Two weeks ago, I  talked about how to improve your presence on LinkedIn. Today I want to talk about how you can make the most of your Goodreads account.

Author Page

While members can click a link to buy your book from Amazon or another online store, your main goal on Goodreads is to let people know about your book, so here are a few tips for authors:

• Make sure your author profile is fleshed out.
• Join the Goodreads author program.
• Accumulate reviews early in the book’s life.
• Engage with other users as you would on any social media network (blog, comment, like, etc.).
• Use Goodreads Giveaways!

Tips for Using Goodreads Giveways

• Start 3-6 mos pre-publication
• Slowly build anticipation for your giveaway. One author’s team had an early cover reveal and said if 1000 people added it to their shelves, they’d reveal the first three chapters. 829 added it in one day and by publication, 5500 had added it.
• Run your giveaways pre-pub AND at publication. Give away just one book at a time, but host multiple giveaways. Here are more Goodreads Giveaway tips.
• Give it time (some say one month, some say make your giveaway much shorter-see link above).
• Study other giveaways to see what other authors are doing (look at their stats to see how they are doing).
• Install a GoodReads widget on your blog to help get the word out.
• Follow other tips on the Goodreads Author Program page.

What about you? Have you hosted a Goodreads giveaway? How did it go? Do you have any advice for writers who haven't?