads
questions.

No, and neither can anybody else honestly. Reviews come from readers. What can be done is getting the book into the hands of readers who might write one, which is what an advance copy programme is for.

Is your book already listed?

It usually is. Send us the title and we will tell you what state the page is in.

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