I am making this post as a public service announcement. I just want to encourage all of my fellow readers and bloggers who are Goodreads members to disengage from attacking authors on the site. In the past couple of days, I have seen several Facebook posts by authors of different genres who have mentioned being attacked by readers. ‘Readers’ are one-starring pre-released books or dive bombing every book the author has ever written with one-star reviews. Why? Because these ‘readers’ feel as if the author has made some reprehensible infraction against the world of literature as a whole *eye roll*. I know…dramatic, right? But sadly, it’s true. The internet trolls have now taken up residence on Goodreads. They are pollinating the site with their vitriol against authors and fellow readers who might support the author or their book(s). At some point, we as a community of readers and authors…

Have you ever finished a book just bubbling over with enthusiasm for it? And did you want to tell everyone just why you loved the book?

Today’s post is about just that. Of course you can tell your friends and the guy you meet on the subway but to reach a wider audience, you might try posting a review on Amazon and on Goodreads. (Caveat: Some of you have written many reviews and need no help from me. Feel free to add your suggestions in the Comments section.)

First we’ll do Amazon:Go to Amazon.com or .ca and search for the book you want to review by title. When you get it up to its own page, scroll down past the book’s description and the product details to Customer Reviews. You can click on the number of stars you want to award and then go to the box entitled Write…

Last night I was reading a report by Digital Book World called What Authors Want: A Survey of Authors to Understand Their Priorities in the Self-Publishing Era – in which they surveyed nearly 5,000 authors-aspiring, self-published, traditionally published and those who have done both or “hybrids”. One of the facts that jumped out at me was only 57% of the authors surveyed had profiles on Goodreads. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the places not to be engaging readers, Goodreads is a huge miss in the discoverability web. I know there are authors who don’t know how to make goodreads work for them, but not having a profile is inexcusable – it takes minutes to create (and is FREE) and has a long lasting impact on author discovery.

Creating author profiles across the web on the RIGHT websites does 3 important things:

1. It boosts your off-page Search Engine Optimization…

When you decide to buy a book what all do you look at? You would think you would be interested in the information on the back first and foremost, but you don’t go picking up every book on the shelve do you? No you judge it by it’s cover first to see if it would be the kind of thing you’d be interested in. In paperback books you usually pay attention to the feel of the cover, if your looking for romance, you would probably grab one with a steamy good looking person on it, and if you want non-fiction, it’s usually a plain cover with the only decorations different color boxes for the title and maybe a professional picture on it. With an e-book, the rules all change. What looks compelling and beautiful in person might not translate as such in a thumbnail hardly larger than an inch big. You loose…