A presentation on how best to use the Goodreads platform to promote your book. This applies equally to authors and publishers, and includes tips for when to time giveaways, how to incorporate author ...
A presentation on how best to use the Goodreads platform to promote your book. This applies equally to authors and publishers, and includes tips for when to time giveaways, how to incorporate author interaction, and much more.
Using Goodreads to Promote Your BooksPresentation Transcript
The World’s Largest Community of Readers
4.6 million members worldwide; 1000s of new members each day.
8.9 million monthly unique visitors & over 73 million page views.
369 largest site in the US, roughly the size of OK Cupid (According to Quantcast).
Goodreads is twice as large as Librarything and Shelfari...combined.
An engaged and influential community... • On average users visit the site more than 2.3 times per day, view 5.6 pages and spend 4.4 minutes per visit • Every day there are: • 10,000 written reviews • 2,800 book recommendations • 22,000 giveaway entries • 2,300 authors “fanned”
Who are Goodreads members? The average active Goodreads user has shelved 54 books, written 10 reviews and has 19 books on their TO-READ shelf. The average active user has 35 friends. Our community features many of the most influential readers on the web:
Booksellers
Librarians
Book Bloggers
Teachers
Authors
How to Reach the Goodreads Community 750 people enter the average giveaway. 8% of those who enter will add the book to their to-read list. 45% of the winners will review the book.
Goodreads members can read the first chapter or first few chapters of your book right on the site with our browser-based epub reader.
Our popular iPhone app also features an ebook reader.
A spike in activity accompanies giveaways, ebook previews, and newsletter placements.
Reaching the right users can do wonders for your book! Penguin Young Readers wanted to promote an upcoming title of theirs, Matched, by Ally Condie, so they ran a giveaway for it. They gave away a single copy. The winner was a Goodreads member named Janelle.
Janelle liked the book. In fact, she loved the book, and gave it a glowing 5-star review on Goodreads, where all of her friends could see it in their update feeds and comment on it.
In addition to being a Goodreads user, Janelle is also a blogger, and she wrote a post about Matched. According to a recent poll on Goodreads, roughly 21% of all members have a book blog.
Janelle was just one of several influential users who had reviewed the book.
A short time later, we received an email from another publisher asking why the book Matched had gotten so much pre-release buzz on Goodreads. The book had received over 600 reviews before publication date.
Because of all the buzz on the site – generated both from the Goodreads giveaway and the publisher’s offsite efforts – Matched became a Mover & Shaker in our December Newsletter, which drove a huge number of people to add it to their shelves. Our newsletter currently sends to roughly 4 million members – that’s a larger circulation than Time, People, Cosmopolitan, and Sports Illustrated.
As a result, Matched became one of the most popular books on Goodreads and remained popular for months afterward. Movers & Shakers
Tapping into the Community Adding a book to your TO-READ shelf shows up in your friend’s feed and can also be shared with your friends on Facebook or Twitter…
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves.
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves.
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves.
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves.
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves.
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves.
Tapping into the Community Each day, Goodreads members add more than 65,000 books to their to-read shelves. How do you get them to add yours?
The Goodreads Author Program
A completely free feature designed to help authors reach their target audience — passionate readers.
17,500+ authors have joined the Author Program.
Prominent Goodreads Authors include: James Patterson, Margaret Atwood, Richelle Mead, Paulo Coelho, Neil Gaiman, Cassandra Clare, Audrey Niffenegger, Jennifer Weiner and many more.
The Goodreads Author Program offers an opportunity for debut authors and more established authors alike.
Pre-release giveaways.
Author profiles.
Featured Author Groups and live video chats.
Customizable widgets and Facebook tabs.
Ebook excerpts and previews.
Detailed statistics about your books.
Goodreads members love to talk with their favorite authors.
Adding polls to groups adds another level of engagement.
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
We’ve hosted Featured Author Groups with some of the world’s best-selling and well-respected authors, including:
Goodreads recently launched a live video chat feature called Goodreads Live. We’ve hosted several prominent authors, including Mary Roach. Members can ask the author questions in a chat format, which our moderator relays the question in interview format. We also record the chats, providing even more content for the author’s Goodreads profile.
Building a Community on Goodreads helps you elsewhere on the web. “A negative review is never pleasant, but PW reviews have a particularly heart-stopping quality for purely financial reasons: there’s a moment when it dawns on you, as you’re reading all about how your book’s clumsy, lukewarm, bland, awkwardly constructed, and stocked with characters who resemble cardboard cutouts, that this thing’s going to appear on your Amazon, Powells, and Barnes & Noble pages. Which is, practically speaking, frankly kind of a drag when you’re trying to move units.” Emily St. John Mandel, “On Bad Reviews,” at TheMillions.com.
Building a Community on Goodreads helps you elsewhere on the web. Goodreads reviews appear on dozens of ecommerce and library catalog sites.
Add a Goodreads tab to your Facebook fan page to show off your books.
Giveaway widgets let you easily post your Goodreads giveaway on your blog or website.
Make any site a more engaging experience with Goodreads content.
Make any site a more engaging experience with Goodreads content.
Goodreads Choice Awards The Goodreads Choice Awards attracted more than 150,000 votes in 23 different categories and roughly 200,000 page views since December 1.
Advertising Products
Sponsored Book Pages & Giveaways Giveaways are a great way to build buzz before a book’s on-sale date. On average a FREE Giveaway results in:
785 entries
8 reviews (1% of entrants & 42% of winners)
50 books added to user’s TO-READ shelf.
Promoting it with a targeted ad can more than triple that!! Every paid campaign includes a Sponsored Book Page where we aggregate all the book & author info (videos, blogs, websites, excerpts, previews). Promoted giveaway Normal giveaway
Sponsored Book Ads (Self Serve Ads*) These appear across the site, can be targeted by demo & genre, and are used to: 1) Drive purchase intent by encouraging users to add your book to their TO-READ shelf. 2) Create engagement by getting users to read a free excerpt or enter a giveaway. Promote a pre-release giveaway on the book page. Promote a free chapter preview in our browser/iPhone based e-reader. *For budgets less than $2,500
High Impact Ad Placements Homepage (300x250) – 150k visitors/day Drive awareness for your book’s release by running an ad on one our our high impact, high trafficked areas. We accept all rich media formats and can run homepage takeovers for larger sponsorships. Facebook App (728x90) – 700,000 users Quizzes (300x250) – 1,750 taken/day
Mobile Ad Placements With over 450,000 visits and 5,000,000 page view per month our iPhone App is growing at a rapid pace. Our 320x50 ads are a great way to promote an exclusive excerpt or to sell an e-book.
Targeted Ad Placements Our behavioral and contextual ad targeting can help you reach your desired audience. GENRE: Art Biography Chick-Lit Childrens Classics Comics Contemporary Cookbooks Crime eBooks Fantasy Fiction Graphic novels Historical-Fiction History Manga Memoir Music Mystery Nonfiction Philosophy Poetry Psychology Religion Romance Science Fiction Self-Help Spirituality Travel Young-Adult All of our IAB standard ad placements can be targeted by geo, demo, BOOK GENRE and AUTHOR. AUTHORS: Orson Scott Card Nora Roberts Dan Brown Jon Krakauer Malcolm Gladwell Tim O'Brien Chuck Palahniuk Jonathan Safran Foer Michael Chabon David Sedaris Sarah Dessen Stephen King Margaret Atwood Philip Pullman Tamora Pierce Elizabeth Gilbert Suzanne Collins George R.R. Martin Audrey Niffenegger Stephenie Meyer J.K. Rowling Neil Gaiman NOTE: we can add authors Author Page (300x250) Book Page (300x250)
Homepage Sponsored Poll A sponsored poll on the homepage will be seen by over 150,000 users per day. The results are shared socially with friends on Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter. It’s a great way to engage users.
Email Sponsorships The goodreads Newsletteris sent once a month to over 3,500,000 active members and gets a 20% open rate. Main Sponsor (728x90 with 100 characters of text) Sponsored Book Placements (image with 250 characters of text) can be used to promote a book or a giveaway The New Releases Mailer showcases the latest releases by genre and a user’s favorite author. It it sent once a month Main Sponsor (728x90 with 100 characters of text)
Sample ‘Book Launch’ Package Build Buzz & User Engagement (3 weeks before the on-sale date) (1) Custom Book Page with Exclusive Excerpt and Book Trailer (2) Pre-Release Giveaway (5-10 copies) (3) Sponsored Book Ads (genre targeted - promote giveaway & drive users to the book page) (4) iPhone App 320x50 (promoting excerpt) (5) Homepage Sponsored Poll (get users to add to their TO-READ shelf and share with friends) Drive Awareness (The day book goes on sale) (1) Homepage 300x250 (genre and/or author targeted) (2) ROS 300x250 (genre and/or author targeted) (3) Facebook App & 728x90 Trivia (genre and/or author targeted) (4) Newsletter Sponsorship (promote to entire user base) Minimum Campaign Buy: $2,500 (inquire about rate card pricing)
Patrick Brown David Creechan Community Manager Director of Advertising Director of Author & Publisher Outreach Business Development pbrown@goodreads.com dcreechan@goodreads.com
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