I predicted that Goodreads would follow Twitter down the way of the social media dodo almost two years ago. Back then I thought that their admins’ lack of integrity would drive away all but a remnant of hardcore SJW readers. Now it looks like base greed might lead to an exodus of authors.
Hat tip to the Pulp Archivist for bringing this development to my attention.
I left Goodreads and never looked back when it became apparent they were fully converged. Their giveaways were useful during the Gold Rush era of indie publishing but had already lost much of their utility by the Wild West stage. Now there’s simply no reason to shell out over $100 for a promotion that any number of mailing lists offer at far more reasonable prices and KDP Select allows authors to run every month for free.
If you’re an author and you stay on Goodreads after this hamfisted cash grab, you have a severe case of Stockholm syndrome.
Goodreads’ admins have signaled that intelligent business practices rank far below enforcing social justice dogma on their list of priorities. Unless Amazon steps in to correct their wayward subsidiary, you can expect much worse in the near future.
Consider Goodreads’ terminal convergence reason #2,738,529 to build your own platforms.
In Soul Cycle news, I’ll be finishing up revisions on the series’ final book The Ophian Rising tonight. If you haven’t yet purchased the first three thrilling books in my award-winning series, now’s the time!
And goodreads is part of Amazon. That's the sad part. And it's not like a giveaway is hard to run outside the websites. Boardgamegeek also charges mad for giveaways, but there's nothing to replace the sheer data it has.
Goodreads has very little to offer outside book reviews. BGG has reviews, forums, faqs, etc. A virtual bookclub can happen on facebook or twitter just as easily.
Amazon should cut Goodreads loose before it damages their brand.
Good point about Boardgamegeek.
That's a bit of the issue. Yeah Goodreads is a cesspool, we've all seen it. But for the struggling author trying to get paid–where do we turn that won't charge us out the ear?
Book Barbarian is a reasonably priced alternative to BookBub that authors I respect vouch for.
That said, there's no substitute for building your own platform. Joe Konrath got big giving away books through his web site. Nick Cole and Jason Anspach built the Galaxy's Edge mailing list from scratch. Even I've reaped great rewards holding giveaways on Twitter and Facebook using my KDP Select free days–no paid ads necessary.
If you look at the upper right sidebar of this blog, you'll see I'm giving away The Hymn of the Pearl for free. All it takes is a free Dropbox account.
Blogging is just another form of giving away free information and entertainment. Post daily at least five days a week, and you'll build an audience that's responsive to your book giveaways.
Best of luck.
Hey, I appreciate that man. That's really good advice. I suppose all that's left is to give a crack at that.
Cheers mate.
You're welcome. We need more authors of quality in the market. I try to help them in my own way.
Brian
My concern is how to. Build your own platform that doesn't rely on facebook, google etc? Over at John's blog he has a post of a pjmedia journalist who's been demonetized?
The issue is os infrastructure control and big tech has a chokehold on it.
xavier
Those are factors we can't control. However, FB, Twitter, and Google denying service to half their users–in some cases users who rely on those services to make a living–will not end well for them. Trump's FCC chairman has already issued Big Tech an ominous warning. If he decides to pursue this issue, which looks to be the case, this is gonna be good.